Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English FictionIn this study intended for general readers, eminent critic Patricia Meyer Spacks provides a fresh, engaging account of the early history of the English novel. Novel Beginnings departs from the traditional, narrow focus on the development of the realistic novel to emphasize the many kinds of experimentation that marked the genre in the eighteenth century before its conventions were firmly established in the nineteenth. Treating well-known works like Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy in conjunction with less familiar texts such as Sarah Fielding’s The Cry (a kind of hybrid novel and play) and Jane Barker’s A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (a novel of adventure replete with sentimental verse and numerous subnarratives), the book evokes the excitement of a multifaceted and unpredictable process of growth and change. Investigating fiction throughout the 1700s, Spacks delineates the individuality of specific texts while suggesting connections among novels. She sketches a wide range of forms and themes, including Providential narratives, psychological thrillers, romans ą clef, sentimental parables, political allegories, Gothic romances, and many others. These multiple narrative experiments show the impossibility of thinking of eighteenth-century fiction simply as a precursor to the nineteenth-century novel, Spacks shows. Instead, the vast variety of engagements with the problems of creating fiction demonstrates that literary history—by no means inexorable—might have taken quite a different course. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 66
Page 1
... allegiance to the second. They often stressed also their claims to factuality. Richardson announced himself as only the “editor” of Pamela's letters; Defoe prefixed to several of his novels elaborate announcements of 1.
... allegiance to the second. They often stressed also their claims to factuality. Richardson announced himself as only the “editor” of Pamela's letters; Defoe prefixed to several of his novels elaborate announcements of 1.
Page 4
... claiming to be writing, in Joseph Andrews, a “comic Epic-Poem in Prose” (4). Although it would never claim the epic's high dignity, the novel indeed came to fulfill a traditional epic function by articulating the nation's values and its ...
... claiming to be writing, in Joseph Andrews, a “comic Epic-Poem in Prose” (4). Although it would never claim the epic's high dignity, the novel indeed came to fulfill a traditional epic function by articulating the nation's values and its ...
Page 10
... claimed the responsibility of working in the world outside the home, without the aid of their spouses — “work” including both manufacture and trade, in stocks as well as commodities. Speculation involved increasing numbers of people. In ...
... claimed the responsibility of working in the world outside the home, without the aid of their spouses — “work” including both manufacture and trade, in stocks as well as commodities. Speculation involved increasing numbers of people. In ...
Page 13
... claims to have translated a manuscript from Italian — as, much later in the century, do Horace Walpole and, later still, Ann Radcli¤e. Such early fiction writers as Penelope Aubin often locate their characters in France. By and large ...
... claims to have translated a manuscript from Italian — as, much later in the century, do Horace Walpole and, later still, Ann Radcli¤e. Such early fiction writers as Penelope Aubin often locate their characters in France. By and large ...
Page 16
... claims to have witnessed the events she reports and emphasizes that she never deviates from literal truth. Oroonoko, in her account, is wonderfully handsome, wonderfully heroic, and wonderfully “civil,” able to speak French and English ...
... claims to have witnessed the events she reports and emphasizes that she never deviates from literal truth. Oroonoko, in her account, is wonderfully handsome, wonderfully heroic, and wonderfully “civil,” able to speak French and English ...
Contents
28 | |
58 | |
4 Novels of Consciousness | 92 |
5 The Novel of Sentiment | 126 |
6 The Novel of Manners | 160 |
7 Gothic Fiction | 190 |
8 The Political Novel | 222 |
9 Tristram Shandy and the Development of the Novel | 254 |
What Came Next | 276 |
Suggestions for Further Reading | 286 |
Works Cited | 292 |
Index | 298 |
Other editions - View all
Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction Patricia Meyer Spacks Limited preview - 2008 |
Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-century English Fiction Patricia Ann Meyer Spacks No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
action actual adventure allows appears attention awareness becomes beginning behavior believes Caleb Williams calls century chapter characters claims concern consciousness continues conventions course death demonstrates depends desire despite detail di¤erent e¤ect early eighteenth eighteenth-century emotional exists experience fact father feeling female fiction fictional Fielding figure finds first follow Gothic happenings human husband imagined important individual insists instance interest kind lack Lady less letters lives Lord manners marriage marry matter means mind Miss moral mother narrative narrator nature never novel novelists o¤ers Pamela pleasure plot political possibilities principles provides reader reading reflect relation remains response reveals romance sense sensibility sentimental servant sexual Simple situation social society story structure su¤ering sublime suggests tells things tion Tristram understanding virtue woman women writers writing young