Why literary periods mattered: historical contrast and the prestige of English studies

Introduction : historical contrast and the prestige of literary culture

Historical unconsciousness in the novel, 1790-1819

The invention of historical perspective

The invention of the period survey course

The disciplinary rationale for periodization, and a forgotten challenge to it (1886-1949)

Stories of parallel lives and the status anxieties of historicism in the 1990s

Digital humanities and the future of literary history.