The remnant of the mythical -- 'The Second Blow' -- Problems of knowledge -- 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 -- Darwinian myths -- I. Growth and its myths -- II. Growth and transformation -- III. Transformation, retrogression, extinction: Darwinian romance -- Part III. Responses: George Eliot and Thomas Hardy -- 5. George Eliot: Middlemarch -- I. The vital influence -- II. Structure and hypothesis -- III. The web of affinities -- 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.
more...