EDITED BY PROFESSOR KNIGHT.

THE ENGLISH NOVEL.

GENERAL PLAN OF THE SERIES.

The Series is primarily designed to aid the University Extension Movement throughout Great Britain and America, and to supply the need so widely felt by students, of Text-books for study and reference, in connection with the authorised Courses of Lectures. Volumes dealing with separate sections of Literature, Science, Philosophy, History, and Art have been assigned to representative literary men, to University Professors, or to extension Lecturers connected with Oxford, Cambridge, London, and the Universities of Scotland and Ireland.

The Manuals differ from those already in existence in that they are not intended for Elementary use, but for students who have made some advance in the subjects dealt with. The statement of details is meant to illustrate the working of general laws, and the development of principles; while the historical evolution of the subject dealt with is kept in view, along with its philosophical significance.

ness.

The remarkable success which has attended University Extension in Britain has been partly due to the combination of scientific treatment with popularity, and to the union of simplicity with thorough. This movement, however, can only reach those resident in the larger centres of population, while all over the country there are thoughtful persons who desire the same kind of teaching. It is for them also that this Series is designed. Its aim is to supply the general reader with the same kind of teaching as is given in the Lectures, and to reflect the spirit which has characterised the movement, viz., the combination of principles with facts, and of methods with results.

The Manuals are also intended to be contributions to the Literature of the subjects with which they respectively deal, quite apart from University Extension; and some of them will be found to meet a general rather than a special want.

THE

ENGLISH NOVEL

BEING

A SHORT SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES

TO THE APPEARANCE

OF WAVERLEY

BY

WALTER RALEIGH

PROFESSOR OF MODERN LITERATURE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE
MOHAMMEDAN ANGLO-ORIENTAL COLLEGE, ALIGARH

SECOND EDITION

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1896

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.