"Jesus' Toolbox" is about:
FAITH and the leap of it
BELIEF and the profit from it
TABLOID JOURNALISM and the truth of it
ALCOHOL and the resort to it
GREED and the surfeit of it
ADULTERY and the thrill of it
JUSTICE and the poetry of it
TELEVANGELISM and the money in it
THE SOUND OF MUSIC and the mystery of it
THE DREAM and the sense of it
PSYCHIATRY and the elixir of it
TRUTH and the consequences of it
HONESTY and the beauty of it
COCA-COLA and the real thing of it
RELIGION and the need for it
DWARF THROWING and the use of it...

These essays are lectures, mostly revised or expanded, given to the Tennyson Society by leading Victorianists, including one of the doyens of Tennyson studies, Jerome H. Buckley (Harvard). In Memoriam and Maud are central texts but many other poems are discussed - lyrics, dramatic monologues, narratives, ballads - and such recurrent topics as loss, the numinous, and distance in space and time. The poems are related to their intellectual context and to other poets from Wordsworth to Edward FitzGerald.