Title: Before novels : the cultural contexts of eighteenth-century English fiction /
Authors: Hunter, J. Paul, 1934-
Publisher: Norton,
Year: 1990
Subjects: English fiction History and criticism; Literature and society England History; Books and reading England History; Literacy England History; Popular culture England History
Contents: pt. I: Texts -- What was new about the novel? -- Novels and "the novel": the critical tyranny of formal definition -- pt. II: Contexts -- Readers reading -- Looking forward: time -- Looking forward: place -- Looking backward: a world well lost? -- pt. III Pre-texts -- Journalism: the commitment to contemporaneity -- "Strange, but true": fact certainty, and the desire for wonder -- Didacticism: the biases of presentism and the question of pleasure -- Directions of didacticism: the guide tradition -- Didacticism: the contexts of concern -- The self and the world: private histories -- The self observed: private vices, public benefits -- The self in the world: history, biography, and travel books.