The Oxford History of the Novel in English

Yi-cheng Weng, The BARS Review Given its extraordinary range and depth, this volume does exactly what the general editor Patrick Parrinder describes as the aim of the Oxford History of the Novel in English series: 'to present the detailed history of the novel in a way that is both useful to students and specialists, and accessible to a wide and varied readership' (xvi). ... this collection will undoubtedly be indispensable for both teachers and students, and will surely be added to the reading lists of modules on eighteenth-century and Romantic literature. For literary scholars, this volume offers invaluable information about the current state of scholarship on the novel, and the ways in which vigorous debate and new evidence over the past few decades have shaped the field. It will surely enliven discussions for many years to come.

Matthew Sangster, Library This volume is a consummate piece of work that deserves pride of place on the shelves of research libraries.

M. E. Burstein, CHOICE Jargon-free prose makes this important collection accessible to a wide range of readers ... Essential.

Peter Garside was educated at Cambridge and Harvard Universities, and taught English Literature for more than thirty years at Cardiff University, where became Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research. Subsequently he was appointed Professor of Bibliography and Textual Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He has served on the Boards of Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels and the Stirling / South Carolina Collected Editions of the Works of James Hogg, and has produced three volume apiece for each of these scholarly editions. He was one of the general editors of the ground-breaking bibliographical survey, The English Novel, 1770-1830, 2 vols (OUP, 2000), and directed the AHRB-funded online database, British Fiction, 1800-1829 (2004). Since retirement, he has continued to work on aspects of Romantic Studies, Scottish Literature, the Novel, and Book History.

General Editor's Preface ; Introduction ; Editorial Note ; PART I: BOOK PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION ; 1. Production ; 2. Authorship ; 3. Circulation ; PART II: MAJOR AUTHORS AND TRADITIONS ; 4. The Novel in the 1750s ; 5. Tobias Smollett and the Ramble Novel ; 6. The Novelty of Laurence Sterne ; 7. Sentimental Fiction of the 1760s and 1770s ; 8. Bluestocking Women and Rational Female Fiction ; 9. The Novel of Sensibility in the 1780s ; 10. Early Gothic Novels and the Belief in Fiction ; 11. The Novel Wars of 1790 1804 ; 12. The National Tale ; 13. Gothic and Anti-Gothic, 1797 1820 ; 14. Evangelical Fiction ; 15. Jane Austen s Domestic Realism ; 16. Historical Romance ; 17. Walter Scott and the Historical Novel ; PART III: GENERIC VARIATIONS AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURES ; 18. It-Narratives and Spy Novels ; 19. Philosophical and Oriental Tales ; 20. Epistolary Fiction ; 21. Celebrity and Scandalous Fiction ; PART IV: CONTEXTS ; 22. All in the Family: Consanguinity, Marriage, and Property ; 23. Fictions of the Union ; 24. Imperial Commerce, Gender, and Slavery ; PART V: ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF FICTION ; 25. Fiction in the Magazines ; 26. Short Fictional Forms and the Rise of the Tale ; 27. Children s and Juvenile Literature ; 28. The Novel and the Stage ; PART VI: ASSIMILATION AND CULTURAL INTERCHANGES ; 29. Assimilating the Novel: Reviews and Collections ; 30. Readers and Reading Practices ; 31. The Global British Novel ; 32. Foreign Imports ; AFTERWORD ; 33. The Rise of the Rise of the Novel