Free Jane Austen For Dummies by Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray Page A

he’s the author.
    This section highlights other forms of writing that preceded and influenced the development of the novel in England. Notice that the word “novel” also means “new”—as in the phrase, “What a novel idea!”
    Influencing the creation of the novel
    A novel has several characteristics:
    It presents realistic, breathing characters, which are products of the author’s imagination, who live their lives on the pages as we read.
    It is a fictional prose narrative.
    The novel’s length is considerable, say at least 200 pages.
    Its characters and actions represent real life of past or present times in a plot with varied complexity.
    It brings us into the lives of characters who are learning how to live through trial and error — characters try something else and finally (hopefully!) learn from their mistakes.
    The novel didn’t develop spontaneously and fully grown like Athena did from the head of Zeus. A variety of sources contributed to the growth of the novel as we know it today.
    Newspapers
    One of the earliest influences on the development of the novel was the newspaper. Newspapers offer the latest news: News is set in reality and occurs here and now. Events in a novel occur here and now on the page of the book! Newspapers went from hand to hand: One person bought it and would pass it on. Thus, newspapers had wide circulations beyond the original purchasers. So many readers were familiar with newspapers. Reading newspapers taught them to be novel readers.

    The first English daily newspaper,
The Daily Courant,
founded in 1702, obviously couldn’t bring up-to-the-minute news reports to its readers the way newspapers can today with faxes, e-mails, and cell phones. Also, the newspaper was printed by hand, a time-consuming process. The
Courant
and its followers did offer readers actual news of new events occurring in different parts of the world, even though the news was several days (if it was carried by horseback rider), weeks, or months (if it was carried by ship) old. But to readers of the 18th century, this was news because they just learned about it in the newspaper. It was
new
information.
    Personal guide books
    Another early influence on the formulation of the novel included personal guides or conduct books, which were highly popular in the early 18th century: They had titles like
A Young Man’s Guide
or
The Whole Duty of Man
. (And you thought self-help books were a phenomenon beginning in the 1990’s!) As a new and growing middle class learned how to live, they sought all sorts of conduct and guide books about customs and manners. Many folks moved from the country to the city, experiencing a whole new lifestyle, a whole new world, requiring new modes of behavior. Novels introduce us to new characters and lifestyles, and the characters in novels usually have something new to learn. Moreover, unless a character is living an isolated life on a remote island (like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe), he or she must learn how to live in society and deal with all types of social interactions. Thus, personal guides provided a basis for characters’ experiences in the novel.
    Pamphlets and tracts
    During the 17th century, readers enjoyed pamphlets and tracts about true accounts of murders, fires, and robberies. They also enjoyed reading about travel to exotic places. Lots of these pamphlets told sensational tales. Reading these works entertained people and took them out of themselves and to another world. Has that ever happened to you while reading a novel?
    Because a novel merely
represents
real life, the lives of Elizabeth Bennet or Mr. Knightley in their novels may not be factually true, but their life experiences certainly represent reality and the truth.
    Diaries, biographies, and autobiographies
    Diaries, biographies, and autobiographies were three other favorite nonfiction reading materials, which all shared a common characteristic: recording an