The English Novel in the Romantic Era: Consolidation and Dispersal

Abstract

Abstract The years from 1800 to 1829 are indisputably of pivotal importance in the history of the novel. Traditionally the Romantic period in terms of fiction is viewed as the age of Walter Scott and Jane Austen, whose input into the larger tradition of the novel has been commented on at length, and whose published works have enjoyed intense bibliographical scrutiny. In recent years other novelists, such as Maria Edgeworth and Mary Shelley, have benefited from the bibliographical attention that goes with scholarly editing, and a broader interest in certain generic fields, notably the Gothic and women’s fiction, has led to both facsimile series and specialist check-lists. Commencing in the immediate wake of an efflorescence of female novel-writing, yet also characterized by some commentators as involving in its later stages the hijacking of prose fiction by male writers for male readers, the period evidently stands at an important crossroads in terms of the gender distribution of authorship.

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