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.

In the essay below, Backscheider examines ways in which women novelists responded to popular conceptions about their sex, some choosing to rebel against the demand for well-mannered, sentimental works, others choosing to meet common expectations in return for sales and approval.

In the following excerpt, first published in 1900 and reprinted in 1902, Stoddard proposes a law of development that he believes is applicable to any literary form: "the depiction of the external, objective, carnal, precedes, in every form of expression of which we can have records, the consideration of the internal, the subjective, the spiritual."

In the following excerpt, first published in 1899 and reprinted in 1923, Cross summarizes the course of the English novel from its roots in the seventeenth century—in the French romance, religious and social commentary, diary, biography, and character sketch—to the characteristically "realist" English novel that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century.

In the following excerpt, Todd surveys the primary female novelists of the genre's early development, as well as the major styles adopted by those pioneers.