Praise for the first edition: 'A lucid, practical, wide-ranging, and often original introduction to narrative, which will be extremely useful in undergraduate and graduate courses on literary theory and criticism. This is not a dry textbook, however; the reader is made aware of a real voice and of a fascination with the role of narrative across many areas of culture and beyond.' Derek Attridge, University of York

What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

1. Narrative and life
2. Defining narrative
3. The borders of narrative
4. The rhetoric of narrative
5. Closure
6. Narration
7. Interpreting narrative
8. Three ways to interpret narrative
9. Adaptation across media
10. Character and Self in narrative
11. Narrative and truth
12. Narrative worlds
13. Narrative contestation
14. Narrative negotiation: conflict revisited
15. Narrative negotiation: closure revisited.

Subject Areas: Educational: English literature [YQE], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature & literary studies [D]