“A team of two dozen prominent scholars … .Here report on the state of the art in 18th century novel studies. Nearly all the work is cutting edge, and almost every page challenges conventional wisdom … .Specialists in the early novel will find this wide-ranging and theoretically sophisticated work provocative. Highly recommended.” CHOICE
“Editors Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia have assembled an impressive collection of authors … .Visiting or revisiting a complex cultural topography. ” ECF
“The Variety of texts treated in this volume is rich, unapologetic, and one of its real pleasures.” The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies
A Companion to the Eighteenth-century English Novel and Culture provides an up-to-date resource for the study of this subject, foregrounding those topics of most historical and political relevance to the twenty-first century. It considers not only the canonical literature of the period, but also the non-canonical literature, and the contexts in which the eighteenth-century novel was produced.
The volume is divided into three parts exploring formative influences on the eighteenth-century novel, its engagement with the major issues and philosophies of the period, and its lasting legacy. Each of these three parts is structured around the same themes, including globalization, nationhood, technology, commerce, science, and lifestyles. This allows the Companion to capitalize on cutting-edge scholarship without obscuring traditional parameters for the study of the eighteenth-century novel, such as narrative authority, print culture, and the rise of the novel as a pan-European phenomenon.
The Companion as a whole furnishes readers exemplary cultural studies methodology and a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral contexts, and keeps them abreast of current critical trends in a field that has changed dramatically over the past decade.
From the Back Cover
A Companion to the Eighteenth-century English Novel and Culture provides an up-to-date resource for the study of this subject, foregrounding those topics of most historical and political relevance to the twenty-first century. It considers not only the canonical literature of the period, but also the non-canonical literature, and the contexts in which the eighteenth-century novel was produced.
The volume is divided into three parts exploring formative influences on the eighteenth-century novel, its engagement with the major issues and philosophies of the period, and its lasting legacy. Each of these three parts is structured around the same themes, including globalization, nationhood, technology, commerce, science, and lifestyles. This allows the Companion to capitalize on cutting-edge scholarship without obscuring traditional parameters for the study of the eighteenth-century novel, such as narrative authority, print culture, and the rise of the novel as a pan-European phenomenon.
The Companion as a whole furnishes readers exemplary cultural studies methodology and a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral contexts, and keeps them abreast of current critical trends in a field that has changed dramatically over the past decade.
About the Author
Paula R. Backscheider is Philpott-Stevens Eminent Scholar at Auburn University. A former president of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, she is best known as the author of Daniel Defoe: His Life (1992).
Catherine Ingrassia is Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the author of Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England (1998).
Wow! eBook
