As the realist novel rose in popularity over the course of the century novelists began to turn increasingly to library research as a kind of inspiration.

And that jaunty, informal, vaguely postmodern '&' hints, at least in hindsight, at a tantalizing transgression of the norms of the realist novel.

Even those elements that you'd think couldn't possibly work in a modern realist novel are dexterously preserved.

She was a pioneer in the realist novel.

Still, both authors used the form of the realist novel to probe the machinations of society and the myriad motives of human behavior.