Jacob Lipski and M-C Newbould, eds. The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Arts
Jacob Lipski and M-C Newbould, eds. The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024, 545 p. ISBN: 978-1-3995-0662. £150
Texte intégral
1In compiling The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts the editors have taken on an enormous task. The aims of the volume are equally ambitious: to offer “a wide-ranging investigation into how the genre [the novel] developed in the contexts of other arts. And how inter-artistic dialogue imprinted itself on the novelistic text, based on the belief that various artistic practices feed upon one another rather than compete for a kind of mimetic supremacy” (Lipski and Newbould 7). The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts goes against the grain of existing research. By deploying the oft-quoted cliché “No artform is an island,” Lipski and Newbould reject a tendency to position novelistic discourse within a hierarchy of the arts and underscore the differences rather than the similarities between art forms. For Lipski and Newbould, it is the synergies between art forms, such as plays, conversation pieces, and non-fiction, that demonstrate their importance to the development of the novel. Indeed, it is the volume’s conviction that “art forms feed off one another” that is its biggest contribution to existing research on the “birth” of the novel in the eighteenth century (Lipski and Newbould 7). It is also this conviction that makes The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts such a compelling and enriching read.
2For a volume whose argument depends on the connections between rather than the distinctions from the novel and other art forms, the scope of the volume needs to be comprehensive. With its twenty-eight chapters, fifty black and white illustrations and twenty-eight beautifully reproduced colour plates, The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts meets that challenge admirably. Contributions come from established and emerging scholars who together examine an impressive range of novels as well as literary and non-literary artforms, such as the “art of architecture” in Austen’s Mansfield Park and the decorative handicrafts engaged in by the women of Millenium Hall to the songs of sentimental fiction. Each chapter brings together descriptive overviews of the plots of selected texts, current research and relevant debates alongside more substantial and focused critical engagements with the selected subjects. Consequently, the volume should appeal equally to students new to the topic and scholars from a broad range of disciplines within the arts and humanities.
3The volume is divided into five sections, with each grouped around core themes, ideas and perspectives, examined with direct reference to relevant and accessible case-studies. “Part 1: Styles and Discourse” maps out the novel’s intrinsic relationship with eighteenth-century discourses of art, aesthetics, art-related fashions and cultural practices, with authors examining topics as diverse as “problematic representations of the empire” in novels of the period and “the convergence between novelistic and medical discourse.” The essays in “Part II: Visual Cultures,” meanwhile, demonstrate how the eighteenth-century novel intersected with “the broader terrain of the period’s cultures of visuality,” by interrogating areas such as the use of aesthetic discourse in novelistic descriptions of female beauty to the aesthetic quality of romance novels (Lipski and Newbould, 14). “Modes and Performance,” the third section of the volume, is also its most inventive with each essay examining the variety of ways in which the novel and their authors engaged with the theme of performance and performative practice from a range of perspectives. Particularly worthy of note is Drury’s delightfully playful essay, which uses examples of Haywood’s fiction from Fantomina (1725) to The History of Betsy Thoughtless (1751) to redefine the rococo, or the whimsical, as performative practice. It is in “Part IV: Networks and Interactions” that Lipski and Newbould revisit and develop the volume’s core argument “that eighteenth-century novel writing was an interactive venture within a wider range of artistic practices” (Lipski and Newbould 15). The importance of this section is matched by the noticeably high standard of all the essays, each of which takes a very different approach to interrogating the synergies between the novel and other art forms. In his intriguing essay, for instance, Jones reframes our understanding of the notion of the “sociable arts” through an examination of the relationship between eighteenth-century conversation pieces and what may seem, at first glance, less than sociable novels, such as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Finally, in “Part V: Adaptations and Afterlives,” the concluding section of the volume, Lipski and Newbould take the theme of “the eighteenth-century novels transmedial futures” to consider how the content of the genre is reconfigured in a range of artforms, including those not available in the eighteenth-century, such as conceptual art and film studies. As Lipski and Newbould observe, such an approach underscores the “afterlives and adaptations” of the eighteenth-century novel (Lipski and Newbould 15). The co-editors are certainly not the first to make a convincing argument for the continuing influence of the novel in the twenty-first century, although, for a volume written as recently as 2024, I was surprised at the lack of attention to gaming and AI.
4New and original research appears throughout the volume, with several essays providing new perspectives on familiar themes. Ewers’ essay, “The Art of Architecture and the Form of the Novel,” for instance, acknowledges from the start that architecture has long been used “as a key lens through which to understand the early novel” (Ewers 108). In the first three-quarters of the chapter, Ewers re-examines existing research on the consequences of interrogating the novel through the prism of architecture and reminds the reader that a key problem with architecture is that its definition is nebulous. But it is in the last third of the chapter that the strength of the chapter comes to light. By linking architecture or space with time Ewers proposes the “speculative conclusion: the novel connects to architecture by using form as a way of encasing temporality” (Ewers 119). As Ewers’ essay demonstrates, a core strength of the most successful contributions to this Edinburgh Companion is that they underscore the value of combining a generalist approach with a close examination on the intersection between the eighteenth-century novel and the arts, broadly conceived.
5With such an ambitious aim and scope for The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts, structuring this volume must have been challenging. By including essays that work individually and collectively, however, this is an admirably unified volume. Praise must also be given to Lipski and Newbould’s commitment to presenting the volume and the essays as “reflections, mediations, interventions and at times provocations”; the start rather than the end of a conversation about the interplay between the eighteenth-century novel and other artform (Lipski and Newbould 16).
6The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts is a weighty tome. But that does not prevent it from being an enjoyable, engaging and stimulating read. Supported by a well-written and crafted introduction, this well-researched companion provides an opportunity for an ongoing discussion about the value of the eighteenth-century novel and the arts in the twenty-first century.
Pour citer cet article
Référence électronique
Karen LIPSEDGE, « Jacob Lipski and M-C Newbould, eds. The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Arts », e-Rea [En ligne], 23.1 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2025, consulté le 19 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/erea/20824 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15cjd
Haut de pageDroits d’auteur
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont susceptibles d’être soumis à des autorisations d’usage spécifiques.
Haut de page
Afficher l’image

