Early English Prose Fiction

This database transforms an increasingly popular area of research. Early English Prose Fiction is a balanced and representative collection of fictional prose works from the 16th and 17th centuries, and many of these important texts are difficult to obtain elsewhere.

Early English Prose Fiction is the largest corpus of works of prose fiction available in electronic form. It includes Elizabethan fiction, Jest Books, collections of short pieces and novellas, Restoration fiction, and works of popular fiction. First editions have been used unless a later edition is generally accepted as superior. The database has been produced in association with SCREEN (The Salzburg Centre for Research on the Early English Novel).

Early English Prose Fiction is the perfect complement to English Poetry and English Drama. It contains prose versions of some of the poetry in those databases and includes many of the same authors.

From linguistic scholars of Early Modern English to literary scholars to cultural historians, a wide variety of users will appreciate the wealth of information in this database.

Users can search for any word or phrase in the whole database, or search by title, author, gender, or date of publication.

“The texts ofEarly English Prose Fictionare essential to understand the development of narrative in English. What came to be recognised as the dominant characteristic of English fiction, realism, was only one of a rich diversity of approaches in fiction’s early years. The collection shows the evolution of English prose, covering the change from a predominantly oral culture, where prose fiction can be understood as "written speech", to a literary culture dependent on strictly literary conventions.”David Margolies,Goldsmith’s College, University of London