Inn and the Traveller

'In the landscape of the early modern European comic novel the inn often features as a monument to digression - the perfect setting for chance encounters with strangers who always have a story to tell. This wide-ranging comparative study explores the special part played by the inn, tracing the progress of a succession of wayward heroes and narrators in five canonical texts: Cervantes's ''Don Quijote'', Scarron's ''Roman comique'', Fielding's ''Joseph Andrews'' and ''Tom Jones'', Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy'' and Diderot's ''Jacques le fataliste''. As this celebration of digressive fiction unfolds, a very different picture emerges of the novel's rise and development.'