The Novel: A Biography

Schmidt (poetry, Univ. of Glasgow; writer in residence, St. John's Coll., Cambridge; Lives of the Poets) presents what he terms a "brief" life of the novel in English, from its origins in the 14th century through 2000. Included are writers from virtually all English-speaking countries and chapters on French and Russian novelists whose works have influenced those in English. The editions Schmidt examines "ask to be reread and become living parts of memory that affect how we hear, speak, see, feel, and act"; he also discusses books that provide sources and contexts for them or that imitate them. The content consists largely of quotations from later authors commenting on earlier ones to whom they feel a connection e.g., Muriel Spark on Mary Shelley and D.H. Lawrence on Herman Melville. Biographical details are included to the extent that they are germane to the writer's work. The volume also includes a detailed time line of major authors and their works from the 13th through 20th centuries.