This introduction outlines the aims of Virtual Play to propose an alternative mode of literary engagement to existing forms of historicist, aesthetic, and ideological criticism, especially those which have fallen under the label of the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’. It defines the book’s use of the terms ‘play’ and ‘virtual’, especially in relation to recent theoretical and philosophical work around these topics, establishes the stakes of a new, more vicarious criticism, and justifies why the novel form in the mid-nineteenth century is an especially productive intersection for this practice. It explains the structure of the book, and provides an outline of the argument within each chapter.

This conclusion places the arguments of Virtual Play within the larger context of virtual and fictional experiences in our culture, and reiterates the stakes of a more participatory, more vicarious criticism for understanding why imaginative literature continues to matter today. It gives a brief account of the ‘patch notes’ to the popular video game The Sims 4, and suggests how the imaginative structure of digital simulations meaningfully parallels the pleasures of novel fiction we have been documenting. Finally, it acknowledges potential problems with and proposes a future direction for this research, pointing to the role that vicarious reading has to play both in raising and answering questions about simulated violence and intimacy.