Focusing on the work of Hardy, Lawrence, Conrad, Joyce, Forster and Woolf, this study is divided into two sections: the first shows how historical and contextual material is essential for developing powerful readings; the second discusses how new theory has transformed the way we read and think.

Part 1: "I was the world in which I walked" - the tranformation of the British novel; the narrator as character in Hardy's major fiction; beginnings and endings in Hardy's major fiction; speaking of Paul Morel - voice, unity and meaning in "Sons and Lovers"; Lawrence's quest in "The Rainbow"; the originality of E.M.Forster. Part 2: the case for humanistic formalism; modes of literary inquiry - a primer for humanistic formalism; reading Conrad's "Lord Jim" - reading text, reading lives; "tell us in plain words" - an introduction to reading Joyce's "Ulysses"; reading Virginia Woolf - "Mrs Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse".