he first edition
of
The Rhetoric
of
Fiction
transformed
thecriticism
of
fiction and soon became a
classic
in the field. One of the mostwidely used
texts
in fiction
courses,
it is a standard reference
point
inadvanceddiscussions of how fictional form works, how authors make
novels
accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its conceptsand
terms—such
as "the implied author," "the postulated
reader,"
and
"the
unreliable
narrator"—have
become
part
of the standardcritical lexicon.
For
this new edition Wayne C. Booth has
written
an extensiveAfterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects
what
he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking aboutthe rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary
Bibliography,
prepared by James Phclan in consultation
with
the
author, which lists the
important
critical works of the past
twenty
years—two decades
that
Booth describes as "the richest in thehistory of the subject."
Praise
for
the
first
edition:
"Not many books can
be
called indispensable. This
one
can. . . .Many people, reading this sane and cogent book, are
going
to feel
as
if doors and windows had
beenopened."—Wallace
Stegner,
American Scholar
"This is a major critical work which should be required reading
for
everyone concerned in the academic study of prose fiction."
—
David
Lodge,
(British)
Modern Language Review
WAYNE-:
C.
BOOTH
is the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service
Professor
Emeritus at the University of
Chicago.
He is the author
of A
Rhetoric of
Irony,
Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric
of
Assent,
Critical
Understanding: The
Powers
and Limits of
Pluralism,
andNow
Don't
Try to Reason with Me
and is the editor of
The Knowledge
Most
Worth Having,
all published by the University of Chicago
Press.
The first edition of his
The Rhetoric of
Fiction
received the ChristianGauss Award (Phi Beta Kappa) and the David H. Russell Award forDistinguishedResearch (National Council of Teachers of
English).
The
University
<>t Chicago
Press
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