During the first half of the 18th century, a full-scale revolution occurred in literature. Prose writing, which had been typically reserved for correspondence and government documentation, emerged for literature. It appeared initially in the form of journals, gazettes, and cheaply produced, quarto- or octavo-sized stories of cheap situational romance. However, it soon moved on to reputable authors, and by the latter part of the first half of the century, the novel form, quite identifiable in relation to what we think of today, was in nearly full form.

To understand the influence and importance of the novel in both literature and the society of the day, we must necessarily understand a bit of the history closely preceding its rise. By far, the most important factor contributing to the formation of the novel was the marked increase in literacy in England in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The invention of the printing press and its subsequent import to England directly led to this expansion of literacy. Accompanying the rapid increase in the number of readers in England, the printing press dramatically increased the number of printed works available to those readers. "A modern estimate of the annual publication of new books, excluding pamphlets, suggests that an almost fourfold increase occurred during the [18th] century" (Watt 37). This increase in both literacy and printed works was reciprocal, each helping the other to grow: the larger volume of books corresponded to an additional increase of literacy, and vice-versa.

The printed word soon became the medium of choice for intellectuals and social critics. That is to say, the intelligentsia were printing their ideas and criticisms, and thus more people were wanting to read and respond, both verbally and in print, to these ideas and criticisms. Prior to the novel, these ideas and discourses were coming out in the form of pamphlets or small newspapers. The most famous of these early gazettes were Addison and Steele's Tatler and Spectator, and Defoe's The Review. These gazettes, and others like them, brought the word of thinking man to the newly literate, who were mostly of the middle class. These new readers could now feel as though they belonged to something which had formerly been nearly the exclusive domain of the upper classes and the nobility. These gazettes, their topics, and the discussions arising from them corresponded to a growing phenomenon in England: coffee houses. Coffee houses became the gathering places for these men who had suddenly become part of the thinking world. In them, the topics printed in the pamphlets and gazettes would spark vigorous conversation and debate. "We have much evidence to show that the coffee house politicians and critics depended upon the journalists for topics of discussion, and also very often for the substance of their talk" (Ball 382).

Many of the newly literate were the women of the steadily rising middle class. One of the key factors in understanding the increased literacy of the middle class depend upon understanding the historical bourgeois struggle. Since the merchant class began emerging in the middle ages, it faced continual struggle against an increasingly threatened upper class. The inveterate privileged classes were, of course, unwilling to cede any of their power, and the bourgeois seemed determined to take it from them. The nobility and gentry employed many means, both politically and socially, to repress the bourgeois, not least of which was the employment of powerful rhetoric in branding the new class boorish and philistine (hence, we still find today a negative association with the word bourgeois). As a direct rebuttal to the supercilious attitudes of the nobility and gentry, the middle class was determined to span the breach of education and culture between the two. With mass-printed works available at a reasonable cost, this drive towards education and literacy met with decisive success.

A surprising and unexpected correlate to the increased literacy of the bourgeois was the increased literacy of the servant classes, who discovered their employers willing to teach them, and were able to avail themselves of their employers' often extensive libraries. "They would normally have leisure and light to read by; there would often be books in the house; if there were not, since they did not have to pay for their food and lodging, their wages and vails could be devoted to buying them if they chose" (Watt 47).

Adding to these factors, there were a growing number of circulating libraries distributing these printed works to those who could not afford to buy them. "Most circulating libraries stocked all types of literature, but novels were widely regarded as their main attraction: and there can be little doubt that they led to the most notable increase in the reading public for fiction which occurred during the [18th] century" (Watt 43).

One factor that was necessary for the expansion of literacy was a marked increase in leisure, both in the middle and servant classes. The largest amount of leisure was enjoyed by middle-class women. No longer concerned with domestic affairs of house and farm, these new gentlewomen found their demands limited primarily to simple house management, social engagements, and reading. Thus, the bourgeois woman became the novel's largest audience. These women were generally unconcerned with issues of state and avoided the pamphlets and gazettes, leaving those for their husbands who so dearly regarded them. Rather, their concerns for reading material were chiefly societal anecdotes and romantic encounters of idealized couples. Many authors responded with generic and mass-produced works catering to these subject matters, usually printed in quarto or octavo form. While these quartos and octavos were in prose, they were far from the form which would come to be termed novel.

