Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel (eBook)

David H. Richter is Professor of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA. His publications include Fable's End (1974), The Progress of Romance: Literary Historiography and the Gothic Novel (1996), Ideology and Form in Eighteenth-Century Literature (1999), The Critical Tradition (3rd edition, 2006), Falling into Theory (2nd edition, 2010), and The Blackwell Companion to Literary Theory (Wiley Blackwell, 2017).

Title Page 5
Copyright Page 6
Contents 9
Acknowledgments 10
Chapter 1 The World That Made the Novel 11
The Novel before the Novel 11
The Rise of the Novel 17
Formal Realism 18
Individualism 18
The Reading Public 18
The Origins of the English Novel 1600–1740 20
Causality and the Rise of the Novel 22
Historical Presentism and the History of the Rise of the Novel 24
A Rhetorical Theory of Narrative 27
Truth and Fiction 27
Story and Discourse 30
Story: Plot Construction 30
Story: Desires, Expectations, Responsibility 32
Story: Unity and Pattern 33
Discourse: Authors, Narrators, Audiences, and their Surrogates 34
Discourse: Point of View, Focalization and Voice, and Representations of Speech and Thought 37
Discourse: Order, Pacing, Frequency 39
Notes 40
Chapter 2 Oroonoko (1688) 44
Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave: A True History 44
Oroonoko: The Initiation 45
Aphra Behn 46
Truth?Telling 47
Fiction: Romance, Novel, History 48
The Role of the Narrator 49
The Digressions 51
Slavery in Oroonoko 53
History, News and the Royal Slave 54
A Few Words about Fantomina 55
Notes 59
Chapter 3 Moll Flanders (1722) 61
Daniel Defoe 61
The World of Moll Flanders 63
The Initiation 64
Story and Discourse 65
Psychological Realism 67
Irony in Moll Flanders 69
Naive Incoherent Autobiography 71
Notes 74
Chapter 4 Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) 76
The Author of Pamela 76
The Creation of Pamela 78
Reading Pamela 80
Misreading/Rewriting Pamela 84
The Masterpiece 87
Notes 89
Chapter 5 The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749) 91
The Author of Tom Jones 91
Reading Joseph Andrews 93
Reading Tom Jones 95
The Plot of Tom Jones 97
The Delayed Launch 99
The Digressions 103
Fortune vs. Providence 106
Notes 108
Chapter 6 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. (1759–1767) 110
Structure 110
Texture: The Local Effects 113
The Hobbyhorse 114
Satires on Learning 115
The Bawdy Asterisk 117
The Sentimental Moment 121
Irony against the Reader 123
Notes 125
Chapter 7 Evelina: The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778) 127
The Plot of Evelina 128
Evelina and Gender 134
Burney After Evelina 136
Notes 140
Chapter 8 The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) 141
“Mother Radcliffe” 141
The Development of the Gothic Romance as a Genre 145
Plotting Udolpho 149
The Gothic Atmosphere 151
The Content and the Form: Politics and the Gothic Novel 155
Reading the Dream 157
Notes 159
Chapter 9 Things As They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) 161
The Author of Caleb Williams 161
Political Justice 162
Mary and Shelley 165
The Genre of Caleb Williams 167
The Back Story and the Back Stories of that Back Story 168
Sexuality and Surveillance: The Psychology of the Stalker 171
Imprisonment and Surveillance 173
The Two Denouements 177
“A Half-Told and Mangled Tale” 178
Notes 179
Chapter 10 Waverley, or ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (1814) 181
The Author of Waverley 181
Waverley and History 184
Reading Waverley: The Long, Slow Launch and the “Mediocre,” Passive Hero 191
Texture: Voice in Waverley 196
Notes 197
Chapter 11 Emma (1815) 199
The Author of Emma 199
The Structure of Emma 203
Texture: Watching Emma Get Everything Wrong 205
Structure: Emma as a Detective Novel: Mystery and Irony 207
The Coincidental Denouement 210
Texture: Free Indirect Discourse 212
The Content of Emma: Class and Caste 214
Emma and the Condition of England 218
Notes 221
Chapter 12 The World the Novel Made 223
A Different World 223
The Novel and the Development of a Mass Reading Public 224
The Novel and the Modern Epistemé 225
The Novel and Evolving Forms of Masculinity 227
The Novel and Empathy 229
A Conclusion, Which Should Have Been a Preface 231
Notes 234
Selected Further Reading 236
General Studies on the Origin and History of the British Novel 1660–1820 236
General Studies on Narrative and Narrative Theory 237
Edited Collections of Essays on Narrative Theory 237
Individual Authors 238
Aphra Behn and Oroonoko 238
Eliza Haywood and Fantomina 238
Daniel Defoe and Moll Flanders 238
Richardson and Pamela 239
Fielding and Tom Jones 239
Sterne and Tristram Shandy 239
Burney and Evelina 240
Radcliffe and The Mysteries of Udolpho 240
Godwin and Caleb Williams 240
Scott and Waverley 241
Austen and Emma 241
Index 242
EULA 251