The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson And Fielding

"The Rise of the Novel is Ian Watt's classic description of the interworkings of social conditions, changing attitudes, and literary practices during the period when the novel emerged as the dominant literary form of the individualist era. Erudite, yet gracefully written and often amusing, Watt's study examines the nature of the novel audience, the role of the book trade, and the changing structure of society at large."--BOOK JACKET.

Praise for the new (2001) edition:

"Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel still seems to me far and away the best book ever written on the early English novel—wise, humane, beautifully organized and expressed, one of the absolutely indispensable critical works in modern literary scholarship. And W. B. Carnochan's brilliant introduction does a wonderful job of showing how Watt's book came into being and changed for good the way the novel in general is taught and understood."—Max Byrd, author of Grant: A Novel

"Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel remains the single indispensable, absolutely essential book for students of the 18th-century novel."—John Richetti, author of The English Novel in History: 1700-1780

Praise for the original edition:

"A remarkable book. . . . A pioneer work in the application of modern sociology to literature."—Manchester Guardian

"An outstanding contribution to the field of historical sociology and the sociology of knowledge. . . . The author has set the 'rise of the novel' as a new literary genre in the social context of eighteenth-century England, with emphasis on the predominant middle-class features of the period."—American Journal of Sociology