Following closely on the heels of the bourgeois women were their servants, and the servants of their better neighbors. As Watt noted, servants traditionally had enjoyed a modicum of leisure time and, with their new literacy, began reading the quartos and octavos discarded by their ladies. "In assessing the literary importance of this...group it must be remembered that they constituted a very large and conspicuous class, which in the eighteenth century probably constituted the largest single occupational group in the country....and they were, as ever, peculiarly liable to be contaminated by the example of their betters." (Watt 47)

The bourgeois men also enjoyed a great deal of leisure, many of them becoming of the ever-desirable state of gentlemen, not having to work for a living. However, most bourgeois men were interested more in affairs of state than in affairs of the fictional societal ball or bedchamber. Therefore, these men tended to abandon their wives' quartos and octavos in favor of the gazettes and pamphlets, and to retreat from the stale home library to the coffee houses in town. As such, the new novel writers could not depend upon the men as a reliable or substantial audience.

A critical phenomenon which was instrumental in separating the new novel form from the neo-romantic, generic quartos and octavos was the increased awareness of morality. While the generic works tended to center on depravity and lust, the novel sought to embrace the nobler aspects of morality and ethics. This awareness was primarily seen, in respect to society, in the ecclesiastical sectors, the more philanthropic members of the nobility and gentry classes, and the more socially conscious of the middle class, the largest group. This rise of moral awareness was partially a result of the Protestant Reformation and the resulting Restoration. Englishmen as a whole, but especially those just noted, began to realize a need for a sensible moral code beyond what the inept Church offered. It was such attempts to directly inculcate moral codes that lead to the establishment of many of the gazettes of the day, most notable of which were those of Addison and Steele, The Tatler and The Spectator, and Defoe's Pilgrim's Progress. These gazettes, and others like them, expounded on conscientious moral behavior, as well as other popular-interest subjects, such as etiquette.

Many of London's prosperous booksellers realized that a more structured and compiled version of these moral writings, stories, and exempla would be a profitable publication. In the traditions of the day, where publishers and booksellers tended to seek out authors for ideas, rather than the reverse, the London booksellers sought for an author to create such a compilation. It was thus that they contracted fellow printer Samuel Richardson for the task, one which he found irresistible. This project lead eventually to the publication of Pamela.

However, Daniel Defoe had quietly beaten Richardson to the task with the publication of his more low-key and less idealistic 1719 Robinson Crusoe, and later, in 1722, Moll Flanders. Though this predates what many consider to be "the first great flowering of the English novel [which] began in 1740 with Pamela" (Halperin 2), many feel that Defoe was "the first writer of importance who was produced by these new conditions" (Ball 382). It is from Defoe that we can begin to definitively track the progress of the novel. To clearly distinguish from the romantic quartos, Defoe realized that he needed a style or form with more verisimilitude. Therefore, when writing Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, which both employ first-person narrative, Defoe presented himself in the role of an editor of factual journals come into his possession. Though Robinson Crusoe is loosely based on fact, Defoe "found it easier, quicker, and more effective...to leave fact behind...and to rely on his imagination for the development of his narratives" (Ball 382). Though Defoe was essentially motivated by profit, he had latched on to the tsunami of morality flooding the country, and realized that "the new middle-class reading public would eagerly buy any exciting book that could be regarded as a source of useful or improving information." (Ball 382) Crusoe relies heavily on sensationalism and an exotic story to show the most noble qualities of man in nature, but Moll Flanders leans more decisively towards clear-cut morality, though not nearly as far as Pamela or Clarissa. The title page of Moll Flanders is indicative of its moral tone, advertising the story of a woman who " was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent." Morality via redemption is Defoe's pitch with Moll, and his technique, quite clever for the time, has become standard novel convention. He portrays Moll as the lowest, darkest form of moral bankruptcy possible, and yet, he presents her also as endearing, such that the reader genuinely cares about her outcome and well-being. In much the same way that one discovers morality vicariously through the morality of a close friend or relative, Defoe gives this vicarious moral experience to his readers through the moral discovery and redemption of Moll Flanders.

