THE ENGLISH NOVEL

BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

LONDON: J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 1913
NEW YORK: E.P. BUTTON & CO.




PREFACE


It is somewhat curious that there is, so far as I know, no complete
handling in English of the subject of this volume, popular and important
though that subject has been. Dunlop's _History of Fiction_, an
excellent book, dealt with a much wider matter, and perforce ceased its
dealing just at the beginning of the most abundant and brilliant
development of the English division. Sir Walter Raleigh's _English
Novel_, a book of the highest value for acute criticism and grace of
style, stops short at Miss Austen, and only glances, by a sort of
anticipation, at Scott. The late Mr. Sidney Lanier's _English Novel and
the Principle of its Development_ is really nothing but a laudatory
study of "George Eliot," with glances at other writers, including