Romance is a varied and fluid literary genre, notoriously difficult to define. This groundbreaking Companion surveys the many permutations of romance throughout the ages.* Considers the literary and historical development of the romance genre from its classical origins to the present day* Incorporates discussion of the changing readership of romance and of romance's special relation to women readers* Comprises 30 essays written by leading authorities on different periods and sub-genres* Challenges the idea that the appeal of romance is exclusively escapist* Draws on a wide range of specific and influential literary examples

List of Illustrations viiiAcknowledgments ixNotes on Contributors xIntroduction 11. Ancient Romance 10Elizabeth Archibald2. Insular Beginnings: Anglo-Norman Romance 26Judith Weiss3. The Popular English Metrical Romances 45Derek Brewer4. Arthurian Romance 65W. R. J. Barron5. Chaucer's Romances 85Corinne Saunders6. Malory and the Early Prose Romances 104Helen Cooper7. Gendering Prose Romance in Renaissance England 121Lori Humphrey Newcomb8. Sidney and Spenser 140Andrew King9. Shakespeare's Romances 160David Fuller10. Chapbooks and Penny Histories 177John Simons11. The Faerie Queene and Eighteenth-century Spenserianism197David Fairer12. ''Gothic'' Romance: Its Origins andCultural Functions 216Jerrold E. Hogle13. Women's Gothic Romance: Writers, Readers, and thePleasures of the Form 233Lisa Vargo14. Paradise and Cotton-mill: Rereading Eighteenth-centuryRomance 251Clive Probyn15. ''Inconsistent Rhapsodies'': SamuelRichardson and the Politics of Romance 269Fiona Price16. Romance and the Romantic Novel: Sir Walter Scott 287Fiona Robertson17. Poetry of the Romantic Period: Coleridge and Keats 305Michael O'Neill18. Victorian Romance: Tennyson 321Leonée Ormond19. Victorian Romance: Medievalism 341Richard Cronin20. Romance and Victorian Autobiography: Margaret Oliphant,Edmund Gosse, and John Ruskin's ''needle to thenorth'' 360Francis O'Gorman21. Victorian Romance: Romance and Mystery 375Andrew Sanders22. Nineteenth-century Adventure and Fantasy: James Morier,George Meredith, Lewis Carroll, and Robert Louis Stevenson389Robert Fraser23. Into the Twentieth Century: Imperial Romance from Haggard toBuchan 406Susan Jones24. America and Romance 424Ulrika Maude25. Myth, Legend, and Romance in Yeats, Pound, and Eliot438Edward Larrissy26. Twentieth-century Arthurian Romance 454Raymond H. Thompson27. Romance in Fantasy Through the Twentieth Century 472Richard Mathews28. Quest Romance in Science Fiction 488Kathryn Hume29. Between Worlds: Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, and Romance502Clare Morgan30. Popular Romance and its Readers 521Lynne PearceEpilogue: Into the Twenty-first Century 539Corinne SaundersIndex 542