HENA01095U Elective 1: Introduction to British Studies A: Experiments in Narrative Technique in the Early Novel

Though the novel is such a familiar type of literary production today, this was not the case in the early 18th century, when authors striving to achieve realism based their writing on a number of non-fictional genres such as travellers’ tales, memoirs and epistolary correspondence. We will read some examples of 18th-century novelistic experimentation, and also learn about the book trade and reading public which were the conditions of their existence.