0:00:05 > 0:00:09It's 1749. London is in the grip of an addiction -
0:00:09 > 0:00:11gin.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14It's dirt cheap
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and it's turning the capital into a nest of vice and destruction.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25Out of this chaos, the legendary Bow Street Runners,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28Britain's first professional police force, were born.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33This, one of the most significant social reforms in British history,
0:00:33 > 0:00:37was only part of the radical reforming agenda of its founder,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40Henry Fielding, a magistrate.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44At the same time, Fielding was doing something else
0:00:44 > 0:00:47which would have huge social consequences.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49He published a novel.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54Tom Jones is one of the greatest novels of all time.
0:00:55 > 0:01:01Behind the comic story of its hero is a blistering critique of British society,
0:01:01 > 0:01:03a moral call to arms.
0:01:04 > 0:01:09Henry Fielding was a genius. The novel was a new emergent art form.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13Fielding saw in the novel the potential to challenge
0:01:13 > 0:01:16and renovate everything that was wrong with society -
0:01:16 > 0:01:18and all under the guise of entertainment.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23While fiction today may seem a rather cosy business,
0:01:23 > 0:01:27back then it was a dangerous and subversive enterprise.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Fielding was one of a handful of trail blazers,
0:01:30 > 0:01:35using the novel to challenge the norms of British society.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39In just 80 years, writers including Daniel Defoe,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne
0:01:43 > 0:01:47and Fanny Burney would lay down the basic templates for the novel,
0:01:47 > 0:01:51establishing all the literary genres we recognise today -
0:01:51 > 0:01:55from horror and chick-lit to the political thriller.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02For me, these early novels remain the bedrock of British fiction,
0:02:02 > 0:02:06unsurpassed in brilliance and ambition.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11I want to uncover the dynamic and radical personalities of their authors
0:02:11 > 0:02:13and the places that inspired them,
0:02:13 > 0:02:19to find out why they still exert the power and influence they do.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23It's a journey that takes us under the skin of 18th Century Britain
0:02:23 > 0:02:26as we move from the homes of the good and the great
0:02:26 > 0:02:29to the North Yorkshire Moors,
0:02:29 > 0:02:35and from Britain's lowliest prisons to its outposts overseas.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40Most of all, I want to show how the birth of the British novel
0:02:40 > 0:02:45was a revolution, not just for literature but also for society.
0:03:09 > 0:03:15The novel as we know it emerged in Britain in the early 18th Century.
0:03:15 > 0:03:20The nation, at that time, was in the flush of economic prosperity.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22Literacy was on the rise,
0:03:22 > 0:03:28thanks to an explosion of print culture - newspapers, pamphlets and magazines.
0:03:28 > 0:03:32New laws surrounding censorship and copyright
0:03:32 > 0:03:38gave authors greater freedom and commercial opportunity than before.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41The ground was set for something remarkable to happen.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46But it would take a maverick misfit to make the breakthrough -
0:03:46 > 0:03:51and it happened in an unlikely place - the East End of London.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00This is the birthplace of the British novel.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02And the person who brings it into being
0:04:02 > 0:04:06is a man who has a long record as a business practitioner.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09He's been a horse dealer, he's been a salt buyer,
0:04:09 > 0:04:14he's turned his hand to many other things - tobacco, tiles, hosiery.
0:04:14 > 0:04:19He alights on the novel as an extension of his varied career in business.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21That man is Daniel Defoe.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24And the novel he wrote was Robinson Crusoe.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27Published in 1719,
0:04:27 > 0:04:33Robinson Crusoe is the account of a castaway, marooned on a desert island.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Crusoe survives against all odds for 28 years
0:04:36 > 0:04:39by drawing deep on his own resources,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43marking each passing day on his makeshift calendar,
0:04:43 > 0:04:44a wooden cross.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48What's so brilliant and original about Defoe
0:04:48 > 0:04:52is the way he pairs prose back to its bare essentials.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55There's nothing florid here. There's no poetry.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58What matters to him is one thing and one thing only,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02and that's that we believe in this made-up story of his.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07And to accomplish this, he feasts on the minute particulars of Crusoe's existence.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10There's nothing too mundane, nothing too small.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14He absolutely delights in the tiny details of his everyday existence,
0:05:14 > 0:05:16like this...
0:05:17 > 0:05:20"I saved the skins of all the Creatures that I kill'd,
0:05:20 > 0:05:21"I mean four-footed ones,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25"and I had hung them up stretch'd out with Sticks in the Sun..."
0:05:25 > 0:05:29"The first thing I made of these was a great Cap for my Head
0:05:29 > 0:05:32"with the Hair on the Outside to shoot off the rain;
0:05:32 > 0:05:34"and this I perform'd so well,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38"that after this I made me a Suit of Cloaths wholly of these Skins...
0:05:38 > 0:05:44"And after this, I spent a great deal of Time and Pains to make me an Umbrella."
0:05:47 > 0:05:53Defoe's literary breakthrough came towards the end of a long and colourful life.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55When not hustling for money,
0:05:55 > 0:05:57he had taken part in a failed rebellion,
0:05:57 > 0:06:01spent time in the stocks and debtors' prison
0:06:01 > 0:06:04and worked as a journalist and even as a government spy.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10STALLHOLDERS SHOUT FOR TRADE
0:06:10 > 0:06:12A pound a bowl, your bananas.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16I like to think of Defoe as a visionary.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20He detected a new spirit emerging on the streets of London
0:06:20 > 0:06:23and saw that commerce could challenge the established social order.
0:06:31 > 0:06:38Take away the desert island setting and we're left with a manual for self-sufficiency and personal gain,
0:06:38 > 0:06:44one that chimed with the burgeoning merciless, economic values of 18th Century Britain.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48And it hit a nerve.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53Robinson Crusoe is the first work of fiction that answers
0:06:53 > 0:06:56our modern description of a novel.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58It's also the first bestseller.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00Within four months, it had gone through four editions
0:07:00 > 0:07:04and within a year, it had been translated into French, German and Dutch.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12Discovering a winning formula, Defoe didn't stop there.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17He wrote another novel, exploring new avenues of self-sufficiency.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21It's a story set much closer to home.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27Moll Flanders, published in 1722, is the tale of a harlot on the make.
0:07:27 > 0:07:32Her motto - "With money in the pocket, one is at home anywhere."
0:07:32 > 0:07:34She dies a rich woman.
