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."