Four Wheels of the #EnglishNovel.
This famous phrase was coined by literary critic George Saintsbury. He used the image of a four -wheeled carriage to show how four 18th-century English authors - Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett (or Laurence Sterne) - together set the novel rolling forward as a mature, self-sustaining art form. Each "wheel" represents a major pioneer whose unique style helped the novel move forward into maturity. Without any single one of them, the carriage of fiction would have tipped over, failing to gain the momentum it needed to conquer the literary world.
1. Daniel Defoe: The Wheel of Realism and Survival
Daniel Defoe laid the physical ground for the novel by introducing formal realism. With masterpiece stories like Robinson Crusoe, he proved that fiction did not need to feature mythological gods, knights, or magic to be thrilling. Instead, Defoe wrote in a straightforward, news-like style, filling his stories with practical details about daily life, money, and survival. His main characters were ordinary people navigating extraordinary situations, making readers feel as though they were reading an authentic personal memoir or news report rather than a work of imagination.
2. Samuel Richardson: The Wheel of Emotion and Psychology
While Defoe built the outer world of realism, Samuel Richardson built its inner world. Writing in the epistolary format - a story told entirely through letters written between characters - Richardson unlocked the deep, secret emotional lives of his protagonists. Novels like Pamela allowed readers to peer directly into a character's mind, witnessing their moral struggles, fears, and private desires in real time. Richardson showed that the human heart and psychological drama were just as exciting as physical adventure.
3. Henry Fielding: The Wheel of Structure and Epic Storytelling
Henry Fielding brought balance, comedy, and grand narrative structure to the early novel. Viewing the novel as a "comic epic in prose," he moved away from Richardson’s intense, emotional letter-writing and introduced a strong, witty, third-person narrator in classics like Tom Jones. Fielding added broad social satire, lively plots, and rich character development, organizing his stories with the careful craftsmanship of classical theater. He proved that novels could be brilliantly structured, wildly entertaining, and socially sharp all at once.
4. Tobias Smollett & Laurence Sterne: The Wheels of Flavour and Innovation
The fourth wheel of the carriage is often shared between two distinct masters who expanded what the novel could achieve:
· Tobias Smollett brought vivid movement, vibrant travel, and colourful character caricatures to the genre. His picaresque adventure stories (like Roderick Random) took readers on chaotic journeys across Britain and the high seas, capturing the gritty, eccentric, and diverse reality of 18th-century life.
· Laurence Sterne, through his radical masterpiece Tristram Shandy, pushed the boundaries of storytelling altogether. Sterne experimented with time, playful humour, digressions, and self-aware narration, proving that a novel could be eccentric, conversational, and endlessly creative in form.
Together, these four creators gave the novel its structure, heart, realism, and creative freedom - setting the literary carriage rolling into a golden age of storytelling.
