Georg Lukács's works include The Theory of the Novel (1920), The History of Class Consciousness (1923), Studies in European Realism (1948), and The Young Hegel (revised edition, 1954). Fredric Jameson is William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of the Graduate Program in Literature, and Director of the Duke Center for Critical Theory at Duke University. He is the author of many articles and books, including Marxism and Form (1971), The Prison-House of Language (1972), The Political Unconscious (1981), and Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991).

"Concentrating primarily on the 19th century, Lukács offers brilliant reflections on Scott, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Flaubert, the methods of creating a feeling of historical reality, the tradition of epic, the use of the past by the rising bourgeoisie, the negative influence of naturalism, and the place of overt ideology."—Washington Post Book World