This book is a collection of five lectures given in 1960 by the author, Douglas Stewart. Each lecture focuses on the unifying religious themes in five 20th Century authors: James Joyce (apocalytypticism), Aldous Huxley (mysticism), Graham Greene (Catholicism), Rose Macauley (Anglicanism) and Joyce Cary (Protestantism).

Stewart writes well in impressive, quotable language. He also weaves in comparisons of the featured novelists to other great writers. I can see where this book would be useful to someone writing a research paper. However, for someone like me who is just looking for insight into a couple of great minds from the past century, there really isn't anything earth-shattering in this book. Yes, James Joyce's rejection of religion, particularly Catholism, is apparent in his works. Yes, mystical union with God (which Stewart calls "detachment") is pervasive in Aldous Huxley's works. Yes, Graham Greene's work portrays characters whose lives conflict with their Catholicism. I didn't find much in these lectures that wasn't obvious.

Stewart did issue an intriguing challenge concerning the works of Aldous Huxley -- he claims that a chronological reading of Huxley's works will demonstrate Huxley's spiritual journey to increasing detachment and pessimism. I'm no expert on Huxley, but from what I've read, I see just the opposite -- a journey from the utter hopelessness seen in his early novels to the meaningful, rich and happy inner life implicit in the later novels and explicit in his religious essays.