Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real

'The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real' argues that Victorian novelistic realism is a product of the Victorians' overarching desire, both cultural and ideological, for the real. What the book calls 'realist fantasy' describes the way in which the conventions used to represent characters' dreams, daydreams, and fantasies also shape the more general and generalized fantasy that constitutes each particular novel's imagining of the real.