The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally diverse, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa, influenced by great novelists working in other languages, and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography, Michael Schmidt quotes from "artist practitioners," from letters, diaries, reviews, and essays of novelists, and draws on their biographies, to invite us into the creative dialogues between authors and between books, and suggest how these dialogues have shaped the development of the novel in English.