Adam Watt is Professor of French & Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter. Born in Edinburgh, he studied at the University of Oxford under the late Malcolm Bowie. His publications include Reading in Proust's A la recherche: le délire de la lecture (2009), The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust (2011) and, as Editor, Marcel Proust in Context (2013).

• Editor's Introduction Adam Watt; Part I. Beginnings: From the Late Medieval to Mme de Lafayette: 1. Late-Medieval Precursors to the Novel: 'Aucune Chose de Nouvel' Helen Swift; 2. Cultural Transmission and the Early French Novel Linda Louie and Timothy Hampton; 3. The Rise of the Novel in Sixteenth-Century France? Virginia Krause; 4. The Evolution of the Novel System in the Long Seventeenth Century Nicholas D. Paige; 5. Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers and the Novel: A Challenge to Literary History Faith E. Beasley; 6. Madame de Lafayette and La Princesse de Clèves as Landmark John D. Lyons; Part II. The Eighteenth Century: Learning, Letters, Libertinage: 7. The Early French Novel and the Circum-Atlantic Pamela Cheek; 8. Anglo-French Relations and the Novel in the Eighteenth Century Gillian Dow; 9. The Fiction of Diderot and Rousseau Caroline Warman; 10. The Memoir Novel Jenny Mander; 11. Epistolary Fiction: The Novel in the Postal Age Elizabeth C. Goldsmith; 12. The Libertine Novel Marine Ganofsky; 13. Sade and the Novel Will McMorran; Part III. After the Revolution: The Novel in the Long Nineteenth Century: 14. Post-Revolutionary Novels Katherine Astbury; 15. Private Pain and the Public Temper: The Personal Novel and Beyond Patrick O'Donovan; 16. Between Romance and Social Critique: Staël and Women Writers of the Early Nineteenth Century Alison Finch; 17. French Realism and History Maria Scott; 18. Law and the Nineteenth-Century Novel Andrew J. Counter; 19. Colonial Encounters in the Nineteenth-Century Novel Jennifer Yee; 20. French-Canadian Novels from the Nineteenth into the Twentieth Century Andrea Cabajsky; 21. Gender and the Novel from Sand to Colette Nigel Harkness; Part IV. From Naturalism to the Nouveau Roman: 22. The Republic of Novels: Politics and Late Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Claire White; 23. Medicine, Sex and the Novel; Maupassant; Rachilde; Michael R. Finn; 24. The Roman-Fleuve Ashok Collins; 25. Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu Adam Watt; 26. The Novel in France between the Wars Simon Kemp; 27. Existentialism and the Novel Ursula Tidd; 28. Suspicion and Novelty: The Nouveau Roman Hannah Freed-Thall; 29. The Holocaust and the Novel in French Colin Davis; Part V. Fictions of the Fifth Republic: From de Gaulle to the Internet Age: 30. Oulipo, Experiment and the Novel Anna Kemp; 31. Theories of the Novel Thomas Baldwin; 32. The Caribbean Novel in French 1958–2016 Maeve McCusker; 33. The North African Novel in French Jane Hiddleston; 34. Sub-Saharan Africa and the Novel in French Lydie Moudileno; 35. The Translingual Novel in French Charles Forsdick; 36. Literary Prizes Nicholas Hewitt; 37. Autofiction: Writing Lives Samuel Ferguson; 38. Trends in the Novel in French after 2000 Akane Kawakami; 39. Contemporary Women's Writing in French Amaleena Damlé; 40. The Novel in French and the Internet Erika Fülöp; Chronology; Further Reading; Index.

'Watt taps the expertise of 40 scholars, including a sprinkling of well-known authors, with the aim to 'support, stimulate and illuminate' the reading of novels written in French … the volume succeeds, as promised, in offering a means of rethinking the development and scope of the novel in French … Recommended.' A. H. Pasco, CHOICE