None

Campbell presents a comprehensive critical reading of Byatt's fiction from The shadow of the sun and The game, published in the 1960's, to A whistling woman (2002). The book begins with an overview of Byatt's writing and, drawing on her interviews and essays, sets forth the critical principles that inform the novelist's works. Following this introduction is a chronically structured account of the novels and short stories tracing Byatt's literary development. Campbell employs a critical perspective appropriate to the author's individualistic feminist stance, stressing the breadth of Byatt's intellectual concerns and her insistence on placing her female characters in a living, changing context of ideas and experience, especially in their search for creative voice.