Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain, 1684-1750

Novels have been a respectable component of culture for so long that it is difficult for twentieth—century observers to grasp the unease produced by novel reading in the eighteenth century. William Warner shows how the earliest novels in Britain, published in small—format print media, provoked early instances of the modern anxiety about the effects of new media on consumers.

Warner uncovers a buried and neglected history of the way in which the idea of the novel was shaped in response to a n...