Richardson probably recognized the moral wholesomeness of Moll Flanders, but he likely found it lacking in what he, and the London booksellers, would consider good moral inculcation, as opposed to vicarious moral discovery. Richardson and the booksellers were looking for a somewhat journalistic guide that focused more directly on moral instruction, rather than moral allegory, as with Defoe. However, they also recognized that in order to get the desired readership, both numerically and demographically, they would not succeed with a straightforward "guide to morality." Noting, undoubtedly, the trend of the reading public and its interest in prose stories, and works like Defoe's, Richardson realized that this new fictional prose, based more on verisimilitude than the romantic vignettes, would be the most profitable medium. Many of the literati have stated that Richardson identified the shortcomings of Defoe's works and consciously set about to improve this new, unnamed form. However, reading Richardson would not seem to support an improvement over Defoe. Richardson chose, partly for purposes of verisimilitude, to use the tedious epistolary form. He also chose this form owing to his letter-writing experience, having published in 1739 a collection of model letters aimed at educating those who were unskilled in letter writing (Letters Written to and for Particular Friends on the Most Important Occasions). Largely due to Richardson's use of epistles, many consider Defoe's novels to be novels of incident, and Richardson's, novels of character, as the epistolary form allows for little action.

Like Defoe, Richardson presented himself in relation to Pamela, and later Clarissa, as the editor of a collection of letters sent to his print shop. This shows the early tendency of authors to attempt to preserve the authenticity of their stories by relating them in a manner that would be plausible to their professions--Defoe, a journalist, receives several journals to edit, and Richardson, a printer, receives several bundles of letters to edit and print. In this way, the authors of the new form could distinguish their works of a more serious note from the romances, which were clearly pandering fiction.

It would seem, though, that in their attempts to lend verisimilitude and an air of seriousness to their works, both authors abandoned their scruples. Defoe advertises Moll Flanders as being "Written from her own MEMORANDUMS" (title page), and Richardson, while not directly stating that the work is fact, never denies the authenticity of the letters of Pamela or Clarissa, and never admits to their being fictitious. This most likely was the result of a desire by both authors to impress the morality of these two ladies (Moll and Clarissa), by presenting them as real people, that the readers, mostly women, might cluck their tongues, wonder who these poor girls were and might they know them, and be truly moved by the sad stories. People tend to be callous and unemotional towards fictional characters, and never share the same level of empathy with someone they know not to exist, than with a corporal acquaintance (hence why made-for-TV-'true story'-movies are so successful). However, this trend ended with Fielding. He advertised his books as being histories, but, as with most aspects of his novels, the term is used tongue-in-cheek, as a spoof primarily aimed toward Richardson and his supercilious presumption to be the self-appointed moral educator of England.

When Fielding came onto the novel scene, he was chuckling all the while, and with good reason. Particularly, he chuckled at Richardson and his air of affected high seriousness in attempting "virtue rewarded" moral instruction by example, which Fielding found unrealistic, and ultimately flat and ineffective. That is not to say that Fielding was without morals; rather, Fielding was quite the opposite. He possessed a much more adept understanding of storytelling and was able to use the smooth flowing ease of prose to great effect. Many credit Richardson with defining the novel, but it was Fielding who consciously did so, when he declared the form, in his introduction to Joseph Andrews, a comic romance, or comic-epic poem in prose. Thus it embraces the epic qualities of plot and story, the comic (in 18th century speak) elements of character and tone (as in the antipodes of tragedy) and the character interaction of romance. While the term comic is used in a different manner today, much like contemporary connotations, what Fielding created was the first prose comedy. This facilitated his agenda of moral awareness much better than Richardson's affected gravity, for Fielding recognized that when we laugh at ourselves, we know ourselves best. Fielding clearly outlined his intentions, again in the introduction to Joseph Andrews, when he stated that he was describing "not men, but manners," giving a universal appraisal of the ethical and moral ineptitudes of men and women in general. Fielding was a master of the ability to "translate the particular facts of his experience into symbols of universal relevance." (Battenstien from Tom Jones XV) In addition to this, Fielding was the first novelist to openly acknowledge what he was doing--creating a fictional work about fictional people, without any nefarious suggestions of authenticity, that yet shows real human nature. Fielding's good-natured humor is far superior to Richardson's crusty lectures, for to laugh "what a buffoon" is a more effective way of recognizing a man's or woman's shortcomings than to sneer "what an ass."

