The Art of Fiction: Illustrated from Classic and Modern Texts

In this entertaining and enlightening collection, David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane Austen and James Joyce. Looking at ideas such as the Intrusive Author, Suspense, the Epistolary Novel, Magic Realism and Symbolism, and illustrating each topic with a passage taken from a classic or modern novel, David Lodge makes the richness and variety of British and American fiction accessible to the general reader.
"Exciting...a book for starting up trains of thought or discussion... It did make me think, as a writer, as a reader, as a teacher."  -  A. S. Byatt, Sunday Times
He provides essential reading for students, aspiring writers and anyone who wants to understand how fiction works.