CONTENTS:

1. General Editor’s Preface
2. Introduction: The novel as a genre
3. Theories of the novel
4. Market, morality and sentiment: the eighteenth-century novel
5. Society, history and the reader: the nineteenth-century novel
6. Culture and consciousness: the twentieth-century novel in English

          This book offers a unique guide to the most complex and popular of literary forms. A series of critical essays examines the hisotry and special qualities of the novel as a genre, from antecedents in classical and Renaissance times to the rich diversity of the novel in the 1990s. This is combined with a complementary A to Z section of detailed entries. These include: critical, biographical and bibliographical information on a wide range of novelists: plot summaries and critical discussions of major novels; definitions and explanations of relevant literary terms; and information on the historical, cultural and intellectual context of the novel. A selected bibliography of critical works on the novel and a full chronology are also provided, and there is comprehensive cross-referencing throughout the book.

          This book provides thorough descriptions of, and contemporary critical approaches to, novels since the eighteenth century, including the work of Indian, African, West Indian, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian writers.