Newcastle, and "The Letters of a Portuguese Nun” (1678). The method gives certain technical advantages: a varied point of view, emotional vividness, and opportunity for minute selfrevelation. The selections chosen exhibit Richardson's attitude toward his heroine as the chief vehicle for his moral purpose, his sentimentality, his dramatic power in the handling of incident, and his realistic use of specific detail in scene, characterization, and action.

"The History of Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding (1749) is a novel of manners with a well-defined strain of adventure. The author's critical attitude toward himself, his work, and the public is attested by numerous chapters in serio-humorous vein scattered throughout the book, which, taken together, form a competent body of literary criticism. The selections from "Tom Jones," including some of these chapters, aim to present the hero's career rather fully up to the moment of his departure from Mr. Allworthy's. Further than this it seemed unwise to venture, because of the difficulties offered by the increasing complication of plot. This portion of the story well illustrates Fielding's humor and irony, his skill in describing character in action, and his power of vivid reconstruction of middle-class country lite in the eighteenth century.

"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent." by Rev. Laurence Sterne (1759-67) marks the period of decadence by the breaking down of the novel form and the preponderance of sentiment. The book is famous, not only for the unique qualities of its wit and style, but also for the creation of a few great characters, foremost among whom stands "My Uncle Toby," happily presented in these selections.

"Humphry Clinker" by Tobias George Smollett (1771) is a story of love, adventure, and mystery told in epistolary form. It reflects the period of decadence in the breaking down of plot, in the descent from character to caricature, and in the display of farcical humor. The selections give various phases of Smollett's humor, the beginning of the serious love interest, and the introduction of the titular hero.

"Evelina" by Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay) (1778), another example of the epistolary method, is an excellent repre

sentative of the novel of manners of the type perfected by Jane Austen. In technique it is decidedly superior to many of its contemporaries in the novelistic field. The excerpts get the story under way, and depict two of the heroine's poignant experiences in London, heightened by a faithfully realistic portrayal of urban background.

"The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole (1764). Among the better types of fiction in this period of decline the Gothic novel holds a prominent place. This species of novel illustrates that important activity of the Romantic Movement which sought to reconstruct the mediæval past, expressing itself among other ways, in the erection of sham castles, and in the imposition upon the public of sham ballads and sham epics. The motive of the novel, however, was ethically upon a higher plane than that of these other literary forms. "The Castle of Otranto," important as the first pure specimen of the type, and exhibiting, unrelieved, all the unique machinery of the Gothic genre is here given in its entirety. Additional value now attaches to the book because it is out of print, and therefore very difficult of access. All these facts, together with the comparative brevity of the story, have urged its appearing here in complete form.

"The Mysteries of Udolpho" by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1794) marks the highest development attained by the Gothic novel in the eighteenth century. It reveals, too, another important phase of the Romantic Movement, the interest in external nature. Here, the austere mechanism of "Otranto" becomes even more effective through the addition of descriptions of the wild and the melancholy aspects of nature carefully worked into harmony with the general theme. The selections exhibit these particular characteristics.

"The Man of Feeling" by Henry Mackenzie (1771), said to be the most sentimental of all English novels, marks the extreme of the novel of feeling. It reflects, moreover, the various humanitarian interests and the revolutionary ideals of the period. The selections here illustrate the formlessness, the characteristic philosophy, and the sentimentality of this exaggerated example of the decadent novel.

"The History of Sandford and Merton" by Thomas Day

(1783-89) is ostentatiously a novel with a purpose. The book represents still another phase of the Romantic Movement: the humanitarian interest, given special impetus by Rousseau and manifested in new ideas concerning the education of children, and in sympathy toward the lower classes, the lower animals, and inanimate nature - a tendency often weakening into sentimentalism. "Sandford and Merton," following loosely the dictates of "Émile," attempts to show the superiority of the natural method of education over that pursued in the artificial society of the time. In this respect the book forms a good companion piece to "Nature and Art." The excerpts deal with incidents showing in an extreme way the results of these opposite methods upon the respective heroes of the book, Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton, and include a little tale offered to these young gentlemen for their moral delectation.

"Nature and Art" by Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald (1796), like "Sandford and Merton," is a novel of purpose representing the educational aspect of the era of feeling. The two may well be compared as to situation, character, and purpose. Both attempt to expose the insincerity and greed of the artificial society of the day as contrasted with the virtues of the natural man, in this case a child unspoiled by conventional training.

"Caleb Williams" by William Godwin (1794) illustrates the political theories current in England during the period of the French Revolution. The feeling which in these other novels of purpose expressed itself in an interest in humanitarian movements and in naturalness and sincerity in education, here manifests itself in an attack on the various forms of injustice to which society is prone, including the injustice of man to man. It is particularly the latter point that is illustrated in these selections.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS

British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books. London, 1882-1889; supplement, 1900-1905.

Cambridge History of English Literature, edited by A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller,

1907-1914 (unfinished); see especially Vols. III, VII, IX, X, XI.

Dictionary of National Biography, edited by L. Stephen and S. Lee. London, 1885-1900; supplement, 1901; second supplement, 1912.

TRAILL, H. D. Social England. New edition. London and New York, 1901–1904.

II. THE NOVEL, GENERAL

BESANT, SIR WALTER. The Art of Fiction. A lecture. New edition. London and Boston, 1884.

BOURGET, PAUL. "Réflexions sur l'art du roman," in Études et portraits. Paris, 1889.

BRUNETIÈRE, FERDINAND. Le roman naturaliste. Paris, 1896.

CROSS, W. L. The Development of the English Novel. New York, 1906. (Bibliography.)

DAWSON, W. J. Makers of English Fiction. Chicago, 1905.

DUNLOP, J. C. A History of Prose Fiction, revised by H. Wilson. London, 1906. (Bibliography.)

JAMES, HENRY. Essay in rejoinder on "The Art of Fiction," in Partial Portraits. London and New York, 1888.

Notes on Novelists with Some Other Notes. New York, 1914.

JUSSERAND, J. J. The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, translated by Elizabeth Lee. London, 1890.

LANIER, SIDNEY. The English Novel. Revised edition. New York, 1897. MASSON, DAVID. British Novelists and their Styles. Revised edition. Boston, 1859. MATTHEWS, BRANDER. Aspects of Fiction. New York, 1896.

The Historical Novel and Other Essays. New York, 1901.

MORGAN, CHARLOTTE E. The Rise of the Novel of Manners: a Study of English Prose Fiction between 1600 and 1740, in Columbia University Studies in English. Columbia University Press, New York, 1911. (Bibliography.) PERRY, BLISS. A Study of Prose Fiction. New York, 1903. (Bibliography.) RALEIGH, WALTER. The English Novel. London, 1903.

SAINTSBURY, GEORGE. The English Novel, in Channels of English Literature. New York, 1913.