Title: Novel beginnings
Subtitle: experiments in eighteenth-century English fiction
First published: 2006
Description: "In this study intended for general readers, eminent critic Patricia Meyer Spacks provides a fresh, engaging account of the early history of the English novel. Novel Beginnings departs from the traditional, narrow focus on the development of the realistic novel to emphasize the many kinds of experimentation that marked the genre in the eighteenth century before its conventions were firmly established in the nineteenth. Treating well-known works like Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy in conjunction with less-familiar texts such as Sarah Fielding's The Cry (a kind of hybrid novel and play) and Jane Barker's A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies (a novel of adventure replete with sentimental verse and numerous subnarratives), the book evokes the excitement of a multifaceted and unpredictable process of growth and change."--Jacket.
Subjects: History and criticism, History, English fiction, English Experimental fiction, Literary form, English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism., Experimental fiction, English -- History and criticism., Literary form -- History -- 18th century., Fiction, history and criticism
Time periods: 18th century
LC classification: PR858.E982 S66 2006