The Present Status of the Bibliography of English Prose Fiction Between 1660 and 1800

Abstract

No student of the development of the novel can doubt the usefulness of a check-list of English prose fiction for the years between the Restoration and the French Revolution. The successive masterpieces of fiction written during this period reveal, as no list of nineteenth century novels could, a wide divergency of type, purpose, and method. Such books as Oroonoko, Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Clarissa Harlowe, Tom Jones, Rasselas, Tristram Shandy, The Adventures of a Guinea, The Castle of Otranto, Humphrey Clinker, Evelina, Vathek, Caleb Williams, and Castle Rackrent clearly do not represent stages in a single line of development, but rather the culmination of various traditions or the combination in varying proportion of obscure tendencies. Behind these outstanding works of genius lies a relatively uncharted hinterland of experimental and contributory forms. When we recall that the fiction of this century and a half ranges from The Grand Cyrus to Goody Two Shoes, from Mrs. Manley's New Atlantis to Miss Edgeworth's Parent's Assistant, the need of some chart for the shifting cross-currents of literary fashion becomes apparent. But were a priori reasons lacking, the attempts made by several scholars during the last few years to compile a bibliography of fiction would afford a sufficient pragmatic sanction for our interest in the field.