An introduction to eighteenth century fiction : raising the novel

An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Fiction is a comprehensive accessible study of the English novel from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. The first three chapters deal with nover criticism, canon formation and relations between genre and gender. The second part of the book contains an extensive discussion of Richardson and Fielding, followed by paired readings of major eighteenth-century novels, juxtaposing texts by Behn and Defoe, Sterne and Smollett, Lennox and Burney, Radcliffe and Godwin, and Austen. The various sections of the book, and even the individual chapters, may be read independently or in any order. Works are discussed in a way intended to help students who have not yet read them, and even stimutate some who never will.