The intersection between law and literature is a developing area in literary studies. Recent work argues that literature provides an imaginary forum in which legal ideals and practices may be tested. Dieter Polloczek's study develops this idea to show how the novel, with its increasing social scope and formal sophistication provided a means of transmitting, questioning and refining society's traditions, values and modes of self-questioning. Polloczek's study is both theoretical and historical, extending from the eighteenth century to the modernist period, and covering texts from Sterne, Dickens, Bentham and Conrad.