Anthology and the Rise of the Novel

The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel, first published in 2000, brings together two traditionally antagonistic fields, book history and narrative theory, to challenge established theories of 'the rise of the novel'. Leah Price shows that far from leveling class or gender distinctions, as has long been claimed, the novel has consistently located them within its own audience. Shedding new light on Richardson and Radcliffe, Scott and George Eliot, this book asks why the epistolary novel disappeared, how the book review emerged, why eighteenth-century abridgers designed their books for women while Victorian publishers marketed them to men, and how editors' reproduction of old texts has shaped authors' production of new ones. This innovative study will change the way we think not just about the history of reading, but about the genealogy of the canon wars, the future of intellectual property, and the role that anthologies play in our own classrooms.

'Leah Price has written a very original, imaginative, and compelling book. Who knew that George Eliot was stalked by readers trying to claim credit for writing her novels? Or that Ann Radcliffe introduced the practice of heading chapters with epigraphs? Who has ever noticed that skimming is like abridgement and skipping is like anthologising? Such delectable morsels alone would make this book attractive. When mixed in with its original and imaginative approach to literary history, they make The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel positively irresistible.' Mary Poovey, 'Leah Price's study addresses a form of literature which has often been very little regarded or valued: that of the anthology and the abridgement. Price has produced a brilliant analysis of the uses of such volumes and has succeeded in re-casting questions usually ignored in literary criticism.' Gillian Beer, 'Where other studies have examined the history of the novel in relation to romance, to the rise of the middle class or to emergent forms of subjectivity 'the discours du jour', Leah Price looks at novels in relation to the history of the book, and to the proliferation of anthologies in particular. It is a refreshing change … The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel opens with a brilliant consideration of Samuel Richardson's career … Her book is rich in insights, among the most striking that the process of skimming is like abridging, and that the process of skipping is like anthologising. This observation is delightfully scandalous: very few people, and even fewer academics, ever publicly admit to being bored by long novels, to skimming them, or to skipping to passages which seem more interesting.' Claudia Johnson, London Review of Books, 'Price … brings together book history and narrative theory in subtle ways to reach sometimes surprisingly original and engaging conclusions about the effects anthologizers, abridgers, and republishers have had on the production and form of narratives, particularly women's fiction … The book is unusually well informed by contemporaneous as well as contemporary reviews and criticism. Equally refreshing is the thoughtfulness and frequent wry duality of Price's observations … Essential for any self-respecting academic library …' Choice, 'Leah Price's dazzlingly inventive The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel gives novel theory an original turn at the start of the twenty-first century. Price executes with elegance and dexterity not one, but many conceptual leaps as she charts the development of the anthology and its influence on the form of the novel.' Joe Bray - RES

Leah Price is Professor of English at Harvard University.