In Praise of Fiction

Prefaces are perhaps the most original and intriguing genres of
commentary on early modern fiction in English. Surprisingly, the front
materials of the 'lesser' fictional texts published between 1650 and
1760 have not yet received the scholarly attention they deserve, and
have been only selectively reprinted so far. The purpose of this
anthology is to make many of these prefaces available, including a
number of texts authored by translators and editors of fiction published
in English translation during this period. An introductory essay
proposes a typology of the various strategies of legitimization of
narrative prose fiction in early modern Britain, through an examination
of the recurrent tropes and codes of the genre. It suggests that
prefaces to narrative prose fiction in English played a key role in the
emergence of a new status for fiction in the years that have
traditionally been associated with accounts of the 'origins' of the
'novel'.