“Readers of Dorothy J. Hale's The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1900-2000 will find the volume to be two books in one. One book is the anthology proper, which brings together essays that theorize the complex nature and history of novelistic fiction. Those essays became classroom classics in colleges and universities during the last forty years of the 20th century. The second is a virtual book of its own comprised of Hale's brilliant introductions to the theoretical essays. Elaborating each of the essays, interweaving their significance and the significance of the schools of theory from which the essays derive, Hale's meditations are a supplemental bonus to all teachers and students with a taste for ‘novel theory.’ ” Robert L. Caserio, author of Plot, Story and the Novel and The Novel in England 1900-1950: History and Theory.