0:07:36 > 0:07:42In Moll Flanders, Defoe drags us into a world which propriety usually prevents most of us from entering.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49As in Robinson Crusoe, Defoe uses his central character
0:07:49 > 0:07:53to confront the key moral and intellectual issues of the age.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59Defoe is a pre-enlightenment figure
0:07:59 > 0:08:02and whereas by the end of the 18th Century people subscribed to Russo's view
0:08:02 > 0:08:06that man is born pure and is then besmirched with sin by life,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10Defoe believes that we're born in a state of filth -
0:08:10 > 0:08:12and he depicts this in his novel Moll Flanders.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14Moll is born in Newgate Prison,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18the debtors' prison with which Defoe himself was painfully familiar.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22And Moll's life is one of inexorable degeneration -
0:08:22 > 0:08:24she ends up again, after her career as a thief,
0:08:24 > 0:08:29in Newgate Prison and she's actually applauded there as a master criminal.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32And it's here that she experiences something remarkable -
0:08:32 > 0:08:35redemption, spiritual regeneration.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37This is something new that Defoe is bringing into the novel.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Whereas previously, piety has been instilled through devotional traps,
0:08:41 > 0:08:46here we get this grassroots depiction of moral regeneration.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49It's something that would have made 18th Century readers believe
0:08:49 > 0:08:51that salvation was possible for them too.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Defoe had chanced upon the novel as a money-spinner.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10In doing so, he created a radical new art form.
0:09:10 > 0:09:15It was a test-bed for provocative, social and political ideas
0:09:15 > 0:09:19and could give a voice to society's outsiders.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23I'm struck too by the way it delivered its arguments with a real punch
0:09:23 > 0:09:30and for one of Defoe's contemporaries, the novel was just that - fighting talk.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Dublin in the early 18th Century -
0:09:35 > 0:09:39not technically a colony but a sort of imperial backwater
0:09:39 > 0:09:44and the next of our pioneering novelists was less than thrilled to be there.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51Jonathan Swift had been a key figure in the inner circle of the Tory government.
0:09:51 > 0:09:58After their fall in 1714, he scuttled off as if in exile to Dublin.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02This was the city of Swift's birth yet, poignantly,
0:10:02 > 0:10:08he describes his existence here as like that of a rat in a hole.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13Bitter and frustrated at the collapse of his political career,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16he channelled his venom into a stinging rebuttal
0:10:16 > 0:10:19of what he saw as the blind optimism of Robinson Crusoe.
0:10:21 > 0:10:27Ironically, his pessimism would result in one of the best-loved novels of all time,
0:10:27 > 0:10:30Gulliver's Travels.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34Swift would have been familiar with this handsome library
0:10:34 > 0:10:39in Trinity College, Dublin, where robust now stands in his honour.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46This bust presents an idealised image of what Swift was like.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49I don't think it does justice to the complexity of his being
0:10:49 > 0:10:53but Swift was a person who was extraordinarily conflicted.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56There were lots of different things going on within him.
0:10:56 > 0:10:59He was a misanthrope but also a moralist.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02He was a satirist but also a man of tremendous charity.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04One of my favourite stories about Swift
0:11:04 > 0:11:09is that he would always carry coins of every available denomination about his person,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13so that he would always have exactly the right amount to give to any beggar
0:11:13 > 0:11:17that he ran into on the streets of Dublin.
0:11:23 > 0:11:30I love how all the contradictions inherent in Swift's personality are expressed in Gulliver's Travels.
0:11:30 > 0:11:38On the surface, it's a series of lost at sea adventures with Gulliver as both a giant and a midget -
0:11:38 > 0:11:42adventures which have delighted children and adults alike.
0:11:44 > 0:11:49But beneath the surface is a pungently satirical illustration
0:11:49 > 0:11:54of man's limitations and of the brutality of absolute power.
0:11:59 > 0:12:00In the miniature land of Lilliput,
0:12:00 > 0:12:06Gulliver calmly extinguishes a fire at the palace by urinating on it.
0:12:06 > 0:12:11Gulliver reports that in three minutes, the fire was wholly extinguished
0:12:11 > 0:12:15and the rest of that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18preserved from destruction.
0:12:18 > 0:12:24Pretty provocative visceral imagery to fling in the face of the ruling elite.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38I'm looking at a first edition - a first London edition - of Gulliver's Travels.
0:12:38 > 0:12:40It's a real goose-bumps moment
0:12:40 > 0:12:43because this is such a landmark publication.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47It's an incredibly important and influential book.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49It's wielded huge cultural influence.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Swift wrote the book between 1721 and 1725
0:12:54 > 0:12:57and he knew it had the potential to be hugely provocative,
0:12:57 > 0:13:01so when it came to publishing it, he devised an elaborate ruse for doing so
0:13:01 > 0:13:05and he did this in collaboration with his friends, Alexander Pope and John Gay,
0:13:05 > 0:13:10with whom he'd worked on other satirical projects. They'd been known as the Scriblerians.
0:13:10 > 0:13:15What they actually did was they presented the book as the work of Lemuel Gulliver, himself.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19This was presented to the publisher Benjamin Motte and he bought this,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22hook, line and sinker and he was so excited about the book
0:13:22 > 0:13:28that he used five different printers in order to bring it to the public as rapidly as possible.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32What this also did was it eliminated the risk of piracy.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35Motte cleaned the text up.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37Swift, obviously, wasn't consulted.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Motte was afraid of being prosecuted because of the salacious elements,
0:13:41 > 0:13:47because of some of the satirical elements, so he made alterations - he changed things in the text.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52When we come here, to the Dublin edition, also 1726,
0:13:52 > 0:13:55this actually has those bits of the text restored,
0:13:55 > 0:13:58so this is an unexpurgated version of the novel.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02It's the novel as Swift intended to set it before the public.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05And it's an important feature of publishing at this time,
0:14:05 > 0:14:09that publishers were very wary of the reaction that books might get
0:14:09 > 0:14:11and sometimes felt that they had to cut things down
0:14:11 > 0:14:15in order not to get themselves into really quite deep trouble.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20This really underscores the idea that the novel is still something new and upstart and dangerous
0:14:20 > 0:14:25and those involved in setting it before the public were exposing themselves to tremendous danger.
0:14:25 > 0:14:32It was something that laid everyone involved in the enterprise open to all kinds of very serious charges.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Gulliver's Travels sold out in a week.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55It remains one of the most reproduced printed works in the history of literature.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05We have only to visit one of the nation's quirky miniature villages
0:15:05 > 0:15:11to be strikingly reminded of the power Swift's book has over our imaginations.
0:15:15 > 0:15:21But for me, the most significant of Gulliver's journeys is the most neglected.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26Gulliver visits the lands of the Houyhnhnms, a breed of rational horse,
0:15:26 > 0:15:32who at first appeared to be ideal noble creatures, superior to man.
