ABSTRACT
The writers and the critics of romance mentioned by the reviewer were associated with the promotion of a national tradition of literature. Responding to attempts by Richard Hurd and James Beattie to form alternative romance traditions, in this work Clara Reeve establishes her own prose genealogy, from classical romance to modern novel. While the concept of tradition is thus in some ways a problematic one, eighteenth-century commentators nonetheless often suggested that the taste of an artist or audience could be improved by looking back at the works of the past, works which formed a prestigious cultural or artistic tradition. Of course, it is a critical commonplace that during the eighteenth century the notion of what might constitute a prestigious tradition altered: the emphasis shifted from the classical to the indigenous literary heritage. The established reading communities and traditions of critical thought that Reeve connects with female novel readers are, she argues, a potential defence against luxury.
