This entry demonstrates how some of the very first novelists contributed, individually and collectively, whether consciously or inadvertently, to the rise of the new literary form while being driven by a spirit of opposition, contradiction and emulation seemingly hardly suited to foster the cooperative and collaborative environment which the development of a common literary project requires. Based on intertextual connections and apparent dialogical relationships between texts written by Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and Eliza Haywood, the analysis will suggest a reading of the interactions between authors as a form of literary unsociability which contributed to the development of the novel.