Description: First anthology of Villa's essays written from the 1920s to the 1950s, which created a canon of Philippine fiction and poetry--essays counting as among the most significant in Philippine literary criticism in English. Includes the famed annual Villa selection of best short stories and poems, occasional critical essays and letters to the editor, and unpublished pieces. With extensive explanatory and bibliographic notes.
Review Quotes: "Jose Garcia Villa's annual 'roll of honor' and critical essays over the period of literary ferment in English, from 1927 to 1940, here gathered for the first time in a formidable work of meticulous scholarship, show not only the fascinating evolution of Filipino fiction and poetry but the formation as well of taste and a critical tradition which to the present govern our literature. Jonathan Chua's superb introduction and annotations offer a most helpful perspective which enables the general reader to appreciate and judge fairly not only the critic Villa and his canon but also the entire course of our early literary efforts in English."