Before Jane Austen

Few centuries have seen greater changes in social perspective and guiding ideas than the eighteenth century; literature in every Western country was a powerful instrument not only in recording these changes but in bringing them about. In England, the rise and development of a new literary form – the novel – graphically mirrors that great transition in social ideology, often with rare entertainment. Originally published in 1965, in the words of Professor Steeves: ‘This volume is to deal with the