Explores the politics of nineteenth-century British realism Offers a new theory of institutions grounded in temporality Outlines a transnational theory of British realism that emerges from interpreting Irish realist novels Reassesses the politics of realism and the politics of institutions Contains close-reading of realist novels as well as a new genealogy of British realism Advances a new understanding of the relationship between realism and colonialism This book examines anachronisms in realist writing from the colonial periphery to redefine British realism and rethink the politics of institutions. Paying unprecedented attention to nineteenth-century Irish novels, it demonstrates how institutions constrain social relationships in the present and limit our sense of political possibilities in the future. It argues that we cannot escape institutions, but we can refuse the narrow political future that they work to secure.