Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:04:53.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Editorial fictions: paratexts, fragments, and the novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2012

Robert L. Caserio
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Clement Hawes
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

Eighteenth-century novels are full of lies and jokes. They bear false imprints and attributions; authors masquerade as editors; satires are veiled as documents; typographical signals, poems, songs, anecdotes, parables, sermons, philosophical commentary, pictorial vignettes, and unfinished tales interrupt the narrative. These appear not only within the text, but before, after, above, and below it in a riot of frontispieces, epigraphs, prefaces, tables of contents, dedicatory and admiring letters, interpolated tales, documents and reports, footnotes, glosses, chapter headings, songs, poems, inset tales, printers' ornaments and illustrations, and indexes. These paratexts divert readers' attention from the narrative to the text's documentary status: its authenticity and authority. Paratexts challenge the very possibility of representation by making textual transmission and the experience of fragmentation part of the process of reading the novel. Form qualifies content.

Editorial defense: Defoe and narrative authenticity

Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) establishes authenticity by purporting to be an autobiography. Like memoirs and eyewitness accounts, autobiographies claim to be literal truth, but a narrative's authenticity does not guarantee its morality. Moll Flanders meets the con.icting needs of didacticism and credibility with an elaborate preface that negotiates the rival claims of authenticity and morality, accuracy and art. The novel appears to be a transcription of Moll's own account of her life.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate, And during a Life of continu'd Variety, for Threescore Years, besides her childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, lived Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bakhtin, M. M., The Dialogic Imagination, ed. and trans. Holquist, Michael (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981)Google Scholar
Defoe, Daniel, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders (London: W. Chetwood, 1722)Google Scholar
Edgeworth, Maria, Castle Rackrent; An Hibernian Tale. Taken from the facts, and from the manners of the Irish squires, before the year 1782, 4 vols. (London: for J. Johnson, 1800), vol. iGoogle Scholar
Inchbald, Elizabeth, A Simple Story, 4 vols. (London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1791), vol. iv.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Henry, The Man of Feeling (London: T. Cadell, 1771).Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Henry, Julia de Roubigné, 2 vols. (London: for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1777), vol. ii, letter 29.Google Scholar
Radcliffe, Ann's Mysteries of Udolpho, a romance; interspersed with some pieces of poetry, 4 vols. (London: for G. G. and J. Robinson, 1794), vol. i.Google Scholar
Richardson, Samuel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison: In a series of letters published from the original, by the editor of Pamela and Clarissa, 7 vols. (London: for S. Richardson, 1753): vol. i, letter 45.Google Scholar
Richardson, Samuel, A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflections, contained in the histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison (London: for S. Richardson, 1755).Google Scholar
Sterne, Laurence, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 9 vols. (London: for T. Beckett and P. A. DeHondt, 17601767), vol. ix.Google Scholar
Sterne, Laurence, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, By Mr. Yorick, 2 vols. (London: for T. Becket and P. A. DeHondt, 1768), vol. II.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×