Reading the classics should be a joy, not a duty

Writing the history of the novel, even covering a limited period, is a challenge. No one could possibly read every novel that has been published. Even if you read 100 a year you would scarcely scratch the surface. It isn’t like writing a history of most other subjects, where the important matters select themselves.

No one could say with certainty that the most noteworthy novels are those which once made, or now make, the most impact. Indeed, a history that included many of the bestsellers of the day would be unusual – one, for instance, that took in G.W.M. Reynolds’s 1844 The Mysteries of London, probably the most popular novel of the entire 19th century in England, or Hall Caine’s The Manxman, whose colossal sales single-handedly put an end to the three-volume door-stopper in 1894.