History and the Early English Novel: Matters of Fact from Bacon to Defoe

by Robert Mayer

Overview

Robert Mayer argues that the modern English novel emerged from historical writing. Historical discourse in the seventeenth century embraced not only "history" in its modern sense, but also fiction, polemic, gossip, and marvels. Mayer shows how the narratives of Daniel Defoe—unlike those of his contemporaries Aphra Behn and Delarivière Manley—were read, in their own time, as history, making connections that later novelists developed. This new study makes an important contribution to the continuing debate about the origins of the novel in Britain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521604475
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/29/2004
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought , #33
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Baconian historiography: the contours of historical discourse in seventeenth-century England; 2. 'Idle trash' or 'Reliques of something true'? the fate of Brute and Arthur and the power of tradition; 3. The History of Myddle: memory, history, and power; 4. Lifewriting and historiography, fiction and fact: Baxter, Clarendon, and Hutchingson on the English civil war; 5. The secret history of the last Stuart kings; 6. 'Knowing strange things': the historical discourse in the century before Robinson Crusoe; 7. 'History' before Defoe: Nashe, Deloney, Behn, Manley; 8. Defoe's historical practice: from 'The Ages Humble Servant' to Major Alexander Ramkins; 9. 'Facts that are form'd to touch the mind': Defoe's narratives as forms of historical discourse; 10. From history to the novel: the reception of Defoe; Conclusion; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a well-researched look at the writing and reading of history in the 17th century..." H. Benoist, Choice

From the Publisher