The Handbook systematically charts the trajectory of the English novel from its emergence as the foremost literary genre in the early twentieth century to its early twenty-first century status of eccentric eminence in new media environments. Systematic chapters address The English Novel as a Distinctly Modern Genre', The Novel in the Economy', Genres', Gender' (performativity, masculinities, feminism, queer), and The Burden of Representation' (class and ethnicity). Extended contextualized close readings of more than twenty key texts from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) to Tom McCarthy's Satin Island (2015) supplement the systematic approach and encourage future research by providing overviews of reception and theoretical perspectives.

This book demonstrates that theory in literary and cultural studies has moved beyond overarching master theories towards a greater awareness of particularity and contingency - including its own. What is the place of literary and cultural theory after the Age of Theory has ended? Grouping its chapters into rubrics of metatheory, cultural theory, critical theory and textual theory, the collection demonstrates that the practice of "doing theory" has neither lost its vitality nor can it be in any way dispensable. Current directions covered include the renewed interest in phenomenology, the increased acknowledgement of the importance of media history for all cultural practices and formations, complexity studies, new narratology, literary ethics, cultural ecology, and an intensified interest in textual as well as cultural matter.