Chapter 1

_BEFORE SHAKESPEARE_ 31

I. Remote origin of the novel--Old historical romances or epics--Beowulf.

The French conquest of England in the eleventh century--The mind and literature of the new-comers--Their romances, their short tales 31

II. Effects of the conquest on the minds of the English inhabitants--Slow awakening of the native writers--Awakening of the clerks, of the translators and imitators--The English inhabitants connected through a literary imposture with Troy and the classical nations of antiquity--Consequences of this imposture.

Chaucer--His lack of influence on later prose novelists--The short prose tales of the French never acclimatized in England before the Renaissance--More's Latin "Utopia" 37

III. Printing--Caxton's _rôle_--Part allotted to fiction in the list of his books--Morte Darthur.

Development of printing--Mediæval romances set in type in the sixteenth century 52