Since Q.D. Leavis's death in 1981, considerable discussion has been generated by the claims she had made to friends for a significant share in the achievement of her husband, F.R. Leavis. She even regarded herself as the unacknowledged co-author of his The Great Tradition.
John Carey, Merton Professor of English at Oxford, examines the nature of her Influence in the light of her only book, Fiction and the Reading Public, published 50 years ago.
