Darwin's plots : evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and nineteenth-century fiction /...

Foreword p. ix
Preface to the first edition p. xv
Preface to the second edition p. xvii
Preface to the third edition p. xxxiii
Introduction p. 1
The remnant of the mythical p. 1
'The second blow' p. 8
Problems of knowledge p. 14
Darwin's language p. 23
'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world p. 25
Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order p. 44
Darwin's plots p. 71
Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin p. 73
Darwinian myths p. 97
Growth and its myths p. 97
Growth and transformation p. 97
Transformation, retrogression, extinction: Darwinian romance p. 114
Responses: George Eliot and Thomas Hardy p. 137
George Eliot: Middlemarch p. 139
The vital influence p. 139
Structure and hypothesis p. 148
The web of affinities p. 156
George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life p. 169
Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative p. 196
Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels p. 220
Darwin and the consciousness of others p. 242
Notes p. 256
Select bibliography of primary works p. 282
Further reading related to Charles Darwin p. 288
Index p. 290