Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns 1700-1739 (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Richetti, John

ISBN 10: 0198112637 / ISBN 13: 9780198112631

Published by Oxford University Press, USA, 1992

About this Item

A study of those narratives which, although neglected by historians of the novel, provide us today with examples of highly successful commercial exploitations of enduring stereotypes such as the criminal, the traveller-merchant, the persecuted maiden and the aristocratic seducer. Series: Clarendon Paperbacks. Num Pages: 304 pages. BIC Classification: 2AB; 3JF; DSBD; DSK. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 216 x 139 x 17. Weight in Grams: 390. . 1992. Revised ed. paperback. . . . .

Seller Inventory # V9780198112631

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns 1700-1739 (Clarendon Paperbacks)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198112637
• ISBN 13: 9780198112631
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Now a standard work on the subject, Popular Fiction before Richardson surveys the largely forgotten fiction from the first forty years of the eighteenth century. Issued for the first time in paperback with a new introduction by the author, this is a study of those narratives which were written and widely read in England, but which have been previously neglected by historians of the novel. Richetti makes no claims for these works as literary achievements--they are seen, rather, as vigorous and highly successful commercial exploitations of enduring stereotypes such as the criminal, the traveller-merchant, the persecuted maiden, and the aristocratic seducer. Setting them against the background of the age, the book accounts for the attractiveness of such figures and their characteristic adventures, and evaluates the importance of these narratives in providing a set of conventional and meaningful characters and situations for the mid eighteenth-century masters of the novel such as Richardson and Fielding.

Review

`a real book, a good book. He is thoughtful and he makes you think. He sees the inherent triviality of his material, but sees in this a far from trivial question, "What is the use of bad art?" To raise the question at all is to give the book substance. It tells us that the material is going to be handled intelligently.' Review of English Studies `excellent and intelligent book' Times Literary Supplement