{"product_id":"the-novel-a-biography","title":"The Novel: A Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless  with contributions from Great Britain  Ireland  America  Canada  Australia  India  the Caribbean  and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres  the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography  Michael Schmidt does full justice to its complexity.  Like his hero Ford Madox Ford in The March of Literature  Schmidt chooses as his traveling companions not critics or theorists but artist practitioners  men and women who feel hot love for the books they admire  and fulminate against those they dislike. It is their insights Schmidt cares about. Quoting from the letters  diaries  reviews  and essays of novelists and drawing on their biographies  Schmidt invites us into the creative dialogues between authors and between books  and suggests how these dialogues have shaped the development of the novel in English.  Schmidt believes there is something fundamentally subversive about art: he portrays the novel as a liberalizing force and a revolutionary stimulus. But whatever purpose the novel serves in a given era  a work endures not because of its subject  themes  political stance  or social aims but because of its language  its sheer invention  and its resistance to clichsome irreducible quality that keeps readers coming back to its pages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946549407797,"sku":"ByrdShop_0674724739","price":40.97,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780674724730_86cb981b-12d0-4c59-b55d-942d7ae2b02c.jpg?v=1770172166","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-novel-a-biography","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}