There is no shortage of scholarship on 18th-century fiction, and criticism of 18th-century verse is not far behind. For the most part, though, these are separate fields of study, and until now only G. Gabrielle Starr's Lyric Generations: Poetry and the Novel in the Long Eighteenth Century had taken their interaction seriously. Now two junior scholars, Parker and Smith, have brought together an international team of scholars to explore the relationships between the novel and poetry in 18th-century Britain. The contributors range from graduate students to the biggest names in the field, but all have produced learned, incisive, and original investigations into the points of contact between genres. The nine essays (and a chapter-length coda) range from close readings of individual works (Rape of the Lock, Night Thoughts, Pamela, Tristram Shandy) to ambitious attempts to rethink literary history itself. The contributors share no single 'program,' and they often disagree over both methods and conclusions. But they share a commitment to changing the traditional stories of the development of fiction and poetry. This major collection from Bucknell, a leader in 18th-century studies, is required reading for scholars. Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.

Choice Reviews

Eighteenth-Century Poetry and the Rise of the Novel Reconsidered is a provocative and timely collection well worth the attention of the reader who wishes, as Smith states in her introductory remarks, to ‘grapple with unexpected collisions and collusions between poetry and novels’. . . .[The book] counts among the year’s best books in eighteenth-century studies.

Intelligencer

This provocative collection brings large historical and theoretical claims together with close attention to individual eighteenth-century texts and in particular to the workings of literary form. . . .Parker and Weiss Smith have produced a collection that provides a varied, engaging, and challenging snapshot of where eighteenth-century studies is now that we have begun the important work of bringing genres back into conversation with one another, and which suggests exciting directions for this discussion to go next.

Eighteenth-Century Fiction