English Literature: Early Novelists, Historicisms and the World Wide Web

Abstract

AbstractIn the last thirty years scholarly attention has moved from the study of poets, playwrights and essayists towards the study of novelists, particularly women novelists. Academics in English departments are also increasingly concerned with a range of ‘non‐literary’ texts, and there has been burgeoning interest in the book trade and the history of the book. The irruption of ‘theory’ into eighteenth‐century English studies resulted in a huge shift in methodological awareness, but this pales into insignificance beside the impact of computers in general and the World Wide Web in particular.