As cultural studies has grown from its origins on the margins of literary studies, it has tended to discard both literature and sociology in favour of the semiotics of popular culture. Literature, Culture and Society makes a determined attempt to re-establish the connections between literary studies, cultural studies and sociology. Arguing against both literary humanism and sociological relativism, it provides a critical overview of theoretical approaches to textual analysis, from hermeneutics to postmodernism, and presents a substantive account of the capitalist literary mode of production.

This second edition has been fully revised and rewritten, with new sections including the impact of psychoanalysis and post-structuralism, and the recent work of academics such as Franco Moretti.

New case studies have been added in order to examine the intertextual connections between Genesis, Milton's Paradise Lost, Frankenstein (in Mary Shelley's original and also in several film versions), Karel Capek's R.U.R., Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.