Ian Watt (9 March 1917 – 13 December 1999) was a literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at Stanford University. His The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957) is an important work in the history of the genre. Published in 1957, The Rise of the Novel is considered by many contemporary literary scholars as the seminal work on the origins of the novel, and an important study of literary realism. The book traces the rise of the modern novel to philosophical, economic and social trends and conditions that become prominent in the early 18th century.