Fielding's other major and longstanding change in the form of the novel was to move it, a la Don Quixote, from the first-person narrative of Defoe, or the first-person epistle of Richardson, to the third-person picaresque narrative, "relating in episodic form the adventures of an eccentric or disreputable hero" (McArthur 711).

Tobias Smollett, several years later, picked up Fielding's spirit and refined it even farther. Smollett, in his 1770 Humphrey Clinker, retained the picaresque form. However, he modified it, using epistolary conventions, but in such a manner that it reads with the ease of diction typical of Fielding, while losing the tedium typical of Richardson and allowing the first-person points of view of Defoe. To this he added, very like Fielding, the humorous anecdotes and misadventures of the lower classes. He also included the amusing charm of the often twisted and tortured vulgar speech: "Something uncommon is the matter with that poor child; her colour fades, her appetite fails and her spirits gag.--She is become moping and melancholy, and is often found in tears.--Her brother suspects internal uneasiness on account of Wilson, and denounces vengeance against that adventurer." (236) This hybrid novel could be seen as the zenith of the form as it appeared in the first great wave of novels in England. Humphrey Clinker is of a level perhaps more sophisticated than the others, but some of the conventions remain. For example, Smollett's works tend to reflect his profession, a doctor, as did Defoe's and Richardson's. The premise of Humphrey Clinker is of a man adventuring throughout England and Scotland as a constitutional against his ailing health.

After the dust had settled from this prose revolution, which eclipsed nearly all works in verse from the age, the time came to assess, define, and name this new prose form. As far as naming, someone sensibly came up with the idea to simply call it "new," hence the derivative of the Italian word novella. However, the definition of the novel would prove more of a poser. Pre-novel romances were somewhat similar to the novel, but were generally presented in full epic style, or at least in verse. This style had been long established, as with Beowulf c. 700, The Faerie Queene of the 1580s, or Don Quixote of 1605. These romances were distinguished from lyric verse or drama, for example, because they were narrative and generally depicted strange adventure with heroic protagonists. The novel retained the narrative nature of these romances as one of its principal characteristics. The novel tells a story, often in episodic form (as with Feilding, Smollett, and DeFoe, and somewhat with Richardson), however, the adventures are less strange and more realistic, and the protagonists hardly heroes. Moll Flanders is an orphaned trollop, Clarissa Harlowe a silly young maiden, Tom Jones a foundling as well, and the characters in Humphrey Clinker range from housemaids to would-be gentlemen. These simple, earthly protagonists are seen in light of another of the novel's defining characteristics--perhaps its most significant one--verisimilitude. The adventures are not strange and the protagonists not heroic because the novel was intended to depict average human life; everyday people were to be able relate to the novel, its characters, and their situations. Again, many readers could imagine the misguided adventures of Moll Flanders, if they haven't experienced some of them themselves; certainly the unwanted advances of a young man to Clarissa, and poor judgment in choice of lovers is a topic only too well known by the broadest readership; orphans and other social misfits could well envision the life of Tom Jones, and become excited by the prospect of his adventures; and many had traveled under similar circumstances which the impecunious Humphrey Clinker and crew had. Therefore, the minutiae of detail of everyday life became essential to the novel, later seen in the extreme in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, when Walter Shandy plays with the chamberpot under his bed in a fit of melancholic despair. A chamberpot would never be referred to in a romance, for a hero would not be thought to require one. Additionally, the novel had far more character development than the romance, its nearest brethren. "The action is subordinated to the representation of character, and perhaps, though not necessarily, of character development through experience." (Ball 385) This character development is seen keenly in Richardson's Clarissa. Due to the necessary lack of action owing to the epistolary style, the reader learns almost entirely the intricacies of character and mentality seen in progression via the letters. In romance, the hero is just statically there, his character perhaps occasionally alluded to, but never developed or fully defined. Plot also reigns large in the novel. Especially with the picaresque examples, plot unfolds episodically, and conflict is prevalent in developing character. "The characters may be seen not only in action, but in conflict, which serves to reveal them." (Ball 385) These can be seen in even the most minor of characters, such as the landlord and landlady of Tom Jones:

