Introduction; Beginnings to the nineteenth century; 'Don't look at J.J. Rousseau': Pygmalion and the Romantics; Adam's dream: Post-Romantic renarrations; The Pre-Raphaelite Pygmalion and mid-victorian hellenism; Nineteenth-Century Pygmalion plays: the context of Shaw's Pygmalion; The twentieth century: towards a conclusion; Appendix 1 The Pygmalion story in dictionaries and handbooks of classical literature; Appendix 2 Bibliography of Pygmalion references.

First published in 2001, this book focuses on the use of the story of Pygmalion and Galatea in nineteenth-century British literature, exploring gender issues, the nature of artistic creativity and the morality of Greek art.