The Novel säsong 1

Ever since Samuel Richardson's novel `Pamela', published in 1740, the novel has been a predominantly female literary form, offering far more opportunities to women writers than any other and consistently turning a powerful lens on the full range and depth of women's lives.

`Robinson Crusoe', the hero of the first-ever novel published in English, in 1719, was a slave trader. Right from its inception, the English novel was closely bound up with the dynamics of colonialism, and marched along, in lock step, to the British empire's rise, decline and fall.

Class is present from the time the very first novels in English appeared. One of the most famous portrayals of the fate of the poor and the destitute was Charles Dickens' `Oliver Twist', published in 1837. What became known as the `Condition of England' novel, by writers such as Dickens, Disraeli...