This book brings an original perspective to literary theory and criticism by using insights drawn from visual cognition and neuroscience. Employing recent findings in neuroscience to explain consistent patterns in the representation of space in literature, Finnigan explores how these patterns exploit readers' power to imagine themselves in different times and places and identifies the literary power of deviating from these patterns. While focusing on Victorian, Modernist and Postmodernist texts, Finnigan brings a new critical framework that can applied in other literary contexts through neuroscience and psychological theory.