Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, this text explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, from Don Quixote to Midnight's Children. This book provides a wide-ranging, accessible and humourous introduction to the English novel from Daniel Defoe to the present day. It covers the works of major authors, including Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, the Brontës, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce. This text is extremely beneficial to students and teachers of English literature and will serve as a huge source of reference.