Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-204) and index.
pt.1. Opening: the space of reading -- pt.2. The phenomenology of moral consciousness: principle and context, Kant and Hegel -- pt.3. The achievement of autonomy: Marlow's talk in Lord Jim -- pt.4. Self-understanding and community in Wordsworth's poetry -- pt.5. Dejection, recollection, and temporality: Coleridge's Frost at midnight -- pt.6. Ideality, materiality, and value: Pride and prejudice and marriage -- pt.7. Epilogue: The uses of narrative, partiality and difference, self-understanding and value