Eighteenth-century chapter titles (was: Naughty reply)

[Carol]

Carol, who does at least know what a mustellid is :-)
> >
> Something else that I think you're likely to know: why do the chapters
> of eighteenth century novels have long titles that are a summary of
> the chapter?
>
Carol responds:
Actually, not all of them do. "Moll Flanders," for example, doesn't
even have chapters. neither do the various epistolary novels (novels
written as a series of letter.) Jane Austen's novels, both
late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century, have only chapter
numbers. Charles Dickens, a nineteenth-century novelist, used summary
chapter titles, some short "I am Born"), others long (e.g those in
"Oliver Twist" or "the Pickwick Papers," not exactly a  novel, I
realize) possibly because his works were serialized and he wanted to
entice readers (rather like a preview of a TV episode of a trailer for
a film excpet that there's no delay in gratification). Possibly, too,
he was influenced by Fielding, who used the kinds of titles you're
referring to.

In the eighteenth century, the novel (note its name) was a new and
experimental literary form, which was still developing the conventions
familiar to us now (not that authors aren't still experimenting with
style, plot, point of view, and subject matter!), and chapter titles
varied from long summaries to no titles at all. By the mid-nineteenth
century, authors as different as George Eliot (Marianne Evans) and the
American Herman Melville were using short chapter titles similar to
the ones we find in the HP books that provided a hint of what was to
come but didn't give it away.

Carol, noting that this is an off-the-cuff response and not at all
authoritative!