Preface: Twenty Years Later
Introduction: The Bildungsroman as Symbolic Form
The Comfort of Civilization
The Rhetoric of Happiness
Trial, Opportunity, Episode
The Sociology of Prejudice
Symbol and Interpretation
'The uniform of my generation'
Bovarysm, Disavowal, Bad Faith
'That's the way of the world'
Reality principle, realism, irony
'A certain amount of impudence'
The Balzacian Narrator (I): 'Nothing is hidden from me'
The Balzacian Narrator (II): 'At a time like this it would be a wonderful spectacle ...'
Fifty Thousand Young Men. One Hundred Thousand Novels
On the Genesis of Tolerance
'And in return, what do you hope to take?'
The Conspiracy of the Innocents
'In this enlightened age ...'
