[1][2] The novel recounts the story of self-absorbed Sir Willoughby Patterne and his attempts at marriage; jilted by his first bride-to-be, he vacillates between the sentimental Laetitia Dale and the strong-willed Clara Middleton.

Thus, The Egoist dramatises the difficulty contingent upon being a woman in Victorian society, when women's bodies and minds are trafficked between fathers and husbands to cement male bonds.

Wilson saw Meredith as "the first great art novelist"; his afterword interprets the book as an adaptation of a stage comedy, an achievement he arrogates to few English authors, who, he suggests, present only "farce or satire.

"[4] Wilson is most taken by "the absolute truth of much of the dialogue," such as how "the way Sir Willoughby continues to speak through the answers of other characters, returning to notice their replies only when his own vein of thought is exhausted" is a "wonderful observation of human speech.

More materially, Forster compliments Meredith on not revealing Laetitia Dale's changed feelings for Willoughby until she rejects him in their midnight meeting; "[i]t would have spoiled his high comedy if we had been kept in touch throughout ... in fact it would be boorish.