The Rise of the Novel

Praise for the new (2001) edition: "Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel still seems to me far and away the best book ever written on the early English novel--wise, humane, beautifully organized and expressed, one of the absolutely indispensable critical works in modern literary scholarship. And W. B. Carnochan's brilliant introduction does a wonderful job of showing how Watt's book came into being and changed for good the way the novel in general is taught and understood."--Max Byrd, author of Grant: A Novel "Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel remains the single indispensable, absolutely essential book for students of the 18th-century novel."--John Richetti, author of The English Novel in History: 1700-1780 Praise for the original edition: "A remarkable book. . . . A pioneer work in the application of modern sociology to literature."--Manchester Guardian "An outstanding contribution to the field of historical sociology and the sociology of knowledge. . . . The author has set the 'rise of the novel' as a new literary genre in the social context of eighteenth-century England, with emphasis on the predominant middle-class features of the period."--American Journal of Sociology