ABSTRACT
Novels that feature graphic elements are by no means a recent development in literary innovation. An early, canonical example of a novel with graphic elements is, of course, Laurence Sterne's (1967 [1759–1767]) much celebrated and sometimes berated The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. The book plays with the very form of the novel itself, in both a visual and narratological sense, a facet made all the more remarkable in recent revisionings such as the (2010) release of the book by Visual Editions. One might therefore expect that as writers have been experimenting with the inclusion of images in narrative for so long, a critical vocabulary for examining such experimentation and design would be established. Regrettably, this is not the case. Inevitably, literary criticism has instead favoured the word, and often not as the written word, focusing instead upon the thematic and conceptual facilities of discourse. However, as White puts it, “Literature has a physical context which criticism should not ignore: the printed book” (White 2005: 24). Indeed, even within mainstream publishing, the period surrounding the turn of the millennium has seen an increase in the inclusion of typography and illustration in fiction for adults.