0:15:32 > 0:15:37They exist alongside the Yahoos - base and deformed people
0:15:37 > 0:15:41who seem to represent humanity at its very worst.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47Swift appears to be asking us to choose between the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos
0:15:47 > 0:15:51but the truth is that both the kinds of existence that they represent
0:15:51 > 0:15:54are, in some ways, deeply flawed.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58Swift was absolutely consumed by moral indignation,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02by repulsion at humanity in its most shocking colours,
0:16:02 > 0:16:04and we see this really coming to the fore.
0:16:04 > 0:16:10The books ends with Gulliver finally returning home, deranged by his travels,
0:16:10 > 0:16:16unable to bear the proximity of his family, finding comfort only in the company of horses.
0:16:19 > 0:16:24Swift used satire to attack flaws in society,
0:16:24 > 0:16:29providing inspiration to successive generations of writers.
0:16:29 > 0:16:35What do you think are the sort of personal attributes that somebody has that make him or her a satirist?
0:16:35 > 0:16:37I think a satirist gets up in the morning and thinks,
0:16:37 > 0:16:42"Why cars? Why huts with wheels on the corner?
0:16:42 > 0:16:44Why do we go about in this?
0:16:44 > 0:16:47Why do people... Why do men wear trousers?
0:16:47 > 0:16:48"Why do we have sex lying down?"
0:16:48 > 0:16:54I think what Swift brings very, very strongly to satire,
0:16:54 > 0:17:00which hadn't been done before, and in a way is still incredibly unsettling for people,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04is what you might call the anthropological,
0:17:04 > 0:17:08or even martian viewpoint on human society.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10And so when you come to Gulliver's Travels,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14everybody who read it at the time of publication
0:17:14 > 0:17:19would have absolutely recognised exactly what was being satirised at every point.
0:17:19 > 0:17:24Of course, it's part of his genius that we still recognise what he's satirising.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Swift was as great in terms of satire
0:17:28 > 0:17:31as Shakespeare was in terms of tragedy.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35He is the kind of archimendrite of alienation in that way
0:17:35 > 0:17:38so, you know, his real fruit,
0:17:38 > 0:17:40you know, his real kind of literally heirs,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44therefore don't emerge until you have a real period
0:17:44 > 0:17:47of comparable alienation from the social process,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50so you have to look to the late 19th and 20th Century.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54All of those writers, from Edward Bellamy to HG Wells
0:17:54 > 0:17:58to - coming into the 20th Century - Orwell to Huxley,
0:17:58 > 0:18:02they're all channelling Swift in one way or another.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05He's that powerful a writer.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Who isn't indebted to Swift?
0:18:17 > 0:18:23Swift ended his days as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin,
0:18:23 > 0:18:26embracing the city he once spurned.
0:18:27 > 0:18:33Misanthropic yet humane, a depressive with an astounding wit,
0:18:33 > 0:18:38Swift to me appears an almost unfathomable character.
0:18:43 > 0:18:49He wrote his own epitaph in Latin on this memorial plaque.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51When we look at the inscription to Swift,
0:18:51 > 0:18:54we see these words "savage indignation".
0:18:54 > 0:18:56This was how he was characterised
0:18:56 > 0:18:58and we read that in the moment of his death
0:18:58 > 0:19:04he's finally going off to somewhere where that savage indignation can no longer lacerate his heart.
0:19:04 > 0:19:09It's an image of extraordinary violence to be left with at the end of Swift's life,
0:19:09 > 0:19:13but Swift's life had had violence inscribed all the way through it -
0:19:13 > 0:19:20and it's that violence which is absolutely central to his incredibly original creative vision.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35'Today, women are the majority consumers of novels,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38'and it was no different back in the 1740s.'
0:19:39 > 0:19:43'For a growing readership of middle-class women with time on their hands,
0:19:43 > 0:19:47'the novel allowed entry into other people's worlds.'
0:19:49 > 0:19:53The novel was intrinsically an intimate genre,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57and the potential for exploiting that intimacy
0:19:57 > 0:20:02for penetrating human consciousness deeply was about to be exploited.
0:20:05 > 0:20:10'Samuel Richardson used the novel as a moral mechanism
0:20:10 > 0:20:15'to glorify female virtue and denounce sexual temptation.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18'He was a prig, but also a virtuoso.'
0:20:20 > 0:20:23'In his novels, he explored the tiniest nuances
0:20:23 > 0:20:26'of his characters' thoughts and behaviour.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31'His fiction would lay bare the workings of the human mind,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34'a full 150 years before Freud.'
0:20:40 > 0:20:45'But this master of psychology began his career as a humble printer,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49'part of the Stationers' Company in London.'
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Richardson is a printer before he's a novelist,
0:20:59 > 0:21:01and indeed his becoming a novelist
0:21:01 > 0:21:03is an extension of his activities as a printer.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07He's a central figure in the print culture of this age
0:21:07 > 0:21:10and we see here the documentary evidence of his career as a printer.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13So here he's been bound as an apprentice,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17and then here seven years later he's been freed from his apprenticeship.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19And then we see him taking the livery of the company
0:21:19 > 0:21:24before finally, in 1754, ascending to be the master of the company.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27And that completes a remarkable passage through the ranks
0:21:27 > 0:21:30to reach the very top of the stationer's company
0:21:30 > 0:21:32and of print culture of the age.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37'Richardson's first novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,
0:21:37 > 0:21:40'was published anonymously in 1740.'
0:21:42 > 0:21:50'It's a series of letters concerning the attempted seduction of a young maid by her aristocratic master.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53'She resists. He falls in love.
0:21:53 > 0:21:59'Pamela's unflinching virtue nets her the man and the country estate.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02'Richardson championed the epistolary form
0:22:02 > 0:22:06'to draw us deep into the minds of his characters
0:22:06 > 0:22:11'as they agonise over their own motivations and desires.'
0:22:11 > 0:22:14A woman who writes six letters on her wedding day,
0:22:14 > 0:22:16one at eight in the morning, one at ten,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19one at two in the afternoon, one at 3.30, it is ridiculous.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24On the other hand, it is also quite close to the moment, and people appreciated that.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29'Richardson became a celebrity,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33'surrounded by admiring cultivated ladies.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37'So he wrote a follow-up using the same storyline,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40'except this time, as though tiring of relentless virtue,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44'Richardson allowed the villain to have his way.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49'Clarissa, published in 1748, charts the pursuit, rape
0:22:49 > 0:22:52'and ultimate death of its heroine,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56'who falls thanks to being drugged by the libertine Lovelace.'
