Intro; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures; Chapter 1 Introduction; Background; How Do We Define Adultery?; Critical Approaches; Adultery and Absence; Husbands and Wives; Adultery and Place; Adaptation and Censorship; Roads Not Taken: Other Stars, and Star Studies; The Corpus; Chapter 2 Bette Davis: 1937 to 1943-Motherhood; Introducing Davis: The Bad Sister; That Certain Woman; Lloyd; Jack; Jackie; The Penetrable Home; Intervening Films; The Old Maid; Aunt Charlotte; Interiors and Exteriors; All This, and Heaven Too; Locations; The Letter; The Great Lie; Intervening Films

Now, VoyagerOld Acquaintance; Conclusion; Adaptation; Adultery and Marriage; Chapter 3 Joan Fontaine: 1939 to 1950-Devotion; The Women; Rebecca; The Structure of Rebecca; Joan's Story-Three Sequences; Intervening Films; The Constant Nymph; Goulding's Film; The Child-Wife and the Childish Husband; Lewis; Jane Eyre; Intervening Films; Letter from an Unknown Woman; The Schoolgirl; The Mistress; The Mother; The Scene of Adultery; Expiation; Intervening Romances; Born to Be Bad; Portraits and Their Value; Punishment; September Affair; A World of Tourism; Conclusion

Chapter 4 Kim Novak: 1954 to 1964-The StrangerPushover; Picnic and The Man with the Golden Arm; The Eddy Duchin Story and Jeanne Eagels; Pal Joey; Vertigo; Scottie and Midge; Elster's Girl; Bell, Book and Candle; Three Early 1960s Films; Middle of the Night; Strangers When We Meet; Kiss Me, Stupid; 4 Pm; Evening; Night; Morning; Conclusion; Chapter 5 Meryl Streep: 1979 to 1985-The Present and the Past; The Seduction of Joe Tynan; The Affair; The Benton Films; The French Lieutenant's Woman; The Adaptation; The Past; The Present; Sophie's Choice; Silkwood; Falling in Love; Plenty; Out of Africa

ConclusionChapter 6 Conclusion; Motherhood and Children; Place; Death; Four Endings; Bibliography; Index