Re-assessing the canonical texts of eighteenth-century ‘Literature’, Bell situates the work of Defoe, Hogarth, Gay, Swift, Pope, Richardson and Fielding in its social and political context.

The book highlights the difficulty of placing Defoe’s fiction in the most appropriate context due to it being aimed primarily at a popular market, in contrast to the more literary productions of Pope, Swift, or Addison.

This is an exciting new Series of lively, original and authoritative studies aimed at the student and general reader.