This book contains texts devoted by Alfred Schutz to the "normative" areas of literature and ethics. It includes writings dealing with the author-reader relationship, multiple realities, the literary province of meaning, and Schutz's views on equality. Never published in English commentaries on Goethe's novel and the account of personality in the social world appear in this volume.

Editorial Introduction by Michael Barber.- Life Forms and Meaning Structures.- The Problem of Personality in the Social World.- Two Goethe Texts: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meisters Year of Apprenticeship) and Zu Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahren (On Wilhelm Meisters Years of Travel).