John Plotz is professor of Victorian literature at Brandeis University. His books include The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics, Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move (Princeton), and a young-adult novel, Time and the Tapestry: A William Morris Adventure. Plotz is the editor of the B-Sides series at Public Books.
"""This wide-ranging and informative book offers a valuable guide to the nature of aesthetic experience that is rooted in, yet extends beyond, the literature and art of the nineteenth century. A book preoccupied with distance, it manages to cover a great deal of territory.""---Alison Byerly, Review 19 ""That even ordinary readers oscillate between immersion in a fictional world and awareness of their place outside it is an attractive notion. . . . Plotz’s book demonstrates the rich and varied aesthetic effects which artists have discovered within this twilight zone, and how we might similarly use it in our reading approaches.""---Milan Terlunen, Oxonian Review ""The book marvelously captures the feeling of being in the world. Plotz compellingly and artfully shows why reading feels so integral to living.""---Jonathan Farina, Victorian Review ""In this lively and thought-provoking account, Plotz invites us to become more aware of our own positions as readers, and reveals the intellectual rewards for doing so.""---Jonathan Buckmaster, Dickens Quarterly ""Semi-Detached is a challenging and highly rewarding account, which illuminates a central but – until now – underexplored aspect of aesthetic experience.""---Karin Koehler, Modern Language Review"