Introduction

Summary

This introduction argues that the fiction produced in the Romantic Era was shaped by a collective sense of overwhelming literary excess. After an overview of the different kinds of ‘excess’ about which contemporaries worried and a brief history of the Minerva Press’s historical and literary significance and its explicit ties to Romantic novel production, the introduction develops a critical framework for thinking about excess and its relationship to novel publication and prestige. Exploring the literal and metaphorical connections between the publication of fiction and other kinds of mass production in the Romantic period turns attention to the novel’s material qualities and the ways they were produced.