The first half of this introductory essay illustrates, with reference to the five subsequent articles in this issue of Style, how topics presented in SIF (Leech and Short, Style in Fiction: An Introduction to English Fictional Prose) have been explored in new and fruitful ways since its original publication in 1981. The second half examines the opening of Chapter 1 of Dickens’ Great Expectations, in particular the third paragraph, providing an example of the practical stylistic analysis of short prose passages, typical of SIF, and showing the interconnections between the main topics to be elaborated in this issue.