Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-century English FictionW. W. Norton & Company, 1990 - 421 pages "By taking a close look at materials no previous twentieth-century critic has seriously investigated in literary terms--ephemeral journalism, moralistic tracts, questions-and-answer columns, 'wonder' narratives--Paul Hunter discovers a tangled set of roots for the early novel. His provocative argument for a new historicized understanding of the genre and its early readers brilliantly reveals unexpected affinities." --Patricia Meyer Spacks, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, University of Virginia |
From inside the book
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Page vii
... to Contemporaneity 167 8 " Strange , but True " : Fact , Certainty , and the Desire for Wonder 195 9 Didacticism : The Biases of Presentism and the Question of Pleasure 225 IO Directions of Didacticism : The Guide Tradition 248 II vii.
... to Contemporaneity 167 8 " Strange , but True " : Fact , Certainty , and the Desire for Wonder 195 9 Didacticism : The Biases of Presentism and the Question of Pleasure 225 IO Directions of Didacticism : The Guide Tradition 248 II vii.
Page xiii
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Page 17
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Page 31
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Page 32
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Contents
What Was New About the Novel? | 3 |
The Critical Tyranny | 29 |
II | 39 |
Readers Reading | 61 |
Time | 89 |
Place | 110 |
A World Well Lost? | 138 |
The Commitment to Contemporaneity | 167 |
Fact Certainty and the Desire for Wonder | 195 |
The Biases of Presentism | 225 |
The Guide Tradition | 248 |
13 | 255 |
History Biography | 338 |
Common terms and phrases
authority became become beginning called Chapter character claims concerns consciousness contemporary context course critics cultural describe desire detail developed didactic directions Dunton early edition effect eighteenth century England English especially example expectations fact fiction Fielding formal forms Guides human idea important individual insistent interest involves issues John kind larger late later least less literary literature lives London materials matter means Methodism mind moral narrative nature needs novel novelists novelty observers offer oral origins particular past perhaps political popular possible practice present published questions readers reading reason record religious represent rhetoric romance says seems sense seventeenth century social sometimes spiritual stories suggest texts things thought tion tradition true turn ultimately urban values whole women Wonders writing written young