Marshall McLuhan was a pioneer in media studies, a communications theorist before the term was widely used, and the essays in this volume have been highlighting many aspects of his criticism of the media. But McLuhan was much more than a communications theorist. He was, from the beginning of his career, a teacher of literature and a literary scholar, roles he played from his earliest years until the time of his death.

As an undergraduate at the University of Manitoba, McLuhan planned to become an engineer – but he transferred to English, receiving his BA (1933) in English and Philosophy and his MA (1934) in English with a thesis on the nineteenth-century fiction and poetry writer George Meredith. He then attended Cambridge University where he obtained his second BA (1936) and his MA (1940) and ultimately his PhD (l943) with a dissertation on the English Renaissance fiction writer and essayist Thomas Nashe. Looking back on this early period of his career, McLuhan commented: