This book argues that the history of English Studies is embedded in its classroom practice, and its practice in its history. Some of its foundational struggles are still being lived out today. English is characterized as a ‘boundary’ subject, active in dialogue across a number of imagined borders, especially those between academic and non-specialized readerships.

While the subject discipline maintains strong pedagogic principles, many of its principles and values are obscure or even invisible to students and potential students. The book cross-fertilizes the study of English as a subject with the analysis of selected literary texts read as pedagogic parables. It concludes with a call for a return to the subject’s pedagogic roots.