William Warners Syrinx, or a Sevenfold History, may be the first English novel. Unlike others of the time, though, Warner wrote a realistic novel whose ancestors include the adventure stories of Alexandrine romance, and focus not on the tales of an aristocratic class but on the lives of middle-class individuals. Wallace A. Bacon’s critical edition brings Warner’s important novel –with its…
Paul Kent Alkon’s Samuel Johnson and Moral Discipline provides reading of Johnson that emphasizes his moral discourse. Shortly after its publication, Alkon’s book became first of all the standard reading of Johnsons essays, contrasting them with the moral ideas Johnson discussed in his sermons, as moral writings, and second, as one of the first books on Johnson to explore the essayist’s f…