In this survey of British fiction we will read a selection of classic novels richly evocative of place:
the English countryside looked at from above and below, the glittering facades of London
concealing sordid depths behind, and the global empire, seen from without and within, that has led
many novelists to identify place with the condition of fiction itself. Britain being Britain, these
novels are replete with memorable misfits who by refusing to know their place suffer consequences
alternately tragic and comic. We will read works by Eliot, Dickens, Joyce, Conrad, Sayers, Waugh,
and Byatt composed in a wide variety of literary modalities. Course requirements include two
short papers and a final examination.