The Lives of the Novel – A History

"The Lives of the Novel is an extraordinary accomplishment, one that few would have dared to attempt and fewer still have had the talent to pull off. At once a work of intellectual and literary history, literary theory, and moral philosophy, all delivered in an unstintingly limpid, flowing, impassioned prose, it constitutes a worthy successor to the efforts of Auerbach, Bakhtin, Lukacs, and Watt. It may, indeed, prove a formidable rival to all four."--Joshua Landy, Stanford University

"Brilliant, provocative, and clearly and forcefully argued, this is an instant classic of literary criticism. Addressing nothing less than the history of the novel from its beginnings in ancient Greece to the second half of the twentieth century, Pavel analyzes more than a hundred works, presenting exciting new ways of understanding them and their place in the genre's development."--David Quint, Yale University