Novel Definitions - An Anthology of Commentary on the Novel, 1688-1815

Novel Definitions captures the lively critical debate surrounding the invention of the English novel, showing how the rise of the novel was accompanied by a rise in popular literary criticism. The anthology collects over 135 primary sources that chart the long eighteenth century’s interpretation of the novel. These sources—many newly-discovered—include essays, prefaces, reviews, and sermons written by authors ranging from Aphra Behn to Walter Scott. Novel Definitions brings together authors’ prefatory analyses of their work; essayists’ debates concerning the novel’s formal qualities; commentators’ questions concerning the novel’s cultural position, including whether or not women and children should read novels; reviewers’ definitions of the qualities that make a novel successful; and literary historians’ first attempts to write the history of the novel.