"The book bristles with startling suggestions: on George Eliot's developing vision of femininity, and the idea that Llambert Strether is 'feminised' at the end."--Notes and Queries

"Exhibiting many of the traits of scholarly writing at its best, her work reminds us that the closest readings can be rendered gracefully, that a prose style unencumbered by numerous citations can nevertheless reflect a thorough familiarity with current scholarship."--Victorian Studies

"[A] landmark study...Morgan's brilliant readings of novels by Austen, Scott, Gaskell, Eliot, Meredith, and James illuminate gender as an imaginative category....The study is witty and bold enough to make readers shout with pleasure. Recommended for every academic library."--Choice

"In a series of deft and original readings, Susan Morgan addresses one of the major questions, that has, until now, remained implicit in feminist literary criticism: If modern industrial England is a male-dominated society, then why is the English novel dominated by female characters?"--Nancy Armstrong, University of Minnesota

"A very large and ambitious project--lively, brilliant, controversial and sure to be widely influential. It is going to be important and unavoidable--no one in the field will be able to ignore it."--Robert M. Polhemus, Stanford University