The eighteenth-century English novel and its Spanish heritage and reception

Abstract

This essay tries to contribute some ideas, data and reflection on the presence and diffusion of the English novel in Europe, and particularly in Spain, during the eighteenth century. The coexistence of different literary traditions, ideologies and national conditions, as well as the powerful French publishing industry, make the European reading of the English novel a truly distinctive phenomenon in the history of literary reception, rewriting, translation and adaptation. Examples taken mostly from Spanish will be analysed to illustrate some of these issues, discussion of which to date has mainly been in relation to other European literatures.