This Critical Reader provides a varied selection of nineteenth-century essays on the art of fiction, alongside a selection of modern critical responses to twelve familiar nineteenth-century novels. It offers: insights into the changing critical reception of realist fiction discussions about the problematic nature of language and representation illustrations of modern theoretical approaches. Headnotes and an introduction explore the issues and ideas that preoccupied nineteenth-century authors. The novels discussed are: Northanger Abbey , Jane Eyre , Dombey and Son , Middlemarch , Far From the Madding Crowd , Germinal , Madame Bovary , The Woman in White , The Portrait of a Lady , The Awakening , Dracula , and Heart of Darkness .