Below are the bibliography contents and the beginning of the listing primarily of books of political, social and cultural criticism on imaginative literature, the novel in particular – some landmarks and assorted works, mainly American and English – a truncated and otherwise incomplete chronology extending in its entirety from the 1800s to today. A few texts on novel form and technique are also included. The list here covers the time period up 1929. Preceding that list are select works from the full list. See links for excerpts. See here for more information about the bibliography and excerpts. See “Bibliographies, Particular” for a breakdown of the general bibliography into listings organized by title and genre.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY CONTENTS
1800s to 1929 (this page)
1930-1959
1960-1989
1990-2003
1800s-2003 (entire)
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POLITICAL, SOCIAL, CULTURAL CRITICISM ON IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE: 1800s-1929
1858 Hippolyte Taine Balzac: A Critical Study
~1860 C. A. Sainte-Beuve Literary Criticism of Sainte-Beuve [a collection first published in 1971; edited and translated by E. R. Marks]
1863 Hippolyte Taine History of English Literature
1864 Matthew Arnold Essays Literary and Critical [published in periodicals, 1863-1864] [1906 edition
1864 Victor Hugo William Shakespeare
1875 Leslie Stephen Hours in a Library
1883 William Morris On Art And Socialism [essays, 1877-1896; collected 1999] [“Art under Plutocracy”…]
1891 William Dean Howells Criticism and Fiction
1896 John Colin Dunlop History of Prose Fiction; Volumes I and II [revised by Henry Wilson, 1970]
1896 George Saintsbury A History of Nineteenth Century Literature
1897 Arlo Bates Talks on the Study of Literature
1897 H. D. Traill The New Fiction and Other Essays on Literary Subjects [reprint 1970]
1898 Leo Tolstoy What Is Art? [and Essays on Art; published together, 1962]
1900 George Saintsbury A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe: From the Earliest Texts to the Present Day [1902, 1904—Vols. 2 & 3]
1903 Frank Norris The Responsibilities of the Novelist [“The Novel with a Purpose,” “The Need of a Literary Conscience”…]
1906 Arlo Bates Talks on the Teaching of Literature
1908 George Saintsbury A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day
1914 Emma Goldman The Social Significance of the Modern Drama
1915 Upton Sinclair, Ed. The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest [updated 1996]
1918 W. L. George Literary Chapters
1920 Randolph Bourne The History of a Literary Radical and Other Papers
1920 Georg Lukacs The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature [“The Novel as Polemic”…]
1921 Percy Lubbock The Craft of Fiction
1923 D. H. Lawrence Studies in Classic American Literature
1924 Floyd Dell Literature and the Machine Age
1924 Morris Edmund Speare The Political Novel: Its Development in England and America
1924 Leon Trotsky Literature and Revolution [“Pre-revolutionary Art,” “Revolutionary and Socialist Art”…]
1924 Edith Wharton The Writing of Fiction
1925 V. F. Calverton The Newer Spirit: A Sociological Criticism of Literature
1925 Alain Locke, Ed. The New Negro: An Interpretation [“The New Negro,” “Negro Art and American,” “The Negro in American Literature”…]
1925 John Macy The Story of the World’s Literature [revised, 1932]
1925 I. A. Richards Principles of Literary Criticism [“Art, Play, and Civilisation”…]
1925 Upton Sinclair Mammonart
1925 Virginia Woolf The Common Reader: First Series [“Modern Fiction”…]
1926 W.E.B. DuBois The Oxford W.E.B DuBois Reader [1996] [1921-1926: “Negro Art,” “Negro Art and Literature,” “Criteria of Negro Art”…]
1926 Floyd Dell Intellectual Vagabondage [reprinted, 1990]
1927 E. M. Forster Aspects of the Novel
1927 Van Wyck Brooks, Ed., et al The American Caravan: A Yearbook of American Literature
1927 Vernon Louis Parrington Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920
1927 Upton Sinclair Money Writes
1928 Julien Benda The Betrayal [Treason] of the Intellectuals [“The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions,” “Nature of Political Passions”…]
1928 Alfred Kreymborg, Ed., et al The Second American Caravan: A Yearbook of American Literature
1928 Rebecca West The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews
1928 T. K. Whipple Spokesmen [reprinted in 1963 with a foreword by Mark Schorer]
note: I agree with much but not everything I’ve chosen to excerpt. As far as the books as a whole go – as they seem to me – many are very good, plenty are solid, some are mixed, some are less insightful or unfortunate in part. On the whole, in my judgment, the books make some thoughtful and useful exploration of imaginative literature and its relation to society, individuals and social and political change.
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Bibliography – 1800s to 2003
Critical Excerpts – 1883 to 2003
Quick Views
Social and Political Novel
Social and Political Literature
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A Practical Policy 