ABSTRACT
The three most important, original and influential British novelists in the early nineteenth century are Jane Austen, Walter Scott, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. All three are writers profoundly influenced by Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote. They represent the first phase of Cervantic novel in nineteenth-century England. This chapter focuses on other British novelists of nineteenth century, and discusses Cervantic fictions in twentieth-century Britain. It uses the term 'quixotic novel' to refer any work that bears some clear relationship to Cervantes's novel. Catherine Morland, protagonist of Northanger Abbey, is a female Quixote in the mould of Arabella, Dorcasina, Cherubina, and — later — Emma, the most famous of all quixotic women protagonists. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley maintained an interest in Cervantes throughout her life; her biography of him is the longest essay in her Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal; references to Cervantes, Don Quixote, and Sancho Panza appear frequently in her writings.
