The Development of the English Novel (Hardbound - 2018)

This book aims to trace the course of English fiction from earliest times to modern times and its continental sources. Wilbur Cross skilfully simplifies the process of change, of challenge and response, of interaction between the individual writer and his epoch and of the present with the past epochs. He adopts a scientific approach to the study of history of modern fiction in English. He applies the scientific principles of modification, variation, deviation, persistence and transformation for assessing and appraising individual works of fiction, their authors and the times in which they were written. Scholarly yet simple, this book defies ageing. University teachers and students, scholars and researchers, just cannot afford to miss it.

Wilbur L. Cross (1862--1948), was an American literary critic who served as the 71st Governor of Connecticut from 1931 to 1939. He graduated from Yale University and served as principal of Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut for a short time around 1885 before returning to Yale as a graduate student, earning a Ph.D. in English literature in 1889. Cross became a well-known literary critic. Along with C.F. Tucker Brooke, Cross was the editor of the Yale Shakespeare; he also edited the Yale Review for almost 30 years. He wrote several books, including Life and Times of Laurence Sterne and The History of Henry Fielding.