'Wonderful...concise, witty, effortlessly learned.' Sunday Times 



How does Magwitch swim to shore with a great iron on his leg? Where does Fanny Hill keep her contraceptives? Whose side is Hawkeye on? And how does Clarissa Dalloway get home so quickly? 



In this new edition sequel to the enormously successful Is Heathcliff a Murderer?, John Sutherland plays literary detective and investigates 32 literary conundrums, ranging from Daniel Defoe to Virginia Woolf. 



As in its universally loved predecessor, the questions and answers are ingenious and convincing, and return the reader with new respect to the great novels that inspire them.



John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus at University College London and an eminent scholar in the field of Victorian fiction, author of many works including The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. He has also written the bestselling popular titles Is Heathcliff a Murderer? and Can Jane Eyre be Happy?, and such scholarly jeux d'esprit as Curiosities of Literature.



Sutherland is not simply a sleuth, but a sympathetic alternative author; less pedant, in fact, than poet