 | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Oxford World's Classics) by Laurence Sterne
Buy new: £7.19 / Used from: £1.14 The essential 18th century work - internal realism, as I've come to appreciate it. Your life is incomplete until you read Sterne's epic pre-modernist take on Locke's philosophy of Sensation
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 | A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics) by Laurence Sterne
Buy new: £5.39 / Used from: £0.49 THE great sentimental work - succeeds everywhere Henry Mackenzie fails. This amazing edition also includes a collection of Sterne's other writings, providing a portrait of the man himself
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 | Tom Jones (Oxford World's Classics) by Henry Fielding
Buy used from: £0.76 Nowhere else will you find such a vivid panorama of 18th century life, as in this spectacular depiction of the life and (mis)adventures of the libertine-esque Tom Jones and his nemesis Master Blifil
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 | Jonathan Wild (Oxford World's Classics) by Henry Fielding
Buy used from: £1.75 The only one of Fielding's novels that isn't directly in the shadow of Richarson, this satirical examination of greatness features one of the most unpleasant (and memorable) protagonists ever
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 | Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded (Oxford World's Classics) by Samuel Richardson
Buy used from: £2.08 Labourious in places, but well worth the effort. A central progenitor of the novelistic form that divides opinion as much now as it did then
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 | Robinson Crusoe (Oxford World's Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy used from: £1.50 One of the most famous novels ever written. If you haven't read it before, do so and become aquainted with the original - and best - version of the tale
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 | Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (Oxford World's Classics) by Daniel Defoe
Buy used from: £0.31 Defoe's final, darkest and (IMO) best work, it never falls victim to a morally-autocratic narrative, refusing to cast judgement on the degraded and opportunistic protagonist. A fantastic novel
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 | The Female Quixote: or The Adventures of Arabella (Oxford World's Classics) by Charlotte Lennox
Buy new: £8.09 / Used from: £0.01 An unjustly-obscure work, featuring the most aggravating main character I've ever come across. A wonderful updating of the old Don Quixote tale of literary-induced delusion
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 | Vicar of Wakefield (Oxford World's Classics) by Oliver Goldsmith
Buy used from: £0.08 The various misfortunes of the Primrose family, leading to an inevitable happy ending. Memorable and essential for any student of the literature of the 18th century
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 | The Man of Feeling (Oxford World's Classics) by Henry Mackenzie
Buy used from: £1.00 One of the foremost novels of the sentimental sub-genre. I'm always held the view that this book portrays morality as merely an indulgence of a bored upper-class and is somewhat sentimentally immature
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 | The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Oxford World's Classics) by Tobias Smollett
Buy used from: £0.11 One of the best episcopal novels ever written, featuring wonderful characterisation and a journey around Britain that provides an insight into this antediluvian period. Marvellously funny
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 | Four Gothic Novels: The Castle of Otranto; Vathek; The Monk; Frankenstein (World's Classics) by Horace Walpole
Buy new: £6.49 / Used from: £3.80 Three of the greatest 18th century gothic novels (and Frankenstein as a bonus!) make up this great edition. Provides a comprehensive overview of one of the most important sub-genres of the century
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 | The Italian (Oxford World's Classics) by Ann Radcliffe
Buy used from: £3.50 A fine gothic romance from one of the masters of the genre, examining not only love but also the contemporaneous attitudes to Italy and Catholicism itself
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 | Gulliver's Travels (Oxford World's Classics) by Jonathan Swift
Buy used from: £0.11 The unusual adventures of the intrepid Gulliver - second only to Robinson Crusoe in terms of recognisability. A consumate blend of fantasy and reality (mostly the former)
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 | The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia (Oxford World's Classics) by Samuel Johnson
Buy used from: £0.98 Johnson's only novel (hence why the literary heavyweight isn't more dominant in this list), featuring a plot that serves to illustrate various moral points
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 | Evelina: Or the History of A Young Lady's Entrance into the World (Oxford World's Classics) by Frances Burney
Buy used from: £1.15 My personal favourite Burney novel - a satirical exposure of life in 18th century London with all the absurdity of social convention
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 | Cecilia: or Memoirs of an Heiress (Oxford World's Classics) by Fanny Burney
Buy new: £12.59 / Used from: £4.79 A strange love story, reminiscent of Lennox's Female Quixote (see above). The characterisation within this novel is simply amazing
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 | Caleb Williams (Oxford World's Classics) by William Godwin
Buy used from: £2.49 The first true detective story, unashamedly impregnated with political commentary
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 | Memoirs of Emma Courtney (Oxford World's Classics) by Mary Hays
Buy used from: £4.00 A book that reveals the ubiquitious gap between 'what women are' and 'what women should be'. If that's not comteporarily applicable, I don't know what is. A true feminist masterpiece
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 | A Simple Story (Oxford World's Classics) by Elizabeth Inchbald
Buy new: £7.19 / Used from: £2.42 A book that explores the double taboos of pre-conceived limitations of femininity and the constraints of religious vocation
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 | Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Oxford World's Classics) by John Cleland
Buy used from: £0.01 A rather sexually-overt novel that NEEDS to be read to contextualise it's unusual content. An aspiring anti-Pamela that succeeds completely
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 | Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady (Classics) by Samuel Richardson
Buy new: £13.48 / Used from: £9.50 An immense work. Not really worth reading, I'd say - not as influential as Pamela, but worth the effort for any literati. Better start exercising those wrist muscles now...
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 | Castle Rackrent (Oxford World's Classics) by Maria Edgeworth
Buy used from: £0.01 Not great, but a valuable perception of anglo-irish relations and a superlative example of 'regional' literature
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 | The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Buy new: £18.54 / Used from: £10.79 An essential collection of fascinating and sublime essays, notably Johnathon Lamb's essay on Irregular Oratory in the works of Laurence Sterne. A must have for any student of the 18th century novel
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 | The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding by Ian P. Watt
Buy new: £7.69 / Used from: £3.00 An examination of some of the century's greatest writers as innovators of the novel form. My second-favourite critical examination of the literature of this period (bested only by the above)
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