Guerard, the author of 'The Triumph of Doggedness', recognized the captious studies of Conrad, Hardy, and Gide that brought this book a wide and deep understanding in 19th and 20th century fiction.
The three chapters are focused on "forbidden games", psychological mania is disclosed directly in the work of the novelists: Dickens' discovered his love for his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth, who suddenly passed away in her late teens.