The Workings of Fiction: Essays

The Workings of Fiction is a collection of essays, chiefly on British and American novels and novelists, that shows a masterful critic at work.  Each of the essays examines a different aspect of the novelists' art as one uniquely astute critical mind observes them.  The central issue Robert Heilman confronts—often by studying the novels in pairs—is how the novelist does what he does.

Dealing with subjects as diverse as Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, and Evelyn Waugh, Heilman studies the workings of fiction from varied stances.  He investigates the uses of the verbal medium and the several means by which a given theme is developed.  As Heilman identifies and traces particular themes, he studies how parts are assembled into a whole.  In addition, he explores particular generic types—like the picaresque, the gothic, the tragic—as they are used by a variety of novelists.

 Written by a gifted man of letters, The Workings of Fiction takes us inside the process of criticism.  The book offers us an original and perceptive view of Under the Volcano as it offers of Pride and Prejudice or The Turn of the Screw.  Each essay presents a fresh way of looking at and understanding these novels.  This collection will be of interest to anyone who desires insight into the workings of fiction.