Ian Watt, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Ian Watt

literary historian

Date of Birth: 09-Mar-1917

Place of Birth: Windermere, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 13-Dec-1999

Profession: writer, university teacher, literary critic, literary historian

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Ian Watt (9 March 1917 – 13 December 1999) was a literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at Stanford University.
His The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957) is an important work in the history of the genre.
Published in 1957, The Rise of the Novel is considered by many contemporary literary scholars as the seminal work on the origins of the novel, and an important study of literary realism.
The book traces the rise of the modern novel to philosophical, economic and social trends and conditions that become prominent in the early 18th century.
He is the subject of an intellectual biography by Marina MacKay, Ian Watt: The Novel and the Wartime Critic (2018).