Overview

Although the emergence of the English novel is generally regarded as an eighteenth-century phenomenon, this is the first book to be published professing to cover the 'eighteenth-century English novel' in its entirety. This Handbook surveys the development of the English novel during the 'long' eighteenth century-in other words, from the later seventeenth century right through to the first three decades of the nineteenth century when, with the publication of the novels of Jane Austen and Walter Scott, 'the novel' finally gained critical acceptance and assumed the position of cultural hegemony it enjoyed for over a century. By situating the novels of the period which are still read today against the background of the hundreds published between 1660 and 1830, this Handbook not only covers those 'masters and mistresses' of early prose fiction-such as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Scott and Austen-who are still acknowledged to be seminal figures in the emergence and development of the English novel, but also the significant number of recently-rediscovered novelists who were popular in their own day. At the same time, its comprehensive coverage of cultural contexts not considered by any existing study, but which are central to the emergence of the novel, such as the book trade and the mechanics of book production, copyright and censorship, the growth of the reading public, the economics of culture both in London and in the provinces, and the re-printing of popular fiction after 1774, offers unique insight into the making of the English novel.

Full Product Details

Author:   J. A. Downie (Professor of English, Goldsmiths, University of London)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.70cm , Height: 3.40cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   1.064kg
ISBN:  

9780198857334

ISBN 10:   0198857330
Pages:   620
Publication Date:   09 April 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Preface PART I: 1660-1770: FROM 'NOVELS' TO WHAT IS NOT YET 'THE NOVEL' The economics of culture 1660-1770 1: Peter Hinds: The Book Trade at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century 2: Michael F. Suarez, S. J.: Business of Fiction: Novel Publishing, 1695-1774 3: Pat Rogers: Social Structure, Class, and Gender, 1660-1770 4: Brian Cowan: Making Publics and Making Novels: Post-Habermasian Perspectives Influences on the early English novel 5: Walter L. Reed: The Continental Influence on the Eighteenth-Century Novel: 'The English Improve What Others Invent' 6: Gillian Dow: Criss-crossing the Channel: The French Novel and English Translation 7: W. R. Owens: Religious Writings and the Early Novel 8: Cynthia Wall: Travel Literature and the Early Novel 9: Rebecca Bullard: Secret History, Politics, and the Early Novel Early 'Novels' and Novelists 10: Thomas Keymer: Restoration Fiction 11: David Oakleaf: Testing the Market: Robinson Crusoe and After 12: Clement Hawes: Gulliver Effects 13: Peter Sabor: 'Labours of the Press': The Response to Pamela 14: John Dussinger: Samuel Richardson and the Epistolary Novel 15: Scott Black: Henry Fielding and the Progress of Romance 16: Simon Dickie: Novels of the 1750s 17: Tim Parnell: 'Tristram is the Fashion': Sterne, Shandyism, and the sentimental novel J. A. Downie: Epilogue: The English Novel at the end of the 1760s PART II: 1770-1832: THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL Literary Production 1770-1832 18: John Feather: The Book Trade 1770-1832 19: Robert Folkenflik: The Rise of the Illustrated English Novel to 1832 Authors, readers, reviewers, and critics, 1770-1832 20: W. A. Speck: Social Structure, Class and Gender, 1770-1832 21: Barbara M. Benedict: 'Male' and 'Female' novels? Gendered Fictions and the Reading Public, 1770-1832 22: Antonia Forster: Reviewing the Novel 23: Peter Garside: 'Ordering' Novels: Describing Prose Fiction, 1770-1832 Novels and Novelists, 1770-1832 24: Ros Ballaster: The Rise and Decline of the Epistolary Novel, 1770-1832 25: Geoffrey Sill: Developments in Sentimental Fiction 26: Deirdre Shauna Lynch: Philosophical Fictions and 'Jacobin' Novels in the 1790s 27: M. O. Grenby: The Anti-Jacobin Novel 28: David H. Richter: The Gothic Novel and the Lingering Appeal of Romance 29: Markman Ellis: Novel and Empire 30: Gary Kelly: The Popular Novel 1790 to 1820 31: Lisa Wood: The Evangelical Novel 32: Jan Fergus: 'Pictures of domestic Life in Country Villages': Jane Austen and the 'Realist' Novel 33: Ina Ferris: Authorizing the Novel: Walter Scott's Historical Fiction 34: Gary Dyer: Parody and Satire in the Novel, 1770-1832 J. A. Downie: Epilogue

Reviews

As a vehicle for ""critical and contextual commentary,"" the Handbook succeeds and occasionally even delights. Its two parts, divided chronologically pre- and post-1770, offer social, material, and literary context forsubsequent discussions of particular authors and genres. * Kristina Booker, University of Oklahoma, Eighteenth-Century Fiction *

As a vehicle for critical and contextual commentary, the Handbook succeeds and occasionally even delights. Its two parts, divided chronologically pre- and post-1770, offer social, material, and literary context forsubsequent discussions of particular authors and genres. * Kristina Booker, University of Oklahoma, Eighteenth-Century Fiction *

"As a vehicle for ""critical and contextual commentary,"" the Handbook succeeds and occasionally even delights. Its two parts, divided chronologically pre- and post-1770, offer social, material, and literary context forsubsequent discussions of particular authors and genres. * Kristina Booker, University of Oklahoma, Eighteenth-Century Fiction *"

Author Information

J. A. Downie is Professor of English at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Pro-Warden (Academic). The author of five monographs, he has also edited three collections of essays, as well as editions of Defoe's political and social writings for Pickering & Chatto's The Complete Works of Daniel Defoe. For many years he was the editor of the section of The Scriblerian devoted to Defoe and the Early Novelists. His most recent book is A Political Biography of Henry Fielding.

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