NOVEL 



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NOVEL 



The Novel in England. During the Eliza- 

 bethan Age in England romances were pro- 

 duced, but the spirit of the age found the drama 

 a more fitting expression, and it was not until 

 the eighteenth century that fiction in England 

 began to have an important place. Once estab- 

 lished, however, it easily dominated other forms 

 of literature, and this domination has continued 

 to the present day. John Bunyan possessed to 

 a high degree the story-teller's gift, and he 

 had, too, the art which made his story seem 

 true. Pilgrim's Progress, however, was not in- 

 tended merely to entertain; its allegory had a 

 far more serious purpose. In 1719 there ap- 

 peared a book which was purely a work of fic- 

 tioa a masterpiece of realism, and this book, 

 Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, is usually 

 accounted the first in the long line of English 

 novels. His other works had all the art and 

 realism of the first, but no one of them equaled 

 it in interest. Swift published his Gulliver's 

 Travels in 1726, but this work must be ac- 

 counted a satirical romance rather than a novel. 



The next great English novelist became one 

 almost by accident. It was not Richardson's 

 purpose originally to produce a work of fiction, 

 but 'his series of letters gradually took that 

 form, and Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, was 

 received on its publication in 1740 with the 

 greatest enthusiasm. Two other novels by the 

 same author, Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles 

 Grandison, were written in the same form, and 

 were, like the first, extremely long. One thing 

 ih*y all possessed, however, was clear, definite 

 character analysis, one of the most important 

 requirements in any novel. Among the voices 

 which greeted Pamela there. was one, that of 

 Henry Fi Ming, which had for the new work 

 with its deliberateness and its excessively moral 

 tone only derision. Fielding at once set to 

 work to produce a tale which should burlesque 

 Richardson's, but he became so much interested 

 in his task that his original aim was overlooked, 

 and he produced, one after the other, Joseph 

 Andrews, Tom Jones and Amelia, all wonder- 

 fully exact pictures of the life of his day. 

 Smollett and Sterne each contributed some- 

 thing to the development of the novel, though 

 in the writings of both there is an absence of 

 definite plot, a carelessness in construction, 

 which makes it almost impossible to rank their 

 works as real novels. Goldsmith's Vicar oj 

 Wake field is not remarkable for the construc- 

 tion of its plot, but it has other qualities which 

 place it among the classics of English fiction 

 and make it popular to-day. 



Distinctions in the kinds of novels were no- 

 ticeable from the very first ; some laid emphasis 

 on character, some on a delineation of manners, 

 while some depended for interest wholly on a 

 plot, and these distinctions became more and 

 more marked. Among authors of the novel 

 of manners, Frances Burney was the first to 

 win notice, while Jane Austen brought the type 

 to a point of perfection which has never since 

 been equaled. Mrs. RadclifTe and Horace Wai- 

 pole were early members in what has been 

 called the "skeleton-in-the-cupboard" school; 

 that is, they dealt in all sorts of ghostly hor- 

 rors. At length the romance began to take a 

 historical turn, Jane Porter having produced a 

 really excellent historic novel in The Scottish 

 Chiefs. Foremost among writers of this class 

 in his own and future times was Scott, whose 

 imitators both in his own country and on the 

 continent are numerous. 



Charles Dickens, however, was not one of 

 these imitators. To him the novel was rather 

 a picture of present-day life, presented in all its 

 details, whether romantic or sordid. Such won- 

 derful vogue did his novels have that they 

 became a real influence, and of this influence 

 Dickens made use by introducing into almost 

 every novel a crusade against some evil in 

 society. In Oliver Twist it was a workhouse 

 system; in Little Dorritt the debtors' prison; 

 in Bleak House the abuses in the court system. 

 Other authors followed his example, though 

 some of them, as Thackeray, directed their 

 efforts not so much against institutions, as 

 against the shams and hypocrisies of society 

 at large. The only name in this period worthy 

 to rank with those of Dickens and Thackeray 

 is that of George Eliot, whose novels, if not 

 so popular as those of her two great contem- 

 poraries, have a power of character analysis 

 rarely, if ever, surpassed. 



The list of those who in the nineteenth and 

 early twentieth century in England contributed 

 to the output of novels is long. Some of them, 

 as Charlotte Bronte\ Stevenson, Meredith. 

 Hardy, were real masters of this form of writ- 

 ing, while scores of others produced works that 

 have a permanent place in English literature. 



American Novelists. The earliest writers in 

 America were men of very serious purpose, 

 who had no thought for fiction. The first to 

 produce anything really worthy of the name 

 of novel was Charles Brockden Browne, whose 

 weird, morbid tales had considerable popularity 

 but are little read to-day. The stirring tales of 

 adventure by James Feniniore Cooper are the 



