A study of comedy in eight fictions: Emma, Nightmare Abbey, Martin Chuzzlewit, Vanity Fair, Barchester Towers, The Egoist, Through the Looking-Glass, Finnegans Wake. Polhemus sees comedy as a tool to "revise, mock, and transmute organized faith" and that, over time, fiction "tends to fulfill conventioinal religious functions and gradually becomes itself an explicit faith." Other works are brought into the conversation. Endnotes, bibliography, index. Very good condition with very good jacket in mylar. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London. 1980. Hb, Dj. USED. $15.00