Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder

by Sarah Tindal Kareem

A footprint materializes mysteriously on a deserted shore; a giant helmet falls from the sky; a traveler awakens to find his horse dangling from a church steeple. Eighteenth-century British fiction brims with moments such as these, in which the prosaic rubs up against the marvelous. While it is a truism that the period's literature is distinguished by its realism and air of probability, Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder argues that wonder is integral to--rather than antithetical to--the developing techniques of novelistic fiction. Positioning its reader on the cusp between recognition and estrangement, between faith and doubt, modern fiction hinges upon wonder.

Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder' s chapters unfold its new account of British fiction's rise through surprising new readings of classic early novels-from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey --as well as bringing to attention lesser known works, most notably Rudolf Raspe's Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels . In this bold new account, the eighteenth century bears witness not to the world's disenchantment but rather to wonder's re-location from the supernatural realm to the empirical world, providing a re-evaluation not only of how we look back at the Enlightenment, but also of how we read today.

Genres: History

294 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2014