PREFACE HISTORIES of the English novel have not been infrequent during the last few decades, and from the other side of the Atlantic have come many books to explain the theory, if such there be, of prose-fiction. In the following pages I have attempted to avoid doctrinal criticism, in the belief that the novel is not a subject of constitutional government nor the slave of precedent. But every art has its legitimate kingdom, the present is always inclusive of the past, and the ideas underlying these chapters on the development of English novel-writing are, I hope, consistent, if not dogmatic. Imaginative writing will, whether consciously or unconsciously, reflect something of the past, and something of contemporary life and thought, and I have tried to draw a visible thread of connection through the divisions of this book. The period covered, from Defoe to the present day, is wide, and I have attempted to name all writers exclusive, with one or two exceptions, of living authors-of the first and second order who fall within the limits of my time. I have been careful to allow the space allotted to each author to represent, as far as possible, his or her relative significance in the story of the novel. A separate chapter has been given to each of the greater names, and the lesser writers within each century have been grouped together, with due regard, once more, in the matter of space to their relative importance and interest. In comprehensiveness, in proportion and arrangement, I have tried to supply what would have seemed to have entered but slightly into the scheme of preceding histories and criticisms of the English novel. Novels other than English have only been named where it seemed necessary to trace the connections of an influence or tendency. Chapter VI. has already appeared, in lengthier form, in the Westminster Review, and for permission to reproduce it here, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness. My thanks are due to my brother, Mr. O. H. Williams, for assistance in the preparation of the index. UMBERLEIGH, DEVON, H. W. TWO CENTURIES OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL CHAPTER I PROSE-ROMANCE AND THE BIRTH OF It "NOVELS should, I take it, be transfigured experience," wrote Sir Leslie Stephen. And, if we allow a wide latitude to the word "transfigured," the definition would seem to cover all those books which we can more distinctively call novels. is not necessary, of course, that the author should himself have experienced all the events or moods he describes; but they should be near enough to his everyday life to be within the range of his sympathy. An American periodical of the day asks for "stories of experience that the reader could easily imagine might happen to himself"; and the request shows something more than mere wisdom in providing printed matter that will find a market with the ordinary reader; it roughly states a principle of illusion lying at the heart A |