Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, from Don Quixote to Midnight's Children. A glossary of key terms and a guide to further reading are included, making this an ideal accompaniment to introductory courses on the novel.

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An overview for students and readers of the work, career and international context of the author of Disgrace.

Jane Austen is unique among British novelists in maintaining her popular appeal while receiving more scholarly attention now than ever before. This innovative introduction by a leading scholar and editor of her work explains what students need to know about her novels, life, context and reception. Each novel is discussed in detail, and all the essential information about her life and literary influences, her novels and letters, and her impact on later literature and culture is covered. While the book considers the key areas of current critical focus its analysis remains thoroughly grounded in readings of the texts themselves. Janet Todd outlines what makes Austen's prose style so innovative and gives useful starting points for the study of the major works, with suggestions for further reading. This book is an essential purchase for all students of Austen, as well as for readers wanting to deepen their appreciation of the novels.

Stowe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain: these are just a few of the world-class novelists of nineteenth-century America. The nineteenth-century American novel was a highly fluid form, constantly evolving in response to the turbulent events of the period and emerging as a key component in American identity, growth, expansion and the Civil War. Gregg Crane tells the story of the American novel from its beginnings in the early republic to the end of the nineteenth century. Treating the famous and many less well-known works, Crane discusses the genre's major figures, themes and developments. He analyses the different types of American fiction - romance, sentimental fiction, and the realist novel - in detail, while the historical context is explained in relation to how novelists explored the changing world around them. This comprehensive and stimulating introduction will enhance students' experience of reading and studying the whole canon of American fiction.

This Companion focuses on the novel as a global genre with a 2,000-year history. The first section includes an examination of the various genres out of which it emerged (epic, history, romance, the picaresque) and the different ways in which fiction and realism (magical, hyper, and social) were developed in response to specific political, social, and economic forces. The second section focuses on how the novel works, considering how it has played a crucial role in the formation of more abstract social, political, and familial identities. The third section considers what the novel has become and will continue to become in the twenty-first century. It examines the recent interest in graphic novels as well as data, digitization, and a global literary marketplace's role in shaping the future of the novel. This book will be a key resource for students and scholars studying the novel as a genre.

A clearly written account of the development of the novel over the course of the long eighteenth century.

Offers a lucid introduction to postcolonial studies, one of the most important strands in recent literary theory and cultural studies.

In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, first published in 2000, a series of specially-commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. The collection combines the literary study of the novel as a form with analysis of the material aspects of its readership and production, and a series of thematic and contextual perspectives that examine Victorian fiction in the light of social and cultural concerns relevant both to the period itself and to the direction of current literary and cultural studies. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

A comprehensive overview of both modernist and popular British fiction of the first half of the twentieth century.