'Meticulously researched and cogently argued, this landmark work in narratology is perhaps the most distinguished recent contribution to the study of narrative....This highly recommendable book will be essential reading not only for all graduate students of English literature, literary theory, and narrative texts, but for the growing number of people concerned with building bridges between the traditionally separate disciplines of literary studies, linguistics, and cognitive theory' - European Journal of English Studies

• Preface, Acknowledgements, Prologue in the wilderness, 1 Towards a `natural' narratology, 2 Natural narrative and other oral modes, 3 From the oral to the written: narrative structure before the novel, 4 The realist paradigm: consciousness, mimesis and the reading of the `real', 5 Reflectorization and figuralization: the malleability of language, 6 Virgin territories: the strategic expansion of deictic options, 7 Games with tellers, telling and told, 8 Natural Narratology, In lieu of an epilogue, Notes, Reference, Texts, Criticism, Author index, Subject index