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The Novel in the 1750s
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This chapter looks at the novel in the 1750s. The genre had started the decade with its reputation riding high on the remarkable success of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748–9), Tobias Smollett's Roderick Random (1748), and especially Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding. In the immediate aftermath of the last work, it was almost obligatory for other fiction writers to pay tribute to the great Fielding in their prefaces. However, the trade in new fiction remained in a drought. The average over the 1750s was around twenty-three new novels per year, ranging from a high of thirty in 1754 to a low of sixteen in 1758, compared with an average twenty-eight per annum for the 1760s.
Title: The Novel in the 1750s
Description:
This chapter looks at the novel in the 1750s.
The genre had started the decade with its reputation riding high on the remarkable success of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748–9), Tobias Smollett's Roderick Random (1748), and especially Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding.
In the immediate aftermath of the last work, it was almost obligatory for other fiction writers to pay tribute to the great Fielding in their prefaces.
However, the trade in new fiction remained in a drought.
The average over the 1750s was around twenty-three new novels per year, ranging from a high of thirty in 1754 to a low of sixteen in 1758, compared with an average twenty-eight per annum for the 1760s.
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