本书从英、美等国著名小说中精选12篇(包括短篇和中长篇节选)，按照小说的基本要素和重要问题把全书分为12章，包括开端、结尾、情节、视点、不可靠叙述者、人物、悬念、重复、闯入的作者、文本中的读者、伦理、主题、意识流、内心独白、元小说等方面。

Chapter 1 Beginning: Jane Austen & Emma
Chapter 2 Ending: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald & The Great Gatsby
Chapter 3 Plot, Point of View and Narrator: William Faulkner & Barn Burning
Chapter 4 Character: Mark Twain & The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 5 Suspense: Thomas Hardy & A Pair of Blue Eyes
Chapter 6 Repetition: Emily Bronte & Wuthering Heights
Chapter 7 The Intrusive Author: Thackeray & Vanity Fair
Chapter 8 The Reader in the Text: Laurence Sterne & The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Chapter 9 Ethics and Theme: William Golding & Lord of the Flies
Chapter 10 The Stream of Consciousness: Virginia Woolf & Mrs. DaUoway
Chapter 11 Interior Monologue: James Joyce & Ulysses
Chapter 12 Metafiction: John Fowles & The French Lieutenant's Woman
后记