Before Novels - The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (Paperback, Revised)

By taking a close look at materials no previous twentieth-century critic has seriously investigated in literary terms ephemeral journalism, moralistic tracts, questions-and-answer columns, wonder narratives Paul Hunter discovers a tangled set of roots for the early novel. His provocative argument for a new historicized understanding of the genre and its early readers brilliantly reveals unexpected affinities. Patricia Meyer Spacks, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, University of Virginia"