The Novel

A Brief History

ENGL 124 B03 Winter 2010

• Lengthy prose fiction (roughly 80,000–120,000 words)

What is a novel?

• Lengthy prose fiction (roughly 80,000–120,000 words)

• “[R]epresenting character and action with some degree of realism and complexity” (OED)

What is a novel?

• appeared with the spread of the printing press in Europe

• predecessors:

allegories (e.g., Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, 1678)

romances (e.g., Le Morte D’Arthur, by Thomas Mallory, 1485)

picaresques (e.g., The Unfortunate Traveller, by Thomas Nash, 1594)

Early English novels

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/images/PressHist.JPG

• hotly contested among several candidates, depending on how one defines a ‘true’ novel

• strong contenders:

The first English novel

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/images/PressHist.JPG

• hotly contested among several candidates, depending on how one defines a ‘true’ novel

• strong contenders:

Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn (1688)

The first English novel

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/anglica/Chronology/17thC/AphraBehn/aph_or_t.jpg

• hotly contested among several candidates, depending on how one defines a ‘true’ novel

• strong contenders:

Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn (1688)

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (1719)

The first English novel

http://www.jahsonic.com/RobinsonCrusoe.jpg

• Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson (1740)

The first ‘best-seller’

http://textline.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pamela-richardson.jpg

• Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson (1740)

• tapped the emerging (and newly-literate) middle class as its readership

The first ‘best-seller’

http://textline.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pamela-richardson.jpg

• Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson (1740)

• tapped the emerging (and newly-literate) middle class as its readership

• “epistolary novel”: told in a series of personal letters exchanged among the characters, and later collected by an ‘editor’

The first ‘best-seller’

http://textline.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pamela-richardson.jpg

• sentimental novels (1740s to 1790s): designed to evoke intense, humane feelings

Sub-genres

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/104104/1/Maria,-From-Lawrence-Sterne$27s-$27a-Sentimental-Journey.jpg

• sentimental novels (1740s to 1790s): designed to evoke intense, humane feelings

• gothic novels (1790s): exotic fictions involving mystery and suspense

Sub-genres

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/04spring/images/ill_gothic/fig4.jpg

• sentimental novels (1740s to 1790s): designed to evoke intense, humane feelings

• gothic novels (1790s): exotic fictions involving mystery and suspense

• historical novels (early 1800s): credible depictions of historical persons +/or events

Sub-genres

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Walter_Scott_Waverley_illustration.jpg

• sentimental novels (1740s to 1790s): designed to evoke intense, humane feelings

• gothic novels (1790s): exotic fictions involving mystery and suspense

• historical novels (early 1800s): credible depictions of historical persons +/or events

• sensation novels (1860s): dealt with ‘shocking’ material (immoral, horrifying, unnatural)

Sub-genres

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/allingham/12.jpg

References

The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed. 1985. Print.