Focuses on the development of the novel throughout the world. Its more than 600 entries include essays on writers, novels, and topics, as well as surveys of the novel in various regions across the globe. Entries on individual writers assess the place of each writer within the development of the novel form and explain the significance of the writer and his/her oeuvre to the development of the genre. Entries on individual novels discuss the novel both within the context of the writer's work and within the the history of the form, analyzing the innovations that particular novel has introduced...