[headline]The first book-length investigation into the history of pre-chapter epigraphs in the English novel Epigraphs in the English Novel 1750-1850 uncovers the early history of the epigraph, narrating the surprising story of how this long-overlooked feature morphed from moral didactic heading to Gothic tag-line to witty realist commentary within a single century. Adorning fictional narratives of rakes and sex workers, oppressed heroines and Jacobite heroes, the epigraph has been used by authors to preach, teach, amuse, or even completely misdirect their readers. Supported by a survey of pre-chapter paratext in nearly 6000 novels published between 1750 and 1850, Corrina Readioff explores the changing influences upon and functions of epigraphs over time via detailed close readings and literary criticism. Focusing upon key generic developments, this book adopts a case-study style format to examine epigraphic usage in the works of canonical authors including Sarah Fielding, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Smith, Walter Scott and Elizabeth Gaskell, alongside those of less well-known novelists such as William Chaigneau, Elizabeth Helme and Catherine Gore. [author bio]Dr Corrina Readioff is an Honorary Associate at the University of Liverpool and specialises in eighteenth and early nineteenth century literature. She has published articles with the Review of English Studies, Swift Studies, and the Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies; in 2019 she co-founded the Eighteenth-Century Paratext Research Network. She is also a Contributing Editor to a volume of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift and is co-editing the Oxford History of Poetry in English Vol 6: Eighteenth-Century Poetry with Professor Christine Gerrard.