The English Novel

"The English Novel" by George Saintsbury is a detailed study of English novels, tracing their path from the very beginnings of prose stories all the way to the late 1800s. It investigates how English stories grew over time, starting with old romances and key people that made them, while pointing out the changes in writing styles along the way. The book starts by looking at where English prose stories came from, focusing on why they started later than poetry in Western writing. Saintsbury explains that long before, stories were told as romances, using examples from old writings to break down how the stories and characters were put together. He explains how these old stories were a base for later novels and how they slowly moved away from poems to set the scene for a full look at how English novels improved through important writers and what they added to stories over time.