Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder

A footprint materializes mysteriously on a deserted shore; a giant helmet falls from the sky; a traveler awakens to find his horse dangling from a church steeple. Eighteenth-century fiction brims with moments such as these in which the prosaic rubs up against the marvelous. While it is a truism that the period's literature is distinguished by its realism and air of probability <em>Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder</em> argues that wonder is integral to--rather than antithetical tothe developing techniques of novelistic fiction. Positioning its reader on the cusp between recognition and estrangement between faith and doubt modern fiction hinges upon wonder. <p/><em>Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder</em> unfolds its new account of fiction's rise through surprising readings of classic early novels--from Daniel Defoe's <em>Robinson Crusoe</em> to Jane Austen's <em>Northanger Abbey</em>and brings to attention lesser-known works most notably Rudolf Raspe's <em>Baron</em> <em>Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels</em>. In this bold new account the eighteenth century bears witness not to the world's disenchantment but rather to wonder's relocation from the supernatural realm to the empirical world providing a reevaluation not only of how we look back at the Enlightenment but also of how we read today.<br>