This volume explores boredom as a possible force for good in the Victorian novel. In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72), and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1881), boredom is an important means through which female characters are able to achieve a greater sense of self-awareness. In her discussion of these works, the author examines both the deleterious and restorative aspects of boredom and shows how this subtle theme has continued to be used by more modern authors.