The Common Reader
The Common Reader
Shanon Chamberlain: what is a novel?
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Shanon Chamberlain: what is a novel?

Adam Smith, Jane Austen, mystery novels, fan fiction, Samuel Richardson, Hobbes and Mantel, Swift, Defoe, Python, flying.

Shannon Chamberlain is a former tutor at St. Johns College, an expert in the influence of fiction upon Adam Smith, a mystery writer, Substacker, and amateur pilot. She is no longer an academic, and now works as a writer and editor. We talked about the history of the novel (Defoe, Swift, Fielding, Richardson), the links between Smith and Austen, epistolatory fiction, what Free Indirect Style actually is, fan fiction and the history of the novel, moral ambivalence, Adam Smith as a literary critic, what Ian Watt got right and wrong, and much more. My thanks to Shannon for a very interesting conversation!

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