The Deceived Husband is an ambitious and original study of the representation in European literature of adultery, focusing in particular on the figure of the husband.

Drawing on psychoanalysis, and primarily the work of Melanie Klein, Dr Sinclair argues that the differing representations of the deceived husband evidence anxieties within patriarchal society about gender and power, and ultimately about death and the unknown. Detailed discussions of a wide range of texts including The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, Othello, Madame Bovary, Effi Briest, Anna Karenina, La Regenta, and Flaubert's...