Chapter 1 presents an in-depth analysis of the chick lit genre’s tropes to establish chick lit as a displacement of the popular romance. It does not utilize the methodology of reader-response to the same degree as Radway’s seminal study but instead draws on Radway’s and Modelski’s analyses of the Harlequin’s tropes to present a literary historical framework for this development in popular fiction. It distinguishes chick lit from Harlequin romance, as regards the hero, and discusses how the genre emerged from a crisis in romance publishing. (xxv)