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Article: Prefiguring genre: frontispiece portraits from 'Gulliver's Travels' to 'Millenium Hall.' (English novels)(Making Genre: Studies in the Novel or Something Like It, 1684-1762)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- June 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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During the early decades of the genre's formation, English novels' material embodiments as printed books rivaled their narrative contents in diversity and creativity. This parallel between formal and stylistic rambunctiousness is unsurprising: novels were the new species of writing, unpoliced by audience expectation or print convention. As a result, writers of prose fiction during the first half of the eighteenth century experimented broadly (and, broadly, every publication was an experiment) with the material presentation of the novel as well as its narrative content. Assisted by printers and publishers, these authors enthusiastically mined print culture for forms that ...