Makers of English Fiction

One cannot read a single chapter of this book and say that literary criticism as a fine art is a thing of the past. Upon the foundation of absolute knowledge, and with a mind free from contemporary literary fads, Dr. Dawson points out the rising tide of fiction in the English tongue. The authors considered are not many, but each one is typical, and the list ends with Stevenson. The book is marked by insight, sympathy and common sense.

CONTENTS
I. The Father of English Fiction
II. Richardson, and the Novel of Sentiment
III. From Fielding to Jane Austen
IV. Jane Austen, and the Novel of Social Comedy
V. The Waverley Novels
VI. Scott’s Greatness
VII. William Makepeace Thackeray
VIII. Characteristics of Thackeray
IX. Charles Dickens
X. The Greatness of Dickens
XI. The Brontës
XII. George Eliot
XIII. Charles Reade
XIV. Charles Kingsley
XV. George Meredith
XVI. Thomas Hardy
XVII. Robert Louis Stevenson
XVIII. Religion in Fiction
XIX. American Novelists
XX. Concluding Survey