He had been bred, as they call it, a Gentleman, that is, bred up to do nothing, and had spent a very small Fortune, which he inherited from an industrious Farmer his Uncle, in Hunting, Horse-racing, and Cock-fighting, and had been married by my Landlady for certain Purposes which he had long since desisted from answering: for which she hated him heartily. But as he was a surly Kind of Fellow, so she contented herself with frequently upbraiding him by disadvantageous Comparisons with her first Husband, whose Praise she had eternally in her Mouth; and as she was for the most part Mistress of the Profit, so she was satisfied to take upon herself the Care and Government of the Family, and after a long successless Struggle, to suffer her Husband to be Master of himself. (428)

Thus we can see plot even beyond the scope of the novel: a miniature dramatic history of two minor characters, complete with conflict and characterization, all in the course of a single paragraph. This represents a major advancement beyond the romance form, for minor characters were generally never explained beyond their immediate relationship with the hero, and this rarely served to further develop the hero's character.

The novel is also different from the romances, and significantly improved, by the shift to prose form. By wrenching free from the shackles of rhythm and metrics, the novel was able to discourse in a more free-flowing, easy style, and in a manner more appealing to the general public. Readers could easily cover much ground in the novel without the disruption of clumsy pronoun references, obscure allusions, and distracting rhythm. They could well imagine the work being told to them as a story, and could also easily read it aloud as such. When letters were employed, it was no difficult task to imagine their writers speaking them as they were penned. Such is the case with any of the letters from Humphrey Clinker, such as Matt Bramble's to Dr. Lewis:

Dear Doctor,

Considering the tax we pay for turnpikes, the roads of this country constitute a most intolerable grievance. Between Newark and Weatherby, I have suffered more from jolting and swinging than ever I felt in the whole course of my life, although the carriage is remarkably commodious and well hung, and the postilions were very careful in driving.... (166-7)

If we compare this description of travel with one from the romance The Faerie Queene, then the point is clearly seen:

Enforst to seeke some covert night at hand,

A shadie grove not far away they spide,

That promist ayde the tempest to withstand;

Whose loftie trees yclad with sommers pride

Did spread so broad, that heavens light did hide,

Not percable with power of any starre:

And all within were pathes and alleies wide,

With footing worne, and leading inward farre:

Faire harbour that them seemes; so in they entred arre. (8)

Reading like this was generally beyond the ability of most of the newly literate middle class, and so the novel was written in a prose style accessible to them.

We can see, then, that the four characteristics that define the 18th-century novel, both as a form in its own right, distinguished from other forms, are verisimilitude and inclusion of the minutiae of daily life, well-developed characterization, well-developed plot, and an easily and comfortably digested narrative prose style. We can also see that this form rose out of a desire by the more conscientious of society to improve the lot of their fellows. England had fallen, as it had many times in the past, into a moral slump. The novel's authors sought to aid their brethren by relating well-structured tales alluding to the condition of society at large, all while providing relaxing and enjoyable diversion.

John Ball tells us that "The English novel is one of the gifts of the rising middle class to literature" (382). This is indeed true. Much like an American Constitution phrase, the novel was a literary form by the people, for the people. Few can imagine what the literary world would be like without the thousands of profound, insightful, and entertaining novels that have grown from the 18th-century prose revolution. The novel is one of the most appreciated and useful forms of literature. Though it has undergone significant change, some of which is unadmirable, it still retains, by and large, the noble objectives of its progenitors--socially useful and noteworthy explications for the benefit of humanity. Many balk at the reading of Defoe or Richardson, Fielding or Smollett, but few can deny that the literary landscape would be a barren one indeed if not for the vision and foresight of these great early novelists.