Contents: Vol. I. The Age of Romance: From the Beginning to the Renaissance: Preface. 1. Introductory--definitions and scope of the novel--the Greek romance and other forerunners of English fiction. 2. Anglo-Saxon fiction. 3. Origins of the Arthurian legend. 4. From legend to romance. 5. Chretien De Troyes. 6. Arthurian prose romance--Malory. 7. The matter of France. 8. Miscellaneous romances. 9. Popular tales. 10. The end of the middle ages--summary of the rise of prose romance--the beginnings of free invention and of conscious art--comparison with the history of the plastic arts. Reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. II. The Elizabethan Age and After: Preface. 1. The age of translation. 2. Translations from Italian. 3. Contributions from Spanish and other sources. 4. Lyly's Euphues. 5. Sidney's Arcadia. 6. Euphuism and Arcadianism--Robert Greene. 7. Euphuism and Arcadianism--Lodge and others. 8. The beginnings of realistic fiction. 9. The Cony-catching pamphlets. 10. Thomas Nashe. 11. Deloney and others. 12. Fiction and discursive literature. 13. Thomas Dekker. 14. The writers of Charactery. 15. Utopian fiction. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. III. The Later Romance and the Establishment of Realism: Preface. 1. The revival of romance. 2. The anti-romances and other counterblasts. 3. Bunyan. 4. Mrs. Behn and some English anti-romances. 5. The followers of Mrs. Behn. 6. The establishment of realism--Defoe and "Robinson Crusoe". 7. The later fiction of Defoe. 8. Swift. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. IV. Intellectual Realism: From Richardson to Sterne: Preface. 1. Richardson's Pamela. 2. Clarissa. 3. Sir Charles Grandison. 4. Fielding : early life, and Joseph Andrews. 5. Fieldings's Miscellanies. 6. Tom Jones. 7. Amelia. 8. Fielding's last writings and his influence. 9. Smollett. 10. Sterne. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. V. The Novel of Sentiment and the Gothic Romance: Preface. 1. After the great four. 2. Some minor contemporaries. 3. The oriental story from Rasselas to Vathek. 4. The afterglow of the Augustans. 5. The novel of sentiment. 6. The novel of sensibility. 7. Fanny Burney. 8. The gothic novel. 9. The novel of doctrine. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. VI. Edgeworth, Austen, Scott: Preface. 1. Maria Edgeworth--early stories and Castle Rackrent. 2. Maria Edgeworth--Belinda and other novels. 3. Jane Austen--early stories and Sense And Sensibility. 4. Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey.  5. Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. 6. Sir Walter Scott: the Lays and Waverley. 7. The Scottish novels. 8. Ivanhoe and other romances. 9. Scott as a novelist. 10. Other Scottish novelists. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. VII. The Age of Dickens and Thackeray: Preface. 1. The Irish novelists. 2. Historical novelists after Scott. 3. Peacock, Disraeli, Lytton. 4. The predecessors of Dickens. 5. Dickens--I. Characters and humours. 6. Dickens--II. Novels of plot. 7. Thackeray. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. VIII. From the Brontes to Meredith: Romanticism in the English Novel: Preface. 1. The Brontes--Charlotte. 2. The Brontes--Emily and Anne. 3. Mrs. Gaskell and other women novelists. 4. Trollope. 5. The Kingsleys, Wilkie Collins, Reade, and others. 6. George Eliot. 7. George Meredith, poet and novelist. 8. Meredith--the novels of his prime. 9. "Beauchamp's Career", "The Egoist", and later novels. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. IX. The Day Before Yesterday: Preface. 1. Thomas Hardy. 2. Hardy's later work. 3. Mark Rutherford and others. 4. George Gissing. 5. George Moore. 6. Aesthetes and Eclectics. 7. Henry James. 8. The romancers. Select reading and reference list. Index.

Vol. X. Yesterday: Preface. 1. Conrad, the teller of tales. 2. Conrad the novelist, with his next of kin. 3. Rudyard Kipling. 4. The Scots Group and some Irish. 5. Some women novelists. 6. Satirists and Utopians, revolutionaries and evolutionaries. 7. Arnold Bennett and Galsworthy. 8. D.H. Lawrence. Select reading and reference list. Index.

From the Preface: "The present book is an attempt to trace the origins and growth of English prose fiction in the ages before the Tudor period, ages which have usually been dismissed as irrelevant to the study of the English novel. It will be followed by volumes dealing with The Establishment of Realism--i.e. the process of evolution ending with Richardson, Fielding, and their immediate successors--and The History of the Modern Novel from that time to this. The work is based largely on courses of lectures delivered at University College, London, in the School of Librarianship and the Department of English, during the years 1919-1924, and also on a doctorial thesis approved by the University of London in 1908, and on an immense amount of reading done in preparing various editions of the author's Guide to the Best Fiction in English."