Review
A History
of the Novel in Britain by Philip Hensher review – a masterpiece of criticism
This
joyous book takes readers on a literary adventure across 200 years of fiction,
from Defoe to Zadie Smith
Kathryn
Hughes
Wed 12
Aug 2026 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/12/a-history-of-the-novel-in-britain-by-philip-hensher-review-a-masterpiece-of-criticism
In his
opening paragraph, Philip Hensher declares that a novel not only “tells a good
story” but is a good story in itself. We could extend that neat formula to
include this book, which is not only a masterful account of fiction since 1719,
when Daniel Defoe set Robinson Crusoe down on his desert island, but is itself
a wonderful read. There is nothing dreary here; no sense of being back in the
seminar room taking notes. Instead it is 600 pages of deep pleasure, an excuse
to revisit old literary loves and be reminded of ones that have slipped from
view.
Hensher
is smart enough to know why his book works so well and vain enough to tell us.
The usual methodology for a survey is to assemble a roster of academics and
invite them to trot out a chapter on their specialism, whether that be “Thomas
Hardy” or “High Modernism”. The result is a series of silos, with little sense
of historical connection or intellectual unfolding. Hensher, by contrast, gives
us a joined-up account of creative call and response. Equally crucial to this
project’s success is Hensher’s own experience as a novelist. He brings a
practitioner’s informed eye to such questions as why some chapters in Dickens’s
Dombey and Son are in the present tense or how Henry James pulls off free
indirect speech in What Maisie Knew.
After
setting out the novel’s origin story, we are plunged into the inky churn of the
middle-18th century. Samuel Richardson writes Pamela in 1740, Henry Fielding
shoots back with his snarky parody, Shamela (1741), followed by the more
sustained inversion of Joseph Andrews (1742). Richardson, in turn infuriated by
the lack of moral purpose in Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749), storms back with The
History of Sir Charles Grandison (1754).
One of
the delights of Hensher’s capacious narrative is being alerted to authors and
books that never got their proper due
Hensher
is brilliant on the warring duo’s finances, giving us a forensic account of the
risk and reward of their different publishing models. Richardson was a printer
before he was an author and hung on to his own copyrights. This allowed him the
autonomy to shape the fledgling genre in ways that he wanted which, in the case
of Clarissa (1748), meant 1m words written entirely in epistolary form.
Fielding, no less lucky, had a patron and printer who supported him no matter
how eccentric his artistic choices.
Few
authors were so favoured. Jane Austen chose to sell Pride and Prejudice for a
flat fee to Thomas Egerton in 1812, having previously lost money on Sense and
Sensibility when she insisted on retaining copyright and paying for the
printing. Under the new arrangement, Egerton was under no obligation to spend
more than the minimum on production. When Pride and Prejudice eventually
appeared in 1813 it was in such tiny print and scrappy paper that disgruntled
readers decreed it “almost unintelligible”.
That sort
of thing can kill a career, but Austen went on to rise above it, even if it
took until the 1940s before the literary establishment caught up with her
glory. One of the delights of Hensher’s capacious narrative is being alerted to
authors and books that never got their proper due. Hannah More, usually written
off as a Sunday school prig, turns out to be “a beautiful and graceful writer”,
while Tobias Smollett, who generally gets dismissed these days as an unfunny
hack, is rehabilitated as an inventive craftsman with supreme control over
narrative voice. Arnold Bennett, characterised as a dreary bore thanks to
Virginia Woolf’s unkind take-down of 1924, is lovingly restored as the author
of the incomparable Old Wives Tale (1908), which “ought to be acknowledged
among the 20 greatest novels in English”.
If
Hensher is generous with plaudits, he is equally vigorous in his loathing. Ann
Radcliffe, author of the hugely popular and preposterously gothic The Mysteries
of Udolpho (1794) “was (and remains) a simply terrible writer”. DM Thomas, Booker nominated in 1981
for The White Hotel, is “patently
untalented”. And
poor David Lodge, who tried so hard with modish literary pastiche in Changing
Places (1975), is simply “not up to the task”.
Hensher
never falls into crankiness, but he is unafraid to point out home truths. Such
as the fact that so much of the pleased-with-itself “experimentalism” of the
1960 to 1980 period was merely a retread of things that had been done better
before. Tickled by the clever wheeze of having central characters with no name?
Fanny Burney was already doing that in 1814. Keen on using fragmentary collage
to signal modernity? That blustery old fogey Evelyn Waugh got their first with
Vile Bodies (1930). As for self-reflexivity, that process by which the novelist
comments on the process of writing a novel, you should go back to Fielding.
Hensher
doesn’t bring his account right up to date, preferring to stop in 2000 – at
Zadie Smith and her “wonderful ear for speech” – on the grounds that it is
impossible to form a proper critical judgment until plenty of time has passed.
It is a wise decision and a tactful one, underscoring the moral seriousness of
this masterpiece, quite aside from its buoyant joy. Reader, I could not put it
down.
A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip
Hensher
A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip
Hensher is a comprehensive literary study published by Pelican Books that maps
out the evolution of British fiction over a three-hundred-year span. Spanning
roughly 704 pages, the book explores the novel not just as an artistic medium
but as a commercial industry shaped by the dynamic interplay between authors,
publishers, and the reading public.
Key Themes and Scope
• Chronological
Range: The narrative traces the medium's lineage from its 18th-century pioneers
like Daniel Defoe up to the year 2000, concluding with Zadie Smith. Hensher
deliberately avoids evaluating contemporary post-2000 works, arguing that sound
critical judgment requires historical distance.
• Art
Meets Industry: The book analyzes the "evolutionary scramble" for
reader attention. It details how market demands drove technological shifts in
printing, book distribution, and stylistic writing techniques.
• Expanding
the Canon: Alongside legendary British authors, Hensher evaluates "once
famous" and "unfairly forgotten" novelists to present a broader,
more accurate history of British prose.
• Debunking
Modernity: Critics have noted Hensher's sharp observations dismantling the
uniqueness of mid-to-late 20th-century "experimental fiction". He
highlights that literary devices like unnamed protagonists, collage structures,
and self-reflexivity were executed centuries prior by writers like Fanny
Burney, Evelyn Waugh, and Henry Fielding.
