After a compelling introduction outlining his method and a substantial first chapter establishing the intellectual, cultural, and literary contexts in which the modern British and Irish novel was produced, Schwarz turns to powerful and sensitive close reading of modernist masterworks. He shows how Hardy's Jude the Obscure, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow, Joyce's Dubliners and Ulysses, Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, and Forster's A Passage to India form essential components in a modernist cultural tradition which includes the visual arts.

In his characteristic lucid and readable style, Schwarz's work takes account of recent developments in theory and cultural studies. His persuasive study will not only be invaluable to students and teachers, but will also be of interest to the general reader.