THE FOUR WHEELS OF THE NOVEL WAIN It does not enter into the plan, because it would be entirely inconsistent with the scale, of the present book to give details of the lives of the novelists, except when they have something special to do with the subject, or when (as in the case of a few minorities who happen to be of some importance) even well-informed readers are likely to be quite ignorant about them.

Accounts, in all degrees of scale and competence, of the lives of Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne abound.

It is sufficient--but in the special circumstances at this point perhaps necessary--here to sum the facts very briefly in so far as they bear on the main issue.

Richardson (1689-1761), not merely the first to write, but the eldest by much more than his priority in writing, was the son of a Derbyshire tradesman, was educated for some time at Charterhouse, but apprenticed early to a printer--which trade he pursued with diligence and profit for the rest of his life in London and its immediate neighbourhood.

After his literary success, he gathered round him a circle of ladies and gentlemen interested in literature: but he never had any first-hand acquaintance with general society of the "gentle" kind, much less with that of the upper classes.