• List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Notes on texts and translations; Introduction; 1. Freud's dreams of knowledge; 2. Proust, jealousy, knowledge; 3. Freud and Proust; 4. Lacan; 5. Lacan and literature; Epilogue; Notes; Index.

'The best written English-language treatment of Lacan in recent years is that found at the end of Malcolm Bowie's Freud, Proust and Lacan: theory as fiction. Although he is thoroughly conversant with the architectonics of Lacan's thought, professor Bowie's achievement is above all in the order of what used to be called new-critical close reading. He has an ear - or eye - for the sumptuousness, high buffoonery, asymmetry and indecorousness of Lacan's prose, and succeeds admirably in conveying them.' Jeffrey Mehlman, The Times Literary Supplement