Ian Watt  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Ian Watt (March 9, 1917 – December 13, 1999) was a literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at Stanford University. His Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957) is an important work in the history of the genre. Although published in 1957, The Rise of the Novel is still considered by many contemporary literary scholars as the seminal work on the origins of the novel, and an important study of literary realism. The book traces the rise of the modern novel to philosophical, economic and social trends and conditions that become prominent in the early 18th century.

Watt was born in Windermere, Westmorland, England, and died in Menlo Park, California, USA.

Other works by Watt

• Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe
• Essays on Conrad
• Conrad's "Secret Agent" (Casebook)
• Conrad in the Nineteenth Century
• Jane Austen (20th Century Views)
• The humanities on the River Kwai (The Grace A. Tanner Lecture in human values)
• Conrad criticism and The nigger of the 'Narcissus'"

Editor and with others

• Introduction to The Secret Sharer: An Episode from the Coast by Joseph Conrad
• The Literal Imagination: Selected Essays by Ian P. Watt, edited by Bruce Thompson
• The Consequences of Literacy (with Jack Goody)
• Editor: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne