Aimed at students and interested readers of prose fiction, this text offers an account of the creation and early development of the novel. In the first chapter, Hammond (U. of Nottingham) and Regan (Queen's U., Belfast) outline an approach to understanding the development of the novel that takes into account such diverse factors as the 18th-century market for fiction and the genre's relationship to forms of imaginative literature not written in prose. More than 20 novels are then analyzed, including works by Daniel Defoe, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Tobias Smollett. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)