Ian Watt (1917-1999) has long been acknowledged as one of the finest of postwar literary critics, and among the most learned of those writing about the work of Joseph Conrad. Essays on Conrad is a collection of Watt's most characteristic essays on Conrad's work. Watt's own philosophy, as well as his insight into Conrad's work, was shaped by his experiences as a prisoner of war on the River Kwai. His moving account of these experiences completes this essential collection of Watt essays.

In Myths of Modern Individualism, the renowned critic Ian Watt treats Don Juan, Don Quixote, Faust, and Robinson Crusoe as "individualists," pursuing their own views of what they should be. The original Counter Reformation myths saw the individualism of Don Juan, Don Quixote, and Faust as a problem to be quelled by death or mockery. However, the Romantic period, a time more favorably disposed toward myth, saw their dissension not as unacceptable disorder, but rather as admirable and heroic behavior. This incisive study traces attitudes toward these figures and the Romantic product Robinson Crusoe from disapproval to awe to skepticism, examining them as icons of such problems as solitude, narcissism, and the claims of the self versus the claims of the community. Pointedly, none of these figures marries or has a lasting relationship, save for the selfless devotion of a single male servant. Watt argues that the myths of Don Juan, Don Quixote, Faust, and Robinson Crusoe remain the distinctive products of Western society, embodying the most basic values of modern culture.

Ian Watt (1917-1999) has long been acknowledged as one of the finest of postwar literary critics, and among the most learned of those writing about the work of Joseph Conrad. Essays on Conrad is a collection of Watt's most characteristic essays on Conrad's work. Watt's own philosophy, as well as his insight into Conrad's work, was shaped by his experiences as a prisoner of war on the River Kwai. His moving account of these experiences completes this essential collection of Watt essays.

Conrad's great novel is a rich study not only of a typical South American country, but of the politics of any underdeveloped country, and for this reason it is permanently topical. Ian Watt addresses Conrad's concerns when writing the work, and provides an accessible introduction, taking account of background, history and politics, and reception and influence.

Ian Watt examines the four myths of the modern world, Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote, and Robinson Crusoe, and their resonance and influence on modern literature and society.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Praise for the new (2001) edition:

"Ian Watt's "The Rise of the Novel "still seems to me far and away the best book ever written on the early English novel--wise, humane, beautifully organized and expressed, one of the absolutely indispensable critical works in modern literary scholarship. And W. B. Carnochan's brilliant introduction does a wonderful job of showing how Watt's book came into being and changed for good the way the novel in general is taught and understood."--Max Byrd, author of "Grant: A Novel"

"Ian Watt's "The Rise of the Novel "remains the single indispensable, absolutely essential book for students of the 18th-century novel."--John Richetti, author of "The English Novel in History: 1700-1780"

Praise for the original edition:

"A remarkable book. . . . A pioneer work in the application of modern sociology to literature."--"Manchester Guardian"

"An outstanding contribution to the field of historical sociology and the sociology of knowledge. . . . The author has set the 'rise of the novel' as a new literary genre in the social context of eighteenth-century England, with emphasis on the predominant middle-class features of the period."--"American Journal of Sociology"

"Nothing short of a masterpiece. . . . One of the great critical works produced since the 1950s."--"New York Times"

This is the story of a most ingenious invention: the novel. Desribed for the first time in The Rise of The Novel, Ian Watt's landmark classic reveals the origins and explains the success of the most popular literary form of all time. In the space of a single generation, three eighteenth-century writers -- Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding -- invented an entirely new genre of writing: the novel. With penetrating and original readings of their works, as well as those of Jane Austen, who further developed and popularised it, he explains why these authors wrote in the way that they did, and how the complex changes in society - the emergence of the middle-class and the new social position of women - gave rise to its success. Heralded as a revelation when it first appeared, The Rise of The Novel remains one of the most widely read and enjoyable books of literary criticism ever written, capturing precisely and satisfyingly what it is about the form that so enthrals us.

In their original versions, the ultimate fates of Faust, Don Quixote, and Don Juan reflect the anti-individuals of their time: Faust and Don Juan are punished in hellfire, and Don Quixote is mocked. A century later, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe embodies a more favourable consideration of the individual. Ian Watt examines these four myths of the modern world, all created in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, as distinctive products of a historically new society.