EN 344

The 18th century is the first era in which the novel becomes both a popular and professional practice. Many authors capitalized on commercially viable topics, such as sex, scandal, crime, and shopping. Many also wrestled with philosophical and political themes, and an apparent war of extremes – sense and sensibility, science and religion, order and revolution. The British novel took many forms in this period, including “true history,” memoir, travel fiction, adventure and survival, comic romance, and the gothic.