0:22:56 > 0:23:01Here we have Lovelace writing to his friend Belford about Clarissa.
0:23:01 > 0:23:07"The devil indeed, as soon as my angel made her appearance, crept out of my heart.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11'But he had left the door open and was no further off than my elbow.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14"Night, midnight, is necessary, Belford.
0:23:14 > 0:23:20"Surprise, terror, must be necessary to the ultimate trial of this charming creature.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25'When I first tackled Clarissa, it overwhelmed me.
0:23:25 > 0:23:31'A monster of a novel, its narrative plays out over eight volumes.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34'It is still one of the longest novels ever written.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39'A million words and fabulously labyrinthine,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43'it covers a period of a mere 11 months.'
0:23:43 > 0:23:49Clarissa, unlike Pamela, has been greatly admired as an example of the tragic novel.
0:23:49 > 0:23:56I don't find it tragic. I find it verbose, cruel, vindictive, sadistic.
0:23:56 > 0:23:58There is Clarissa, the innocent Clarissa,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01who is tormented all the way through the book
0:24:01 > 0:24:08and is finally raped and dies at inordinate length in a very religious mode,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12preparing her dying dress instead of her wedding dress.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14I now find it more offensive than I did when young.
0:24:14 > 0:24:19I can now hardly lift it up, partly because it's very heavy
0:24:19 > 0:24:24and my hands grow weak but I actually physically find it repulsive now.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28What do you think Richardson's great achievement is in terms of taking the novel forwards?
0:24:28 > 0:24:31In Richardson you have the extreme development of
0:24:31 > 0:24:36a form of psychological novel which, of course, continued.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40I mean, Henry James, you could say, is a direct heir to Richardson.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43This eternal kind of going over motive,
0:24:43 > 0:24:48going over little movements of the spirit and the body.
0:24:54 > 0:24:59'Richardson's morality was of a starchy, black and white sort,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02'at odds with the true conditions of his society.
0:25:02 > 0:25:08'Outside on the streets it was a very different story.'
0:25:16 > 0:25:2118th-century London is a roiling mass of contradictions.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23It's a city where on the one hand
0:25:23 > 0:25:26you've got people attending cock fights and freak shows,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29there's this whole culture of the coffee house and the tavern,
0:25:29 > 0:25:34and yet on the other hand there are tremendous philanthropic works going on.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36There's a great sense of scientific endeavour.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40It's a city where you can get dead drunk for tuppence,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43you can buy a dozen French lessons for £1.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46So there's this wonderful blend of the high and the low.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50'There was one writer who passionately believed
0:25:50 > 0:25:52'that if the novel was going to have a moral message,
0:25:52 > 0:25:56'it must reflect these startling contrasts.'
0:25:57 > 0:26:01'To me, it's impressive that he saw the imperfections of humanity
0:26:01 > 0:26:05'as something not to shy away from, but to salute.'
0:26:07 > 0:26:11'This was Henry Fielding - Justice of the Peace,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16'founder of the Bow Street Runners, a man devoted to social reform.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21'He also recognised the role of art and entertainment
0:26:21 > 0:26:24'in getting his message across to the populace.
0:26:24 > 0:26:30'He wrote satirical plays, but after succumbing to censorship, he turns to the novel.
0:26:30 > 0:26:35'In all this, he was steered by his close friend and mentor,
0:26:35 > 0:26:38'the painter William Hogarth.'
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Jenny, we've got a couple of fantastic Hogarth prints here.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47Can you tell me a little bit about them?
0:26:47 > 0:26:52Yes. They're connected with Fielding, and Hogarth's friendship with Henry Fielding.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54This is Gin Lane.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58This is 1751, and this is when both Hogarth and Fielding
0:26:58 > 0:27:02had, as it were, grown up. They're no longer wanderers
0:27:02 > 0:27:05around Covent Garden and putting on exciting plays.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09They're serious men.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13Hogarth was working with Fielding at this point
0:27:13 > 0:27:16to develop a particular campaign.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Fielding was a Justice of the Peace.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21He was a very compassionate JP
0:27:21 > 0:27:25and he felt that much of the crime in the slums of London
0:27:25 > 0:27:30was due to the sale of this adulterated gin,
0:27:30 > 0:27:35and so with Hogarth's help he mounted a campaign
0:27:35 > 0:27:39against the Gin Act to actually get gin licensed.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42So this is a very didactic print,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45and it's much sharper, much clearer, less effusive,
0:27:45 > 0:27:50so that people would see it and immediately see its message.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54So is there a sense that this is a kind of golden moment in British history
0:27:54 > 0:27:59where art and literature are almost in a kind of symbiotic relationship?
0:27:59 > 0:28:02That's a lovely idea, and it's absolutely right.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06In the 1730s, when Hogarth and Fielding both began,
0:28:06 > 0:28:12they're young men, they want to overturn the cultural establishment.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15They don't have a manifesto but they really, really have a programme.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20And they're very concerned about the future as well.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24If you think of Hogarth's works, they're full of children,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27like the child falling, just being dropped by her drunken mother,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31into the abyss in Gin Lane, and of course, Tom Jones is the foundling.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33They criticise the powers that be,
0:28:33 > 0:28:36they criticise the hypocrites in society
0:28:36 > 0:28:41so that it will be a place where people can grow up in a different way.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49'It was Hogarth's collaboration
0:28:49 > 0:28:53'in one of the great charitable enterprises of the age
0:28:53 > 0:28:57'that inspired Henry Fielding to write Tom Jones.
0:28:57 > 0:29:04'The foundling hospital, created in 1739, provided shelter for orphans.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07'Leading artists rallied to the cause,
0:29:07 > 0:29:11'raising awareness of the plight of Britain's abandoned children.'
0:29:17 > 0:29:20This is Hogarth's contribution to this space.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23It's a painting of Moses, the original foundling,
0:29:23 > 0:29:26being presented to Pharaoh's daughter.
0:29:26 > 0:29:27And Hogarth is using art here,
0:29:27 > 0:29:31he's appealing to the refined sensibilities of his audience
0:29:31 > 0:29:35and he's getting them to overcome their existing perceptions of the foundling.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38The foundling is associated with sin and shame.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43Hogarth is using art to reverse social prejudice.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47'Fielding decided to do his bit
0:29:47 > 0:29:51'by making an orphan the hero of his greatest novel.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55'Originally called The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59'it was published in 1749.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02'In the story, the low-born but lovable Tom
0:30:02 > 0:30:06'pursues Sophia, the unattainable woman of his dreams,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09'leaping into bed with a fair few others on the way.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13'Behind all this, there's a resonant message.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16'Tom may be a foundling, but he is more generous and humane
0:30:16 > 0:30:20'than the high-born characters who surround him.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24'I love these illustrations which capture its romping spirit,
0:30:24 > 0:30:31'complete with slapstick, comic misunderstandings and bedroom farce.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35'The word-of-mouth buzz in the coffee houses was so strong
0:30:35 > 0:30:40'that the first edition of 2,000 copies sold out in advance.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45'It was sumptuously new and entertaining, with one of the most elaborate plots ever conceived.'
