The Revenge of Realism by Peter Gay Publisher: Beijing United Publishing Company

Introduction
Are realistic novels really describing "reality"?
In this book, Gay interprets three great realist novels in detail: Dickens's Bleak House, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. The historian believes that these three writers took revenge on the society and era they lived in through their novels. In this book, Gay combines historical research and literary criticism to analyze the relationship between novelists, novels, and history. This book provides literature lovers and historical researchers with a novel reading method that combines the advantages of the two disciplines, making novels an auxiliary medium for discovering historical truths.
* Read novels in light of historical facts, understand people and the world, and measure the "reality" content of the text
Dickens, Flaubert, Thomas Mann, these three great novelists all seem to have taken willful revenge on the society and times they lived in through their novels. How much truth and how much falsehood are there in the stories of novels like Bleak House, Madame Bovary, and Buddenbrooks? Answering such questions is precisely the specialty of historians. The author uses a large amount of historical materials to measure the "reality" content of these realistic novels.
* Do a psychoanalysis of a great writer and delve into the depths of his works
What is the reason why these great novelists write in this way? Guy, who is familiar with psychoanalysis, makes a bold diagnosis of them based on their performance in novels and biographical materials. Through interesting and informative gossip and anecdotes, he leads readers to the hidden inner world of famous works and novelists themselves.
* Is history also a kind of fiction? The author responds directly to the challenge of postmodern historiography
If not everything written in realistic novels is true, can we still gain an understanding of "reality" from them? Or is history just a kind of fiction, as postmodern historiography says? Between literature/history, reality/fiction, Gay proposes a comprehensive answer to these complex, important and urgent questions that combines the perspectives of literature and history.
Media reviews:
This book won the New York Times Notable Book of 2002.
The great virtue of these essays is that they are a real pleasure to read: clear, accessible, sharp, funny and witty, really crisp, inviting prose. --Los Angeles Times
The famous cultural historian Peter Gay cleverly transforms himself into a literary critic here. Reading this book is like sitting in a university lecture hall and listening to an experienced professor's wonderful interpretation of the master's works and their background. - The New York Times