An extraordinary book not only for scholars but for the general reader as well. Professor Ginsburg's selection of nineteenth century stories from a variety of literary traditions and her analysis of the relation between portrait and story and what it means for the reading process are compelling. After reading Portrait Stories I look forward to reading and in some cases rereading the stories that Professor Ginsburg included in her book and reflect as she did in the Afterword on the relation between seeing a portrait as the characters do in the text and reading about it as a reader of the text. Professor Ginsburg's work inspires general readers to become more demanding readers of what they read and how they read.