0:30:45 > 0:30:48Whenever a new product comes on the market,
0:30:48 > 0:30:50you have to tell people how to use it,
0:30:50 > 0:30:53and Fielding does this emphatically in Tom Jones
0:30:53 > 0:30:57using prefaces and guidelines to steer the readers' attention.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59He's very involved, he's very intrusive,
0:30:59 > 0:31:03and there's a reason for this that we don't necessarily think of.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06Fielding had probably read fewer novels than we have.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09The novel was still something new, something provisional.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12You have to explain to people how to wend their way through it.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15You have to provide them with a kind of helping hand.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19'The contrast with Richardson's Clarissa,
0:31:19 > 0:31:23'published just the year before, couldn't be greater.'
0:31:23 > 0:31:26I think Fielding is unquestionably
0:31:26 > 0:31:29the central novelist of the 18th century.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34Richardson...is a horrible excrescence in my view,
0:31:34 > 0:31:41I mean, pious AND lecherous, and, er...
0:31:41 > 0:31:47rotting with fantasies about drugs and rape and ravishment,
0:31:47 > 0:31:51whereas there's something marvellous and sane about Fielding.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54He gives us a sort of humour that has lasted,
0:31:54 > 0:31:57and, you know, we're still doing it,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00which is essentially the mock epic -
0:32:00 > 0:32:04that he describes low life in a high style.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07And this has been... Dickens does it too,
0:32:07 > 0:32:13and it's been a tremendously fertile vein in the English novel.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17There's a sense, isn't there, at this time that being a novelist is dangerous and precarious?
0:32:17 > 0:32:22Fielding crossed the border into taboo territory.
0:32:22 > 0:32:27He had a what we would call healthy interest in sex.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31No-one had the courage or the freedom to look at it squarely,
0:32:31 > 0:32:37and it was two and a half centuries before those inhibitions were made to evaporate.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39Fielding is beautifully relaxed about it
0:32:39 > 0:32:43and can be read with unaffected pleasure, you know, centuries on.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48The first 200 pages of Tom Jones are an idyll for the writer
0:32:48 > 0:32:51and for the reader and for the characters.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59'In just four decades, the novel had evolved
0:32:59 > 0:33:01'to combine both juicy entertainment
0:33:01 > 0:33:07'and complex rifts on contemporary philosophy and morality.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10'But where else could it go?
0:33:10 > 0:33:14'The desire to test its limits would result in what I consider
0:33:14 > 0:33:18'the most wonderfully demented masterpiece of the century,
0:33:18 > 0:33:20'and one of the most original novels ever written.'
0:33:23 > 0:33:26'This is Coxwold, in North Yorkshire.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29'It was home to Laurence Sterne,
0:33:29 > 0:33:33'the author of Tristram Shandy, published in 1759.'
0:33:39 > 0:33:43'I find Tristram Shandy pretty much impossible to describe.
0:33:43 > 0:33:49'On the surface, it's about a group of eccentric characters who live at Shandy Hall.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53'It's also a carnivalesque philosophical romp,
0:33:53 > 0:33:56'stuffed with references to its own creation.'
0:33:59 > 0:34:03'The word "shandy" was in Sterne's time
0:34:03 > 0:34:07'Yorkshire slang for a crack-brained individual.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11'As these contemporary prints of scenes from the books suggest,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14'one of its crack-brained obsessions was sex.
0:34:14 > 0:34:21'Sterne's book positively throbs with innuendo and sexual imagery.'
0:34:21 > 0:34:26This is a first edition of Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
0:34:26 > 0:34:31This is a landmark book. It's incredibly innovative and influential.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33That influence endures to this day.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36So peculiar was his vision for the novel
0:34:36 > 0:34:40that he ended up having to publish the first two volumes himself, it was a vanity project,
0:34:40 > 0:34:44but it was important for him to do things exactly in this way.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47He had this very definite vision of what he wanted to do.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50The book is called The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53We don't get terribly much of either the life or his opinions.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57He isn't even born until the fourth of these nine volumes.
0:34:57 > 0:35:03In the first volume, one of the most extraordinary things is when a character dies,
0:35:03 > 0:35:06there's actually a black page to reflect that.
0:35:06 > 0:35:09This is something which when you read the novel for the first time,
0:35:09 > 0:35:11really kind of makes you sit up
0:35:11 > 0:35:15and you realise, if you haven't already realised by page 73,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18that you're in the presence of an extraordinarily audacious
0:35:18 > 0:35:21and really quite puckish authorial sensibility.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24He actually has a marbled page in it,
0:35:24 > 0:35:27which is a very strange thing to find in any novel,
0:35:27 > 0:35:29and certainly an 18th-century one.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32And when you just chance upon it, it really knocks you sideways.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36Another thing Sterne does is he actually produces bizarre squiggles.
0:35:36 > 0:35:41At one point he uses those squiggles to try and suggest something of his narrative method.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45This incredibly self-reflexive, refractory, strange, digressive,
0:35:45 > 0:35:49bumpy narrative journey that he takes the reader on.
0:35:49 > 0:35:51They are jokes, but at the same time
0:35:51 > 0:35:54they are rather intriguing attempts to provide
0:35:54 > 0:36:00a pictorial representation of what it means to be going on the journey of telling a story.
0:36:00 > 0:36:05So the reader is being asked to make this huge imaginative investment in Tristram Shandy.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09This is exactly the kind of thing that Sterne is bringing to the novel.
0:36:09 > 0:36:12The very idea of expectation,
0:36:12 > 0:36:15of what a reader might expect to find between the covers of a book,
0:36:15 > 0:36:17is thrown into disarray.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25'As the book was published anonymously,
0:36:25 > 0:36:29'the public had no idea that this raunchy and outrageous novel
0:36:29 > 0:36:32'was in fact the work of a man of the cloth.'
0:36:35 > 0:36:38'When the vicar Sterne was identified as the author,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41'there was outcry, but that didn't stop him
0:36:41 > 0:36:45'from continuing to either write or preach.'
0:36:49 > 0:36:52In terms of the character - of Sterne, the man - I mean,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57this is someone who was a clergyman, wasn't this a big problem for him?
