Acknowledgments; Part I. Introduction: From Sketch to Novel: 1. Modern change and aestheticized stasis in the early nineteenth century; 2. Plotless styles in novel history and theory; Part II. Journalism, Modernity, and Stasis in The Paris Sketch Book and The History of Pendennis: 3. Capitalist excess, gentlemanly atavism: Thackeray's devils in his early sketches; 4. Pendennis's stasis and Thackeray's professional sensibilities; Part III. Styles of Stillness and Motion: Charles Dickens's Lower-Class Descriptions: 5. Sketches by Boz: narrative form and market culture; 6. Narrating stasis, describing reform: Nicholas Nickleby; Part IV. Elizabeth Gaskell's Individualism, from 'Sketches among the Poor' to Cranford: 7. 'Leave me, leave me to repose': Gaskell's descriptive individualism; 8. Cranford's individualistic style; Conclusion: 'nothing democratic': intelligence, abstraction, and avant-garde plotlessness; Notes; Bibliography; Index.