Introducing the notion of the substitutional fallacy and its prevalence in the field of literary animal studies, this Introduction suggests that a reconsideration of metaphor is required within the posthumanities. Such a reconsideration is important since avoiding metaphorical readings risks depriving literary works of a chance for literarity and literary animals of a possibility for expression. The Introduction discusses this in relation to Jacques Derrida’s spectrality and Paul Ricœur’s metaphor theory, arguing that metaphor is a trope that negotiates the (im)possibility of referentiality and thus poses an invitation to the unforeseeable other—a hospitality that is the mark of literarity.