Making the Novel Fiction and Society in Britain, 1660-1789 [Paperback]

This book advances a new cultural reading of the formation of the British novel. Rejecting a teleological narrative of the genre's 'rise' and through close analysis of key texts, the authors present a dynamic picture of the emergence of the novel, which focuses upon formal innovation, social engagement, and artistic and commercial competition.Acknowledgements.- Introduction: Modelling the Novel.- Missing Parts: Fiction to Defoe.- Novels and Anti-Novels: Contesting Fictions.- Teaching Readers to Read: Richardson and Fielding.- Renewing the Novel: Novelty, Originality, and New Directions.- The Sympathetic Strain: Sterne and Sentimental Fiction.- Narrating the Nation: Leisure, Luxury, and Politeness.- Conclusion: Making the Novel, Reading the Novel.- Bibliography.- Index.BREAN HAMMOND is Professor of English at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author of numerous books and articles on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writing, including Professional Imaginative Writing in England 1670-1740 (1997). He is a former President of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

SHAUN REGAN is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature at Queen's University Belfast, UK. He has published articles on Sterne, print culture, and the culture of politeness. He was formerly a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin.
Offers a new reading of the creation of the British novel, rejecting the traditional teleologial narrative of the genre's 'rise'
Provides indepth analysis of over twenty texts, both canonical and noncanonical
Examines key topics such as formal innovation, social engagement, and artistic and commercial competition