Companion to Romance

Corinne Saunders is a Reader in Medieval Literature at the University of Durham. Her previous publications include The Forest of Medieval Romance (1993), Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (2001) and Chaucer (2001) in the Blackwell Guides to Criticism series.

“Acknowledging the difficulty of defining "romance," Saunders and the contributors collectively produce a volume that offers a more comprehensive survey of the literature--including its historical, national, and generic varieties--than have previous standard works on the subject…Some of the essays--e.g., Helen Cooper's "Malory and the Early Prose Romances" and Richard Cronin's "Victorian Romance: Medievalism"--are exemplary in the quality of their writing, scholarship, and critical perception…Highly recommended.” Choice "... It would be worth acquiring for an academic humanities collection and, from my own experience, would be particulary useful for English literature students at undergraduate and postgraduate level."Reference Review

• List of Illustrations viiiAcknowledgments ixNotes on Contributors xIntroduction 11. Ancient Romance 10Elizabeth Archibald2. Insular Beginnings: Anglo-Norman Romance 26Judith Weiss3. The Popular English Metrical Romances 45Derek Brewer4. Arthurian Romance 65W. R. J. Barron5. Chaucer’s Romances 85Corinne Saunders6. Malory and the Early Prose Romances 104Helen Cooper7. Gendering Prose Romance in Renaissance England 121Lori Humphrey Newcomb8. Sidney and Spenser 140Andrew King9. Shakespeare’s Romances 160David Fuller10. Chapbooks and Penny Histories 177John Simons11. The Faerie Queene and Eighteenth-century Spenserianism 197David Fairer12. ‘‘Gothic’’ Romance: Its Origins and Cultural Functions 216Jerrold E. Hogle13. Women’s Gothic Romance: Writers, Readers, and the Pleasures of the Form 233Lisa Vargo14. Paradise and Cotton-mill: Rereading Eighteenth-century Romance 251Clive Probyn15. ‘‘Inconsistent Rhapsodies’’: Samuel Richardson and the Politics of Romance 269Fiona Price16. Romance and the Romantic Novel: Sir Walter Scott 287Fiona Robertson17. Poetry of the Romantic Period: Coleridge and Keats 305Michael O’Neill18. Victorian Romance: Tennyson 321Leonée Ormond19. Victorian Romance: Medievalism 341Richard Cronin20. Romance and Victorian Autobiography: Margaret Oliphant, Edmund Gosse, and John Ruskin’s ‘‘needle to the north’’ 360Francis O’Gorman21. Victorian Romance: Romance and Mystery 375Andrew Sanders22. Nineteenth-century Adventure and Fantasy: James Morier, George Meredith, Lewis Carroll, and Robert Louis Stevenson 389Robert Fraser23. Into the Twentieth Century: Imperial Romance from Haggard to Buchan 406Susan Jones24. America and Romance 424Ulrika Maude25. Myth, Legend, and Romance in Yeats, Pound, and Eliot 438Edward Larrissy26. Twentieth-century Arthurian Romance 454Raymond H. Thompson27. Romance in Fantasy Through the Twentieth Century 472Richard Mathews28. Quest Romance in Science Fiction 488Kathryn Hume29. Between Worlds: Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, and Romance 502Clare Morgan30. Popular Romance and its Readers 521Lynne PearceEpilogue: Into the Twenty-first Century 539Corinne SaundersIndex 542