The True Story of the Novel

The True Story of the Novel is a 1994 work of historical and literary criticism by Margaret Anne Doody. It argues that the "English invention of the novel" effectively forced the novel into a "realistic" mode, and excluded both non-realistic works and works from the rest of the world.

Description: "A 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, The True Story of the Novel disputes the British claim to the invention of the novel, calling it "one of the most successful literary lies." Margaret Anne Doody claims that the conventional separation of Romance and Novel was 18th-century England's approach to restricting the literary canon from anything "foreign" to their Empire. Not only did this distinction exclude the great novels of the Roman Empire--including Africa, Asia, and Europe--but it forced the novel, and therefore literature as well, into a narrowed definition of necessary "realism" that altered the way we interpret history. In redefining the Novel as a multicultural construct, Doody opens the relationship of literature and history to new connections."