Reading Fictions, 1660-1740 : Deception in English Literary and Political Culture

Kate Loveman explores the ways in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century reading habits were applied to and shaped genres. Examining works by authors such as Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding, she recovers a lost critical discourse through which authors and readers interrogated, mocked, and elaborated fictions. Her lively book offers a striking new approach to Restoration and eighteenth-century literature and politics, in particular to understanding the development of the novel.

English society in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was fascinated by deception, and concerns about deceptive narratives had a profound effect on reading practices. Kate Loveman''s interdisciplinary study explores the ways in which reading habits, first developed to deal with suspect political and religious texts, were applied to a range of genres, and, as authors responded to readers'' critiques, shaped genres. Examining responses to authors such as Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding, Loveman investigates reading as a sociable activity. She uncovers a lost critical discourse, centred on strategies of ''shamming'', which involved readers in public displays of reason, wit and ironic pretence as they discussed the credibility of oral and written narratives. Widely understood by early modern readers and authors, the codes of this rhetoric have now been forgotten, to the detriment of our perception of the period''s literature and politics. Loveman''s lively book offers a striking new approach to Restoration and eighteenth-century literary culture and, in particular, to understanding the development of the novel.