In collecting these essays Roland Mathias uses for his subjects the symbol of a wood, virtually unexplored, and until recently considered to be on the edge of a map of English literature. Mathias, as he puts it, is in ´possession of a different map, one on which the wood appears much closer to the centre´, and ´A Ride Through the Wood´ is an unusual selection of essays on Anglo-Welsh writers by a critic who shares their particular background and is knowledgeable about it.