0:36:57 > 0:36:59Well, it was a bit of a problem for the church
0:36:59 > 0:37:02because he wasn't exactly a jewel in the Episcopal crown.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05He's an Anglican clergyman
0:37:05 > 0:37:08who is writing a book which is stuffed with bawdy.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11Admittedly, the bawdy is there for you to interpret,
0:37:11 > 0:37:14so he has the excuse of saying at any time
0:37:14 > 0:37:18that if that's the interpretation you as a reader wish to put on,
0:37:18 > 0:37:20then that's entirely up to you.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23So to some extent he's affecting his position,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27but his sermons were so good, I think, that he exonerates himself.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31When the first two volumes were written, he was painted by Reynolds,
0:37:31 > 0:37:35which certainly altered his perception within society,
0:37:35 > 0:37:39and as a result of that he became fashionable.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43He said that he writes "not to be fed but to be famous",
0:37:43 > 0:37:46so fame was what was driving him.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48What do you like most about him?
0:37:48 > 0:37:53Well, the fact that he's entertaining and that he's funny
0:37:53 > 0:37:56and that he has the ability to be able to switch
0:37:56 > 0:37:59from something which is deeply moving and poetic
0:37:59 > 0:38:01to something which is completely flip,
0:38:01 > 0:38:05and that, I think, requires a great deal of skill.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17'Tristram Shandy may have seemed a playful literary frolic,
0:38:17 > 0:38:23'yet it also explored the ideas of one of the key enlightenment philosophers, John Locke,
0:38:23 > 0:38:25'who defined the self not as a fixed entity,
0:38:25 > 0:38:30'but as a mere collection of fleeting memories and impressions.'
0:38:32 > 0:38:35'It's just this evanescent quality of experience
0:38:35 > 0:38:38'which Tristram Shandy aims to capture,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40'and which makes it, I believe,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43'one of the most daring and fascinating books ever written.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47'It's still the ultimate experimental British novel.'
0:38:47 > 0:38:52The experience of reading Tristram Shandy is beautifully frustrating, right?
0:38:52 > 0:38:58I mean, he never gets to the point, he's continually interrupting himself
0:38:58 > 0:39:01and digressing and digressing from the digression.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04But what's really interesting
0:39:04 > 0:39:07is that this doesn't result in some kind of chaos.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11It's actually a very, very carefully constructed book.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15In a way, it kind of anticipates almost three centuries early
0:39:15 > 0:39:17what Joyce will do with Ulysses.
0:39:17 > 0:39:23In its ellipses and blank pages, it anticipates lots of what Beckett will do,
0:39:23 > 0:39:27like with his attempts to make language finally disappear,
0:39:27 > 0:39:33in its incredibly kind of...
0:39:34 > 0:39:38..before-its-time understanding of our psychic activities,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42which is just way off the map of anything that had been proposed then.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45This is the mark of a really, really good novel.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49It's one of those books to which the theory doesn't yet exist to explain it.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53Does that feed into your idea of what a novel should be?
0:39:53 > 0:39:54- Yes.- What is a novel?
0:39:54 > 0:39:57HE LAUGHS
0:40:00 > 0:40:06A novel is something that contains its own negation, right?
0:40:06 > 0:40:10So a novel is not a novel without an anti-novel lodged in it.
0:40:10 > 0:40:13Like an oyster, it's not interesting unless it's got a bit of grit in it,
0:40:13 > 0:40:16that not-oyster bit that produces the pearl.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19In Tristram Shandy, this is precisely the drama,
0:40:19 > 0:40:23this is the central drama of that book, is its own undermining.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28And I think, in a way, this is what every book should be in one way or another.
0:40:33 > 0:40:38Tristram Shandy pushed the boundaries of the novel as far as they would go.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41Boundaries which have yet to be breached.
0:40:41 > 0:40:46I'm rather seduced by the argument that it's the archetypal novel.
0:40:46 > 0:40:50A new literary era would surface in its wake.
0:40:51 > 0:40:57With the narrative possibilities of the novel established, it becomes possible for the novel to branch out
0:40:57 > 0:41:01and move in new directions and this is when we get genre fiction.
0:41:01 > 0:41:06The first genre fiction is the gothic novel and the inventor of the gothic novel is Horace Walpole.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10Walpole is the son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
0:41:10 > 0:41:16He is socially an insider, but creatively an outsider.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25Expected to follow in his father's footsteps,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28Walpole didn't quite have the political charisma
0:41:28 > 0:41:31needed for the 18th-century House of Commons.
0:41:31 > 0:41:36Instead, he created an extraordinary shrine to his own imagination,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39here at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45Modelled in part on medieval castles, this house was also
0:41:45 > 0:41:49the inspiration for Walpole's book The Castle Of Otranto.
0:41:49 > 0:41:54The novel tracks the attempts of Manfred, the sinister Lord of Otranto,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58to make off with his sickly son's bride.
0:41:58 > 0:42:04To me, it's poor on plot, but suffused with a hallucinogenic atmosphere.
0:42:04 > 0:42:09Walpole was establishing the ominous idiom of horror fiction.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12This was his summer villa and he created here
0:42:12 > 0:42:14a kind of gothic dream,
0:42:14 > 0:42:17what he called "the castle I am building of my ancestors".
0:42:17 > 0:42:24It was gloomy and gothic and in fact, Walpole, for this building,
0:42:24 > 0:42:27created a new word, which was "gloomth",
0:42:27 > 0:42:30which was the quality he was trying to bring
0:42:30 > 0:42:36to this gothic revival building which actually pioneered the gothic revival that we know today.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40So the house actually inspired the novel The Castle Of Otranto?
0:42:40 > 0:42:42Yes. It was here at Strawberry Hill
0:42:42 > 0:42:49that Walpole had a dream in which he dreamt of a gigantic fist in armour
0:42:49 > 0:42:52on the uppermost banister of the great staircase,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56which of course is this banister here,
0:42:56 > 0:43:00and where he had the dream was actually his bedroom,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03which is that door up there on the left,
0:43:03 > 0:43:10so that in fact this is the birthplace, literally the birthplace, of the gothic novel.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14And if you read The Castle Of Otranto carefully, you will in fact find
0:43:14 > 0:43:19a number of instances of exact references to the house.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26The book is crammed with diabolical pacts,
0:43:26 > 0:43:31sinister apparitions and supernatural forces.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33Here's a taste.
0:43:33 > 0:43:38"Manfred's eyes were fixed on the gigantic sword, but his attention
0:43:38 > 0:43:43"was soon diverted by a tempest of wind that rose behind him.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47"He turned and beheld the plumes of enchanted helmet,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51"agitated in the same extraordinary manner as before."
