At the Mercy of Their Clothes explores the agency of fashion in modern literature. Celia Marshik¿s study combines close readings of modernist and middlebrow works, a history of Britain in the early twentieth century, and the insights of thing theory.

Celia Marshik is professor of English at Stony Brook University. She is the author of British Modernism and Censorship (2006) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Modernist Culture (2014).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: At the Mercy of Their Clothes
1. What Do Women Want? At the Mercy of the Evening Gown
2. Wearable Memorials: Into and Out of the Trenches with the Modern Mac
3. Aspiration to the Extraordinary: Materializing the Subject Through Fancy Dress
4. Serialized Selves: Style, Identity, and the Problem of the Used Garment
Coda: Precious Clothing
Notes
Bibliography
Index