She felt rather inclined just for a moment to stand still after all that chatter, and pick out one particular thing; the thing that mattered . . .Virginia Woolf, To The LighthouseAn illuminating exploration of how seven of the greatest English novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesFrankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Between the Actsportray the essential experiences of life.Edward Mendelsona professor of English at Columbia Universityillustrates how each novel is a living portrait of the human condition while expressing its author's complex individuality and intentions and emerging from the author's life and times. He explores Frankenstein as a searing representation of child neglect and abandonment and Mrs. Dalloway as a portrait of an ideal but almost impossible adult love, and leads us to a fresh and fascinating new understanding of each of the seven novels, reminding usin the most captivating waywhy they matter.From the Trade Paperback edition.