Title: Before novels :
Authors: Hunter, J. Paul,
Date: 1990
Publisher: Norton,
Physical description: xxiv, 421 pages ; 24 cm
Language: English
LC classification: P
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.
Subject headings (LCSH): Books and reading--England--History--18th century.; English fiction--18th century--History and criticism.; Literacy--England--History--18th century.; Literature and society--England--History--18th century.; Popular culture--England--History--18th century.