Abstract
This chapter considers the period after the Plague as well as the Fire of London. During this time, the euphoria of Charles II's Restoration faltered and the defeated ‘Puritan’ voice re-emerged, which proved momentous for the history of the novel, even though no major English novels appeared. The chapter reveals fascinating experiments with the romance genre, prefaces that promote the self-conscious author and conduct lively theoretical debates over the nature of fiction, translations of canonical works, and a general move towards realism, loosely defined. ‘Novelistic’ features developed in many genres. Meanwhile, other members of the Royal Society developed habits of observing and recording minutiae in their own experience. This close attention to details conventionally considered trivial — common to the scientific revolution and to the self-scrutiny demanded by radical Protestantism — played a significant role in the evolution of novelistic realism.
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