Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder

A footprint materializes mysteriously on a deserted shore; a giant helmet falls from the sky; a traveler awakens to find his horse dangling from a church steeple. Eighteenth-century fiction brims with moments such as these, in which the prosaic rubs up against the marvelous. While it is a truism that the period''s literature is distinguished by its realism and air of probability, Eighteenth-Centur...