Peter Brooks

Draws on literature, law, and psychoanalysis to examine important aspects of the emergence of identity as a peculiarly modern preoccupation. This book addresses the social, legal, and personal anxieties provoked by the rise of individualism and selfhood in modern culture. Meer

Presents the story of the year - 1875 to 1876 - when the young novelist Henry James moved to Paris, drawn by his literary idols living at the center of the early modern movement in art. Meer

Contending that a search for "realism" distorts the writing of Crebillon, Marivaux, Laclos, and Stendahl, Peter Brooks considers their novels with reference to the manner in which the characters explore their worth and pursue their own systems of relationships. Meer

A book which should appeal to both literary theorists and to readers of the novel, this study invites the reader to consider how the plot reflects the patterns of human destiny and seeks to impose a new meaning on life. Meer