0:43:56 > 0:44:01This was the greatest room in his state apartment here at Strawberry Hill.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05This room plays a central role in the story of The Castle Of Otranto
0:44:05 > 0:44:10because it's in this room that the evil ruler of the Castle of Otranto, Manfred,
0:44:10 > 0:44:16actually proposes to his recently widowed daughter-in-law Isabella.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18She is, of course, utterly horrified.
0:44:18 > 0:44:24And we know it's set in this room because Walpole writes that they are sitting down on a bench
0:44:24 > 0:44:26which Walpole had against the wall here
0:44:26 > 0:44:31and that above them was a picture of Manfred's grandfather.
0:44:31 > 0:44:37At that instant, Walpole writes, the portrait of his grandfather,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40which hung over the bench where they had been sitting,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45uttered a deep sigh and heaved its breast.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50While they're sitting on the bench, Manfred's grandfather steps out of the picture.
0:44:50 > 0:44:52This is the first time this happens in fiction,
0:44:52 > 0:44:57and the grandfather steps out as a dreadful warning to Manfred
0:44:57 > 0:45:00of what's going to happen, which of course does happen later in the novel,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03and the dreadful figure of the grandfather
0:45:03 > 0:45:08walks across the gallery floor and then exits through a door
0:45:08 > 0:45:11on the right of the gallery, as Walpole says in the book,
0:45:11 > 0:45:14which of course is still existing here today.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21Manfred finally gets his comeuppance.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25He accidentally stabs and kills his own daughter
0:45:25 > 0:45:29and is forced to gorge on miserable repentance.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40Strawberry Hill was the great project of Walpole's life.
0:45:40 > 0:45:45The Castle Of Otranto was only a small part of it, yet it's the novel
0:45:45 > 0:45:49that's endured, it's the novel that has exerted a massive influence.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53It spawned a huge number of other books in this gothic tradition.
0:45:53 > 0:45:58The key writers in that included Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin and Mary Shelley.
0:46:01 > 0:46:08Walpole was an aristocratic dilettante, writing from a position of wealth and privilege.
0:46:08 > 0:46:14It was precisely this world that would be unmasked and lampooned in the work of Fanny Burney.
0:46:16 > 0:46:22The daughter of musician Charles Burney, a child of the emerging middle classes,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25Fanny grew up with an excruciating awareness
0:46:25 > 0:46:30of her precarious position in a society preoccupied with status.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34At the age of just 26, she published Evelina,
0:46:34 > 0:46:37the story of a naive country debutante
0:46:37 > 0:46:43who must navigate cosmopolitan society before securing her reward,
0:46:43 > 0:46:45an advantageous marriage.
0:46:45 > 0:46:50Burney wrote the novel in secret, drawing on the world in which she moved.
0:46:50 > 0:46:56The action shuttles between the pleasure gardens and theatres of London and spa resorts such as Bath.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06Here we are in the pump room at Bath,
0:47:06 > 0:47:09which is an incredibly important 18th-century location.
0:47:09 > 0:47:14Bath was where fashionable people, particularly fashionable London people, went when they wanted
0:47:14 > 0:47:17to get away from it all, except they didn't.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21Bath was even more pretentious than London was, even more steeped in fashion.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26And in Evelina, Fanny Burney takes us right inside that world.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28She gives us an outsider's perspective on it.
0:47:28 > 0:47:30Evelina isn't born to this world.
0:47:30 > 0:47:36She views it sceptically, she views it doubtfully, and yet there's a tremendous perceptiveness.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39The perceptiveness is Evelina's but it's also Burney's.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44Burney is a hugely influential figure in terms of creating the comedy of manners,
0:47:44 > 0:47:48the comedy of social behaviour, something that ultimately leads to Jane Austin,
0:47:48 > 0:47:53but Burney does it exquisitely, observing the foibles, the pretensions,
0:47:53 > 0:47:56the affectations of polite society.
0:48:07 > 0:48:13Evelina made a deep impression on Jane Austen, and Burney's work is celebrated,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17along with that of other early women writers, at Chawton House Library,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20once the property of Jane Austen's brother, Edward.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29Frances Burney, often known as Fanny, is one of a great array of women writers,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32particularly female novelists in the period
0:48:32 > 0:48:35from around the 1780s onto the 1810s, were dominant,
0:48:35 > 0:48:40they outnumbered the male fiction writers and they earned more.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43She worked, didn't she, as her father's copyist
0:48:43 > 0:48:48and this posed some problems for her when it came to getting Evelina published?
0:48:48 > 0:48:52She wanted to preserve her anonymity with this fictional work.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56She had to write the whole thing in a feigned hand.
0:48:56 > 0:49:02Then she conducted the negotiations with the bookseller Thomas Lowndes anonymously.
0:49:02 > 0:49:07Eventually, when the manuscript was delivered to him, it was delivered
0:49:07 > 0:49:11by her brother Charles in disguise, so he wouldn't be known,
0:49:11 > 0:49:15so it was all very cloak and dagger stuff, really.
0:49:15 > 0:49:19Evelina was a prodigious success and played a role in securing
0:49:19 > 0:49:23Burney a job at court as a keeper of the Queen's robes.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26But writing remained her first love.
0:49:26 > 0:49:31In 1796, she published her third novel, Camilla.
0:49:31 > 0:49:37Now, by this stage, her circumstances had entirely changed because she was married.
0:49:37 > 0:49:41She needed the money in order to set up a household
0:49:41 > 0:49:47with her husband, who was a penniless aristocrat fleeing from the French Revolution, an emigre.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51And so this time she wanted to do things properly so she would get
0:49:51 > 0:49:54more of the profit and less of it would go to the booksellers.
0:49:54 > 0:50:00And so the way to do that was to publish the work by subscription.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04And thanks to the position that she'd held for a while at court,
0:50:04 > 0:50:08she was able to get some very impressive names on the subscription list.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11There are one or two rather eye-catching names.
0:50:11 > 0:50:13I noticed one just here.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16Absolutely. Yes, this is such an interesting document because here
0:50:16 > 0:50:21we see the concrete evidence that Jane Austin was a fan of Frances Burney.
0:50:21 > 0:50:28We know that from her writings anyway but it's lovely to have her here among this list of 300 subscribers.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33So, clearly, she felt that she wanted to be part of this group of people
0:50:33 > 0:50:37who were showing their public support
0:50:37 > 0:50:40for Burney as a writer, as an important writer of the period.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43The work is also dedicated to the Queen.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48So by this stage, her writing celebrity had brought her immense fame, really.
