Saintsbury traces English fiction from its roots in medieval romance through Lyly, Sidney and the Elizabethans, the four great eighteenth-century masters he calls the wheels of the novel wain — Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne — and on through Mrs. Radcliffe’s castles, Austen and Scott to the Victorians. His judgments are personal, opinionated and drawn from a lifetime of reading.
A lively single-volume history of the novel for readers who like criticism with personality. Download the free EPUB.