SOURCE: Introduction to Prefaces to Fiction, William Andres Clark Memorial Library, No. 32, 1952, pp. i-x.

In the following excerpt, Boyce contends that Manley's call for realistic action, authentic dialogue, and true-to-life characterization—expressed in the preface to Queen Zarah—represents an important development in eighteenth-century prose fiction.

The development of the English novel is one of the triumphs of the eighteenth century. Criticism of prose fiction during that period, however, is less impressive, being neither strikingly original nor profound nor usually more than fragmentary. Because the early statements of theory were mostly very brief and are now obscurely buried in rare books, one may come upon the well conceived "program" of Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones with some surprise. But if one looks in the right places one will realize that mid-eighteenth century notions about prose fiction had a substantial background in earlier writing. And as in the case...