Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction -- Part I: Essays in Criticism -- 1. The Poverty of (New) Historicism -- 2. Re-Reading English, Re-Reading Modernism -- 3. 'I would have her whipped': David Copperfield in its Historical Moment -- 4. On Hardy's Realism, Again -- 5. Tragedy and Revolution -- 6. 'The Weight of History': Poets and Artists in World War Two -- 7. The Plains of War: Byron, Turner and the Bodies of Waterloo -- 8. 'Giving Them Back Their History': Peter Widdowson and Literature -- 9. The 'Servant Problem', Social Class and Literary Representation in Eighteenth-Century England -- 10. 'Sway between a Dance and a Fight': Black Religions in Toni Morrison's Paradise -- 11. Women, War and the University: Rosamond Lehmann's Dusty Answer -- 12. Mythological Presents: Modernity, Edward Thomas and the Poetics of Experience -- Another 'Last Signal' -- Part II: Personalia -- Biographical Sketches of Peter Widdowson -- Neville Shrimpton -- Mary Shakeshaft -- Paul Stigant -- Mike Walters -- Mary DeJong Obuchowski -- Peter Obuchowski -- Peter Brooker -- Stuart Laing -- Victoria Bazin -- John Hughes -- Hilary Hinds -- Sandra Courtman -- Emily Wroe -- James Green -- Neil A. Wynn -- Charlotte Beyer -- Peter Childs -- Debby Thacker -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.