18世纪不仅是英语小说起源的时代，也是现代阅读习惯养成的关键时代。阅读理论在塑造现代小说和现代读者的过程中起了重要作用，是一个方兴未艾、亟需中国学者介绍并参与的研究领域。本文分两部分，第一部分叙述18世纪的道德哲学、美学、脑科学、文学批评和小说本身如何论述“私人阅读”的情感和认知机制，对现代小说阅读模式的形成过程进行了初步的梳理。本文认为，文学理论研究不应该局限于当代，而应该深入历史，寻找当代理论的渊源和雏形，20世纪之前的阅读理论散见于哲学、评论和文学中，需要合理而创造性的整合。文章的后半部分介绍了当代认知叙事学理论对于沉浸于小说状态的几种代表性阐释，如镜像神经元和“可能世界”的理论，说明了当代认知叙事学与现代阅读理论之间的呼应和承继。

The 18^th century is a crucial era for the rise of the novel in English and the formation of modern conceptions of narrative immersion. Engaging existing scholarship on early modern and modern theories of reading, this paper primarily discusses two issues. First, it traces the discourses of narrative immersion and narrative impact in 18^th-century England, bringing together moral philosophy, aesthetic theories, brain science, literary criticism, and scenes of reading from notable 18^th-century novels. The second part of the paper concerns the ways in which contemporary cognitive narratology resonates with 18^th-century theories of reading, while providing the latter with productive theoretical frameworks. It introduces in particular contemporary theories of narrative immersion based on mirror neuron and the possible-worlds theory.