CONTENTS:

1. The genre approach
2. Reading Pride and Prejudice
3. Reading Frankenstein
4. The novel and society
5. Reading Great Expectations
6. Reading Fathers and Sons
7. Can realist novels survive?
8. Realism and romance
9. Realism and the novel form
10. Jane Austen and the war of ideas
11. The English novel
12. The realistic imagination
13. On Great Expectations
14. Culture and imperialism
15. The reality effect
16. Towards a methodology for the study of the novel