This short, provocative book challenges basic assumptions about Victorian fiction. Now praised for its realism and formal coherence, the Victorian novel was not always seen by critics as great, or even good. It was only in the late 1970s that literary critics constructed a prestigious version of British realism, erasing more than a century of controversy about the value of Victorian fiction. Victorian novels since the 1850s were praised for bringing certain social truths to fictional life but were also criticized for their formal failures and compared unfavorably to French and German counterparts. The book analyzes the characteristics of realism, and questions the aesthetic racism built into prevailing ideas about the centrality of realism in the novel, and how those ideas have affected debates about world literature. By re-examining the critical reception of the Victorian novel, this volume suggests how we can rethink our practices and perceptions about books we think we know.