Date of Award

Summer 1939

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Abstract

Many valuable dictionaries of English literature have been published, but these works cover such a large period that they of necessity either exclude minor authors or give little space to them. Among the writers to whom little or no attention is paid are hundreds of novelists of the nineteenth century. Believing that a dictionary devoted exclusively to the English novel of the last century would be both useful and interesting, I eagerly set about preparing one, but soon found that the task demanded more time than I could give to it. I therefore limited myself to collecting the novels of a large number of minor writers chosen at random from every part of the century, and I believe that the number I have succeeded in cataloging is sufficiently extensive to permit formulating definite conclusions. This I have tried to show in the introduction. My aim has been to make a complete list of the novels of every writer whom I included. A problem presented itself in the case of those writers who published some of their work in either the eighteenth or twentieth century. When the novels so published were few in number, I, for the sake of completeness, included them. When, however, an author produced novels quite regularly during a period of fifteen or more years before the nineteenth century began or after it ended, I included only those novels which appeared during the century under consideration. Sometimes the question arose as to whether or not a certain work of fiction were a novel. There seems to have been a tendency among nineteenth century writers to designate their novels as tales. Bearing this in mind, I have included all tales which exceeded the scope of the short story. Fairy tales and juveniles, however, such as those written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and Mrs. Mary Louisa Molesworth, have not been included. Whenever I could discover the date of first publication and the number of volumes in the first edition, I have placed this information after the name of the novel.

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