Ways of Fiction

The essays gathered here capture fresh perspectives on the literary environments of the eighteenth century. The core concern of this volume is culture – the ways in which it shapes literature and is in turn influenced by it: the “ways” of fiction. Especially commissioned from experts in the field, essays cover the whole of the century, embracing such themes as class, gender, nationhood, politics, and identity.Through scrutiny of familiar and less well-known authors alike, the collection forms a stimulating and provocative anthology. It will naturally appeal to scholars and students of the novel, as well as to historians of culture, and all those concerned with eighteenth-century studies. A broader readership will also find much here to enhance their appreciation of fiction as a cultural artefact. Responding to a growing fascination with this period in British history, these essays open vital new perspectives on the novel at a key moment in its development.

Nicholas J. Crowe taught and researched at Oxford for 25 years. He was Senior Dean at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford and, before that, Research Fellow at St John’s College and Lecturer and Tutor at Hertford College, and at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. His interests – in which he has published extensively – focus on English and comparative literature, particularly at their borders with intellectual history, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. He has chaired nine major international conferences, and is a frequent invited lecturer in Britain and Europe, as well as the USA, where he has held Visiting Professorships. In addition to some 50 articles on literature, language, and the history of ideas, his earlier books include a scholarly edition of Jeremias Drexel’s Christian Zodiac (2013), and an edited volume, Rhetoric in the Twenty-First Century (2016).