Gillian Beer is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge.

'Gillian Beer's superb study [is] a work of criticism that takes its modest place among the other 'cloudy triumphs' of English genius.' Michael Neve, Sunday Times

• Foreword George Levine; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. Darwin's Language: 1. 'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world; 2. Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order; Part II. Darwin's Plots: 3. Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin; 4. Darwinian myths; 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch; 6. George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life; 7. Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative; 8. Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels; 9. Darwin and the consciousness of others; Select bibliography of primary works.

Gillian Beer is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge.

'Gillian Beer's superb study [is] a work of criticism that takes its modest place among the other 'cloudy triumphs' of English genius.' Michael Neve, Sunday Times

• Foreword George Levine; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. Darwin's Language: 1. 'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world; 2. Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order; Part II. Darwin's Plots: 3. Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin; 4. Darwinian myths; 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch; 6. George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life; 7. Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative; 8. Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels; 9. Darwin and the consciousness of others; Select bibliography of primary works.

Gillian Beer is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge.

'Gillian Beer's superb study [is] a work of criticism that takes its modest place among the other 'cloudy triumphs' of English genius.' Michael Neve, Sunday Times

• Foreword George Levine; Preface to second edition; Introduction; Part I. Darwin's Language: 1. 'Pleasure like a tragedy': imagination and the material world; 2. Fit and misfitting: anthropomorphism and the natural order; Part II. Darwin's Plots: 3. Analogy, metaphor and narrative in The Origin; 4. Darwinian myths; 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch; 6. George Eliot: Daniel Deronda and the idea of a future life; 7. Descent and sexual selection: women in narrative; 8. Finding a scale for the human: plot and writing in Hardy's novels; 9. Darwin and the consciousness of others; Select bibliography of primary works.