-The universe of possible worlds is constantly expanding and diversifying thanks to the incessant world-constructing activity of human minds and hands. Literary fiction is probably the most active experimental laboratory of the world-constructing enterprise.---from the author's Preface

The standard contrast between fiction and reality, notes Lubomir Dolezel, obscures an array of problems that have beset philosophers and literary critics for centuries. Commentators usually admit that fiction conveys some kind of truth--the truth of the story of Faust, for instance. They acknowledge...