The Novel and the Police

Miller's famous 1989 study of the Victorian novel through the lens of Foucauldian ideas about surveillance and sexuality is one of the most brilliant studies in the field--its readings of Collins, Trollope, and Dickens have become definitive. The work suffers only from its author's vanity: the references to his personal life seem cutesy and don't add much to the study (they detract from it). Otherwise this is the best study of the Victorian novel in decades.