Category Archives: literary history

The Rise of the Novel

By chris | Published: 5 November 2009
[While writing the conclusion for the Mansfield Park essay (which I am about to post) I realised that it relies on an assumption that may not be widely shared--that the rise of the realistic novel in the 18th century was a significant factor in the development of modern thought--so I will discuss it here first.] The [...]
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Scott on Emma

By chris | Published: 4 November 2009
This post is part of my series of posts looking at the impact of the novel on Enlightenment ethics. It follows the previous post giving Johnson’s view of the realistic novel set out in The Rambler No 4. The publisher of Emma, John Murray, asked Walter Scott to review the novel, which appeared anonymously in the [...]
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Johnson on the Realistic Novel

By chris | Published: 4 November 2009
As part of my enquiries in into the impact of the modern realistic novel on Enlightenment (in preparation for the conclusion of the Mansfield Park essay) I am reproducing the text of Samuel Johnson’s Rambler No. 4 (31st March 1750, taken from here). It is widely assumed to be a response to the publication of [...]
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