“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving . . . that true art is moral and not trivial

A genuine classic of literary criticism, On Moral Fiction argues that ”true art is by its nature moral.”

A genuine classic of literary criticism, On Moral Fiction argues that ”true art is by its nature moral.”

Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not w

Reassesses didacticism in seventeenth-century Chinese vernacular fiction and challenges the view that the late Ming was a notoriously immoral time. Reading for