Andrew Lang’s Lost Leaders is a collection of brief essays ranging from Scottish rivers, angling, golf, and winter sports to literature, art, dining, social customs, and the oddities of contemporary life. The opening essay follows the fishing recollections of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder through the rivers and landscapes of Scotland, mourning the changes brought by railways, industry, and the decline of older angling traditions. Later pieces discuss Montaigne, Thackeray, Pepys, and the Dickens illustrator Phiz while also examining such ordinary subjects as shaving, street noise, lending books, club bores, marriage proposals, amateur authors, and collecting curiosities. Combining affection for nature and sport with nostalgia for a vanished world and witty criticism of modern fashion and vanity, the collection reveals Lang’s ability to discover human character and social change in the smallest details of everyday life.
