The Channels of English Literature Edited by OLIPHANT SMEATON, M.A. ENGLISH EPIC AND HEROIC POETRY. ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. By ERNEST RHYS. ENGLISH DRAMA. By Professor F. E. SCHELLING, Litt.D. ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS AND SCHOOLS By Professor JAMES SETH, M.A., University of Edinburgh. THE ENGLISH ESSAY AND ESSAYISTS. By Professor HUGH WALKER, LL.D., St. David's College, Lampeter. THE ENGLISH NOVEL. By Professor GEORGE SAINTSBURY, D.Litt., ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY. By WALDO H. DUNN, M.A., Litt. D., Professor of English Language and Literature in the College of Wooster, U.S.A. THE ENGLISH NOVEL Edword BYLL GEORGE SAINTSBURY FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 10/13 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 2 1924 NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 7-8-27 15231 6-7-67 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 violent denunciations of the great eighteenthcentury men. There are numerous monographs on parts of the subject: but nothing else that I know even attempting the whole. I should, of course, have liked to deal with so large a matter in a larger space: but one may and should "cultivate the garden" even if it is not a garden of many acres in extent. I need only add that I have endeavoured, not so much to give "reviews" of individual books and authors, as to indicate what Mr. Lanier took for the V |