附註:Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-258).
Where does Sir Thomas's wealth come from? / Jane Austen -- How much English blood (if any) does Waverley spill? / Walter Scott -- Apple blossom in June? / Jane Austen -- Effie Deans's phantom pregnancy / Walter Scott -- How does Victor make his monsters? / Mary Shelley -- Is Oliver dreaming? / Charles Dickens -- Mysteries of the Dickensian year / Charles Dickens -- Is Heathcliff a murderer? / Emily Bronte -- Rochester's celestial telegram / Charlotte Bronte -- Does Becky kill Jos? / W.M. Thackeray -- Who is Helen Graham? / Anne Bronte -- What kind of murderer is John Barton? / Gaskell -- On a gross anachronism / W.M. Thackeray -- What is Jo sweeping? / Charles Dickens -- Villette's double ending / Charlotte Bronte -- What is Hetty waiting for? / George Eliot -- The missing fortnight / Wilkie Collins -- Two-timing novelists / W.M. Thackeray, Gaskell and Anthony Trollope -- The phantom pregnancy of Mary Flood Jones / Anthony Trollope.
摘要:In Is Heathcliff a Murderer? (well, is he?) John Sutherland investigates thirty-four conundrums of nineteenth-century fiction. Applying these 'real world' questions to fiction is not in any sense intended to catch out the novelists who are invariably cleverer than their most defectively inclined readers. Typically, one finds a reason for the seeming anomaly. Not blunders, that is, but unexpected felicities and ingenious justifications. In Is Heathcliff a Murderer? John Sutherland, recently described by Tony Tanner as 'a sort of Sherlock Holmes of literature', pays homage to the most rewarding of critical activities, close reading and the pleasures of good-natured pedantry.
