An investigation of the phenomenon of the framed formal center in literature of the last 180 years, illuminating both the works and correspondences among works of different genres, periods, and nations.

Introduction
"Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance" in Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
Retracing Our Steps in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Man of the Crowd"
"Scrutinizing the Parchment More Closely": The Form of "The Gold-Bug" and Its Relationship to That of the Dupin Tales
Form and Reform in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Earth's Holocaust"
The Circle and Its Center in Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"
Chiasmus in Henry David Thoreau's Walden
The Mythological Centers of Lewis Carroll's Alice Books
Table as Text in James Joyce's "The Dead"
The Structure of Sherwood Anderson's "Hands"
The Architecture of Ernest Hemingway's "The Three-Day Blow"
Balance in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon
Framing Caesar in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep
The Ridge of the Domino in Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train
The "X in the Air" in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
The Hybrid Center of Zadie Smith's White Teeth
Notes
Bibliography
Index