This study offers a concise critical portrait of George Meredith, tracing his slow recognition as a novelist and analysing his style, influence, and psychological method. Lynch contrasts Meredith's analytical, sometimes obscure diction with contemporaries and examines how his fiction popularizes philosophical thought. Subsequent chapters survey individual novels — Richard Feverel, Rhoda Fleming, Evan Harrington, The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Sandra Belloni, Beauchamp's Career, The Egoist, Diana of the Crossways, Tragic Comedians, and Shaving of Shagpat — and close with a consideration of his men and women, highlighting recurring concerns with consciousness, social perception, and moral imagination.