George Levine is Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University and Visiting Scholar in Residence at New York University.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. The Subject Broached: Otherness, Epistemology, and Ethics: 1. George Eliot and the hypothesis of reality; Part II. Ethics Without God, or, Can 'Is' be 'Ought': 2. Is life worth living?; 3. Ruskin and Darwin and the matter of matter; 4. Scientific discourse as an alternative to faith; 5. In defense of positivism; 6. How science isn't literature: the importance of differences; Part III. Literature, Secularity, and the Quest for Otherness: 7. Victorian realism; 8. Dickens, secularism and agency; 9. The heartbeat of the squirrel; 10. Real toads in imaginary gardens, or vice versa.

Review of the hardback: 'In Realism, Ethics and Secularism, George Levine reaffirms once again his position as one of the most thoughtful and relevant critics working on literature and science over the last thirty years … Levine moves effortlessly among the full range of Victorian fiction and non-fiction, even as he responds, always courteously and judiciously, to the arguments of contemporary literary critics, philosophers, scientists and historians … It is hard to imagine a better introduction to scholarship in literature and science today and to its wider significance … a major contribution to our understanding of Victorian culture and realist fiction … it is a model of literary criticism itself. On all of these grounds, it deserves to be read widely and deeply.' John Holmes, University of Reading