James Wilby reads Sebastian Faulks' fascinating literary and social history of the British novel.
After reading this collection of essays I look forward to seeing the BBC2 series with Sebastian Faulks describing some of the most memorable heroes and villains from the English Novel. Characters that have become part of our lives, many like Sherlock Holmes, Mr Darcy and Jeeves inhabiting that hazy ground between fiction and reality. Ranging across 250 years, Sebastian Faulks’ passion and opinions should spark many readers and viewers into re-examining the novels for themselves.
From Sebastian Faulks: 'The characters who appear in these pages are still alive to me and thousands, probably millions, of readers. I hope this book can at least be read as a prolonged and heartfelt thank you letter from a reader for all that he has learned from living people created in the minds of others.'
The publication of 'Robinson Crusoe' in London in 1719 marked the arrival of a revolutionary art form: the novel. British writers were prominent in shaping the new type of storytelling - one which reflected the experiences of ordinary people, with characters in whom readers could find not only an escape, but a deeper understanding of their own lives. But the novel was more than just a reflection of British life.
As Sebastian Faulks explains in this engaging literary and social history, it also helped invent the British. By focussing not on writers but on the people they gave us, Faulks not only celebrates the recently neglected act of novelistic creation but shows how the most enduring fictional characters over the centuries have helped map the British psyche - through heroes from Tom Jones to Sherlock Holmes, lovers from Mr Darcy to Lady Chatterley, villains from Fagin to Barbara Covett and snobs from Emma Woodhouse to James Bond. Accompanying a major BBC series, 'Faulks on Fiction' is a compelling and personal take on the story of how the dazzling creations of novelists helped shape the world we live in.
Sebastian Faulks was born and brought up in Newbury, Berkshire. He worked in journalism before starting to write books. He is best known for the French trilogy, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and CharlotteGray (1989-1997) and is also the author of a triple biography, The Fatal Englishman (1996); a small book of literary parodies, Pistache (2006); and the novels HumanTraces (2005) and Engleby (2007). He lives in London with his wife and their three children. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993 and appointed CBE for services to literature in 2002. He lives in London with his wife and their three children.
