the Conversational Circle: Rereading English Novel, 1740-1775

Betty Schellenberg identifies another kind of plot, one that focuses on the social group—the "conversational circle"—as a model that can affirm traditional values but just as often promotes an alternative sense of community. Schellenberg selects a group of mid-eighteenth-century novels that experiment with this alternative plot structure, embodied by the social circle. Both satirical and sentimental, canonical and non-canonical, these novels demonstrate a concern that individualistic desire threatened to destabilize society. Writing that reflects a circular structure emphasizes conversation and consensus over individualism and conquest. As a discourse that highlights negotiation and harmony, conversation privileges the social group over the individual. These fictions of the conversation circle include lesser-known works by canonical authors (Henry Fielding's and Richards's as well as his sequel to ), long-neglected novels by women (Sarah Fielding's and its sequel , and Sarah Scott's ), and Tobias Smollet's last novel, . Because they do not fit the linear model, such works have long been dismissed as ideologically flawed and irrelevant.