Introduction: the crucible of the imagination / Dale Salwak and Laura Nagy -- Descent: negotiating with the dead / Margaret Atwood -- Sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea: Samuel Johnson at home / Jeffrey Meyers -- The aziola and the moth: the Shelleys at the Bagni di Pisa / Nora Crook -- An (unfortunate) interview with Henry James / Cynthia Ozick -- A travelling coincidence / Ann Thwaite -- Ezra Pound: Rapallo, 1927 / William M. Chace -- Orwell's ghosts: a play in one act / Peter Firchow -- Jane Austen's portrait of the artist as a young woman / Eugene Goodheart -- Meeting the artist: Thomas Hardy / Brian Aldiss -- Oscar Wilde: may I say nothing? / Francis King -- George Gissing: why should I die, if I can help it? / Paul Delany -- Talking with Joseph Conrad / Alan Sillitoe -- A tardy talk with Edith Wharton / John Halperin -- A visit with Mr. Frost / Jay Parini -- William Faulkner: as I lay dreaming / Carl Rollyson -- Questions for the master: Alfred Edward Housman / Colin Dexter -- Rudyard Kipling: thinking in ink / Catherine Aird -- Arnold Bennett: a great man / Margaret Drabble -- One word less: questioning Samuel Beckett / Alan W. Friedman.