The story of the novel in Britain is a good story. It begins in the eighteenth century, when people from outside the regular circles of power and authority began to read in ever greater numbers, seeking words that helped explain their multifarious hopes and desires. A new kind of literature was needed for this growing market of readers, one that reflected as many different lives in its pages as there were people to buy them, that could change with the times and do something new: something novel.

In this illuminating new history of both an art and an industry, Philip Hensher describes how the evolutionary scramble by writers and publishers to get attention drove constant innovation in writing techniques, and produced new ways of printing, distributing, and selling books. Over the course of three hundred years, these forces shaped the novel’s form and its future, from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith. Reading widely across the famous, the once famous and the utterly (if unfairly) forgotten, Hensher’s account is a book of investigative verve that makes a serious case for widening the canon.

A History of the Novel in Britain is not only a study of this endlessly entertaining and inspiring literature: it is a hoard of treasure waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

Philip Hensher is the editor of The Penguin Book of the British Short Story (in two volumes) and of The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story. His most recent novel is A Small Revolution in Germany.