Novel of circulation

Illustration to Pompey the Little, by John June

The novel of circulation, otherwise known as the it-narrative, or object narrative,^[1] is a genre of novel common at one time in British literature, and follows the fortunes of an object, for example a coin, that is passed around between different owners. Sometimes, instead, it involves a pet or other domestic animal, as for example in Francis Coventry's The History of Pompey the Little (1751).^[2] This and other such works blended satire with the interest for contemporary readers of a roman à clef.^[3]

Examples

• 1709 Charles Gildon, The Golden Spy. This work is identified as an early example. Later, an episodic structure in which objects "spied" on people became established.^[4] Other generic terms used are "object tales" or "spy novels".^[5]
• 1734 Anonymous, The Secret History of an Old Shoe^[6]
• 1742 Claude Crébillon, The Sopha, a Moral Tale^[7]
• 1753 Susan Smythies, The Stage-coach: containing the character of Mr. Manly, and the history of his fellow-travellers^[7]
• 1754 Anonymous, History and Adventures of a Lady's Slippers and Shoes^[8]
• 1760 Edward Phillips, The Adventures of a Black Coat^[9]
• 1760–5 Charles Johnstone, Chrysal; or, The Adventures of a Golden Guinea^[2]
• 1767 Charles Perronet, Dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading-Desk^[7]
• 1769 Tobias Smollett, The History and Adventures of an Atom^[7]
• 1771 Thomas Bridges, The Adventures of a Bank-Note^[10]
• 1783 Theophilus Johnson, Phantoms: or, The Adventures of a Gold-Headed Cane^[11]
• 1790 Helenus Scott, The Adventures of a Rupee^[12]
• 1799 Edward Augustus Kendall, The Crested Wren^[7]
• 1813 Mary Pilkington, The Sorrows of Caesar, or, The Adventures of a Foundling Dog^[7]
• 1816 Mary Mister, The Adventures of a Doll^[7]
• 1880 Nellie Hellis, The Story He was told; or, The Adventures of a Teacup^[13]
• 1897, John William Fortescue, The Story of a Red Deer^[14]

Relationship to other genres

With works of Mary Ann Kilner of the 1780s, Adventures of a Pincushion and Memoirs of a Peg-Top, it-novels became part of children's literature.^[15] One offshoot was a style of satirical children's verse made popular by Catherine Ann Dorset, based on a poem by William Roscoe, The Butterfly's Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast.^[16] Quite generally, it-narrative in the 19th century is typefied by an animal narrator.^[17]

It has been remarked that the slave narrative genre of the 18th century avoided being confused with the it-narrative, being thought of as a type of biography.^[18]

The plot of Middlemarch has been seen to be structured, initially, by a circulation; but to end in a contrasting "subject narrative".^[19]

Notes

1. Wolfram Schmidgen (2002). Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Law of Property. Cambridge University Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-139-43482-9.
2. John Mullan (12 October 2006). How Novels Work. Oxford University Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-19-162292-2.
3. Liz Bellamy (26 September 2005). Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-521-02037-4.
4. Olivia Murphy (22 February 2013). Jane Austen the Reader: The Artist as Critic. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-137-29241-4.
5. Mark Blackwell (2007). The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-narratives in Eighteenth-century England. Bucknell University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-8387-5666-9.
6. Jolene Zigarovich (2 May 2013). Sex and Death in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-136-18237-2.
7. Mark Blackwell (2007). The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-narratives in Eighteenth-century England. Bucknell University Press. pp. 135–8. ISBN 978-0-8387-5666-9.
8. Wolfram Schmidgen (2002). Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Law of Property. Cambridge University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-139-43482-9.
9. Christina Lupton (29 November 2011). Knowing Books: The Consciousness of Mediation in Eighteenth-Century Britain. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 49–. ISBN 0-8122-0521-9.
10. Nicholas Hudson (2005) "Social Rank, "The Rise of the Novel," and Whig Histories of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Eighteenth-Century Fiction: Vol. 17: Iss. 4 (2005), at p. 587]
11. David Scott Kastan (2006). The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-19-516921-8.
12. Liz Bellamy (26 September 2005). Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Cambridge University Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-521-02037-4.
13. Mark Blackwell (2007). The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-narratives in Eighteenth-century England. Bucknell University Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-8387-5666-9.
14. Mark Blackwell (2007). The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-narratives in Eighteenth-century England. Bucknell University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-8387-5666-9.
15. Mark Blackwell (2007). The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-narratives in Eighteenth-century England. Bucknell University Press. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-8387-5666-9.
16. Frederick Burwick; Nancy Moore Goslee; Diane Long Hoeveler (30 January 2012). The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature. John Wiley & Sons. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-4051-8810-4.
17. Laura Brown (2010). Homeless Dogs & Melancholy Apes: Humans and Other Animals in the Modern Literary Imagination. Cornell University Press. p. 123. ISBN 0-8014-4828-X.
18. John Ernest (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-19-973148-0.
19. Leah Price (9 April 2012). How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain. Princeton University Press. p. 108. ISBN 1-4008-4218-2.