0:50:48 > 0:50:52I mean, she had a standing that no other novelist did at the time.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54It's really quite remarkable.
0:50:54 > 0:51:01Burney wrote four novels in total, but her debut remains the best.
0:51:03 > 0:51:08What I love about Evelina is that it has this really modern dimension to it.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11It's a book which contains some shocking, physical comedy.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15There's a real violence in it. There are some extraordinary incidents.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19One, for example, where Evelina's grandmother is toppled into a ditch
0:51:19 > 0:51:21as a practical joke and loses her wig in the process.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26And then towards the end of the novel, a character is being compared with a monkey
0:51:26 > 0:51:31and he gets bitten on the ear by the monkey and he's left with blood cascading down his face.
0:51:31 > 0:51:35But both of these episodes pale into insignificance compared
0:51:35 > 0:51:38with the occasion when two old ladies are obliged to have a foot race
0:51:38 > 0:51:41so that other people can bet on the outcome.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45People sometimes say that if you love Jane Austen, you should read Burney
0:51:45 > 0:51:49because she provides the same kind of humour and irony,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52but with Burney there's an extra level of expressiveness,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56of horror, of violence, and that was what made her exciting at the time
0:51:56 > 0:51:59and it's certainly part of her enduring appeal.
0:52:05 > 0:52:10As the 18th century drew to a close, storm clouds were gathering.
0:52:10 > 0:52:16The world Fanny Burney so elegantly mocked was being menaced by a stark new threat.
0:52:16 > 0:52:22The French Revolution of 1789 and images of the ensuing terror
0:52:22 > 0:52:25transfixed Britain's ruling class.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29Could this butchery come to bloody these shores, too?
0:52:31 > 0:52:36Reacting in fear, the government clamped down on intellectual freedoms,
0:52:36 > 0:52:41rebel voices were swiftly put on trial for treason.
0:52:41 > 0:52:46This was the backdrop for the creation of the first political thriller
0:52:46 > 0:52:51and what seems to me the last groundbreaking novel of the era.
0:52:51 > 0:52:56It was the work of a revolutionary philosopher William Godwin.
0:52:57 > 0:53:03In 1793, Godwin's essay, an Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,
0:53:03 > 0:53:07introduced the idea of anarchism.
0:53:07 > 0:53:12The following year, he published a novel, Caleb Williams.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16Godwin takes the ideas that he sets out in Political Justice
0:53:16 > 0:53:20and articulates them in a different form in his novel Caleb Williams.
0:53:20 > 0:53:27He embraces the idea that the novel enables him to package his ideas in a more accessible fashion
0:53:27 > 0:53:31and in the preface to that novel he says that the spirit of government
0:53:31 > 0:53:34intrudes itself into every rank of society.
0:53:34 > 0:53:38This is one of the big ideas of both Political Justice and Caleb Williams.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42The government gets everywhere and that that is tyranny.
0:53:50 > 0:53:55In the story, Caleb, the lowborn clerk on Squire Falkland's country estate,
0:53:55 > 0:53:58discovers his master's terrible secret.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00He is a murderer.
0:54:00 > 0:54:04Caleb's curiosity will have appalling consequences.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16The book opens mid-action, delivering a narrative hook,
0:54:16 > 0:54:20an essential ingredient of all thrillers to come.
0:54:20 > 0:54:25"My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity.
0:54:25 > 0:54:30"I have been a mark for the vigilance of tyranny and I could not escape."
0:54:36 > 0:54:40William Godwin's Caleb Williams depicts the changing nature
0:54:40 > 0:54:45of society, the increasing polarisation of the aristocrat and the democrats.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49The democrat in the novel is represented by Caleb,
0:54:49 > 0:54:53the servant, the aristocrat by his master Ferdinando Falkland.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55He really represents the squirearchy.
0:54:55 > 0:54:59What's interesting is that Caleb is a product of the Enlightenment.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02He's someone who believes in the pursuit of truth,
0:55:02 > 0:55:07but he battles incredibly hard to try and persuade others
0:55:07 > 0:55:11to embrace this truth and we see here one of the fundamental problems
0:55:11 > 0:55:16of the Enlightenment, that it's incredibly difficult to persuade the people who possess power,
0:55:16 > 0:55:20the existing hierarchy, to embrace the new knowledge that's become available.
0:55:22 > 0:55:27When Falkland realises that Caleb has uncovered his secret,
0:55:27 > 0:55:30he turns all his dark power upon him.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34It can only end in one place.
0:55:42 > 0:55:47This is an intact, authentic 18th-century prison cell.
0:55:47 > 0:55:55William Godwin's novel, Caleb Williams, is an extraordinarily powerful picture of incarceration.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58Being in prison is one of the things that actually happens to Caleb,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02but in a broader sense, the whole novel is like a prison.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05It's a novel of persecution and paranoia, it's a novel
0:56:05 > 0:56:07about the walls closing in on you,
0:56:07 > 0:56:11it's a novel about the oppressive nature of the social hierarchy.
0:56:20 > 0:56:26When we see these graffiti on the wall, perhaps that casts our minds back to Robinson Crusoe,
0:56:26 > 0:56:31perhaps we can imagine the castaway inscribing similar things.
0:56:31 > 0:56:37But over the course of our journey, there's been a transition. The novel has evolved.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40Robinson Crusoe is optimistic.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43With Caleb Williams, there's a sense of darkness,
0:56:43 > 0:56:49of gathering storm clouds, of a society which is increasingly complex and dangerous,
0:56:49 > 0:56:55and in a sense this is a mark of the novel's confidence over a period of approximately 80 years.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59It's made this transition to a point where it can really embrace
0:56:59 > 0:57:03the full spectrum of social and political colour of the age.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11As the 18th century drew to its end,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15the whole character of Britain underwent a sea change.
0:57:17 > 0:57:22The long, gruelling Napoleonic Wars ushered in an age of austerity,
0:57:22 > 0:57:29one in which a maverick, freewheeling sensibility was no longer welcome.
0:57:29 > 0:57:34The golden age of the British novel had come to a close.
0:57:34 > 0:57:40We've been on a long journey and yet, in the 19th century, the novel goes further.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43We think of Jane Austen, but there are others who take it further still.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48There's more social comment, more political comment and more psychological complexity.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50And yet there's a sense that in the 18th century
0:57:50 > 0:57:55the novel has an extraordinary dynamism which has never really been recreated.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57There's a sense of the templates being laid down,
0:57:57 > 0:58:02of a very exciting time when everything's there to play for, when everything's up for grabs.
0:58:02 > 0:58:07And that vitality is inscribed on every single page.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:24 > 0:58:27Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk