Remember when literary criticism was a frightening discipline, austere and combative? Its devotees were in the grip of implacable theory, or buried deep in the “text”—that sunless realm where books are forgotten, readers irrelevant and authors dead. Split into feuding factions, the high priests of...

Remember when literary criticism was a frightening discipline, austere and combative? Its devotees were in the grip of implacable theory, or buried deep in the “text”—that sunless realm where books are forgotten, readers irrelevant and authors dead. Split into feuding factions, the high priests of...

In the essay that follows, Backscheider examines some methods of influencing other people, particularly men, and bringing about change that female authors of early novels gave to their female characters.

In the following essay, Warner charts the novel's progress from "scandalous" newcomer on the literary landscape to a serious, legitimate form sanctioned by the efforts of such key figures as Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, and Clara Reeve.

In the following essay, Davis argues that early novelists put forth concepts of fiction that implicitly sought to disarm a public that paradoxically both demanded fiction and looked down upon "untruthful" tales.