The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel - Paperbackby J. A. Downie (Editor) Although the emergence of the English novel is generally regarded as an eighteenth century phenomenon, this is the first book to be published professing to cover the 'eighteenth century English novel' in its entirety. This Handbook surveys the development of the English novel during the 'long' eighteenth century in other words, from the later seventeenth century right through to the first three decades of the nineteenth