Consistently praised for its readability and scholarship, Studying the Novel is the ideal undergraduate companion to the study of the novel and shorter fiction. Revised throughout to reflect the profound impact of e-reading and digital resources on the writing, reading, and analysis of fiction, the eighth edition includes a new chapter on popular fiction that covers children’s fiction, horror and the gothic, science fiction, the detective story, the comic novel, and the graphic novel. The chapter on World Literature has been expanded to include sections on fiction and apartheid, and the fiction of disability, and information on electronic resources has been thoroughly updated.

Providing a complete guide to the study of prose fiction in one reader-friendly volume, the book covers:

- The history and diversity of the novel, from early ancestors to new electronic forms
- The novel, the novella, and the short story
- Realism, modernism, and postmodernism
- Analysing fiction: narrators, character, structure, theme, and dialogue
- Popular fiction
- Critical approaches to studying the novel
- Practical guidance on textual analysis, the choice and use of criticism, electronic resources, and essay writing
- Film and TV adaptations, and reading novels in translation
- World literature
Comprehensive cross-referencing allows readers to locate information quickly. Technical terms and concepts such as ‘perspective and voice’, symbol and image, Free Indirect Discourse, and many others are all explained with the help of examples from a wide range of fictional works. A Glossary provides additional explanations of terms and concepts the student is likely to encounter, and each chapter concludes with a set of study questions.