This issue of the "Review of Contemporary Fiction" is, for the first time, devoted to—but not devotional toward—contemporary British fiction. Bringing together writers, literary critics, and academics with the aim of challenging fossilized approaches to British contemporary fiction, and attesting to the vitality (or otherwise) of the British novel today, contributors such as Stewart Home, China Miéville, Maureen Freely, and Patricia Waugh pose difficult questions about the status of the literary in contemporary Britain—where it's been, and where it's going.