Margaret Doody Books in Order

When an influential Athenian is murdered, young Stephanos must defend his cousin Philemon against the accusation. Aristotle helps him investigate the killing, bringing philosophical reasoning to a case that threatens the family's standing and survival.

A young American woman's education in Oxford extends beyond the university when she encounters a group of con artists. Set amid college life, this campus novel follows her initiation into a world of deception and social pretension.

Combining biography with literary criticism, Margaret Doody examines how Frances Burney's life informs her writing. Novels, plays, fragments, and unpublished poetry contribute to an account of her artistic development and the circumstances surrounding her work.

Margaret Doody traces the novel's history through ancient Mediterranean cultures and subsequent literary traditions. Challenging its supposed origins in eighteenth-century England, she questions the division between romance and novel and the exclusions that distinction has encouraged.

When a wealthy silver merchant's daughter is kidnapped, Aristotle and Stephanos travel toward Delphi to investigate. The search for the missing heiress entangles them in questions of motive, inheritance, and the meaning of an oracle's pronouncements.

Aristotle and Stephanos undertake an investigation across the Aegean as relations between Athens and Macedonia grow dangerous. Encounters with pirates and political conspiracy complicate their journey, linking philosophical inquiry and the study of nature with threats of war.

A death by hemlock after a lawsuit brings Aristotle and Stephanos into a poisoning investigation in Athens. Accusations against a wealthy man's wife and a separate impiety trial expose tensions beneath the city's public life.

As Stephanos prepares to marry Philomela, a neighbor's burglary becomes part of a wider sequence of theft and murder. He and Aristotle investigate while the rituals at Eleusis bring religious mystery into their already complicated affairs.

Margaret Doody explores Venice through its history, art, literature, and physical landscape. Her account considers the city's position between cultures and environments, examining how its celebrated appearances relate to the values and contradictions beneath them.

Margaret Doody examines names of people and places throughout Jane Austen's novels, juvenilia, and unfinished writing. Historical associations, wordplay, and regional identities reveal additional meanings, connecting apparently ordinary choices with questions of class, religion, and social belonging.