Reading Fictions, 1660-1740

Kate Loveman explores the ways in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century reading habits were applied to and shaped genres. Examining works by authors such as Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding, she recovers a lost critical discourse through which authors and readers interrogated, mocked, and elaborated fictions. Her lively book offers a striking new approach to Restoration and eighteenth-century literature and politics, in particular to understanding the development of the novel.