This book was written in New York, on board the S.S. _Patria_, and in the port and neighbourhood of Marseilles during July and August, 1927. For the purpose of rendering it more easily understood by the English reader I have made certain alterations in phrases, in Paris during the last four days of 1929 and the first two of 1930. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I THE FUNCTION OF THE NOVEL IN THE MODERN WORLD 1 II TOWARDS DEFOE 29 III TOWARDS FLAUBERT 65 IV TO JOSEPH CONRAD 105 _L’ENVOI_: IN THE LAST QUARTER OF A CENTURY 135 CHAPTER ONE THE FUNCTION OF THE NOVEL IN THE MODERN WORLD 1 One finds--or at any rate I have always found--English History relatively easy to grasp because in it it is not difficult to see a pattern of what some one has called Freedom slowly broadening down from precedent to precedent. One may or may not agree with the statement, one may or may not like the fact, if it is a fact, that it sets forth; but at least it gives us that pattern, some sort of jumping-off place, something by which one may measure and co-relate various phases of the story. The histories of most other races are more difficult to grasp or follow because they are less systematized and more an affair of individuals. One may be aware that the pre-Revolution history of France is an affair of power gradually centralizing itself on the throne, and that the Fronde was an episode in that progression. Nevertheless, the Fronde with its violent personalities, its purely individual intrigues, its Cardinals, Queens, Condés, Chevreuses and the rest, was a baffling affair to follow, and obscures the issue which doubtless was that, all power being concentrated under one hat, the neck which supported the head which supported that hat was easy to strike off. But when it comes to the History of Literature--and to that of the Novel in particular, almost the exact inverse is the case. Whereas almost every country other than England--or indeed every race other than Anglo-Saxondom--has a tradition of literature in which some sort of precedent broadens down into some other, it would appear that however docile the Anglo-Saxon may be in the hands of politicians or leaders--usually of a Leftwards complexion--the moment any æsthetic discipline proposes itself for his direction he becomes at least as refractory as any Condé and almost more intriguing than any Chevreuse.