"This is a major achievement, an artfully written and carefully articulated contribution to the theory of literary history, and a powerful interpretation of eighteenth-century literature with which all scholars in the field will have to contend."—Philosophy and Literature

• Introduction 1. On textual production 2. The urbane sublime 3. Transcendental aesthetics 4. The discovery of consciousness 5. The economy of sensibility 6. Goldsmith's endings 7. The Vicar of Wakefield 8. She Stoops to Conquer 9. Sheridan's semiotics 10. Beaumarchais's stagecraft 11. Sterne's stories 12. Wordsworth's old gray stone 13. Touchstones Notes Index.