FLW is a Victorian love story is couched within a postmodern, self-conscious meditation on authentic existence, evolution, class struggle, and the nature of authorship. The narrative form is explored through a constant critique of representation with combines an examination of cultural surface with formidable skill in storytelling & the ability to create compelling characters & a vivid sense of social context. With essay-like excursions into Victorian social mores, self-reflexive authorial intrusions, and his …showed first 75 words of 2892 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2892 total…and more to dream and desire. The theme of Darwinian evolution extends to the novel, which, like any species, must adapt to new circumstances or perish. FLW presents itself as part of an evolving medium, through such mutations as the dual ending and the multiple disguises of the author-narrator. The Victorian omnipotent author-figure is exposed by the narrator as a literary dinosaur, no longer suited to the more cynical, self-critical times of the novel's composition.