The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Sir Walter Raleigh

Critical Essay by Sir Walter Raleigh

SOURCE: "The Novels of the Eighteenth Century," in The English Novel: A Short Sketch of Its History from the Earliest Times to the Appearance of "Waverly", John Murray, 1894, pp. 180-215.

In the following excerpt, Raleigh considers whether Rasselas belongs to the novel genre.

The contributions of Johnson and Goldsmith to prose fiction are examples of pure eighteenth-century work. It was in the year 1759, some months before the publication of the earliest instalment of Tristram Shandy, that the great Cham descended into the arena of the novelists with his moral apologue called The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. His immediate object in writing it was, as the printer told Boswell, "that with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral and pay some little debts that she had left." There could be no doubt that a novel by the great lexicographer would be eagerly bought...
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