Recent technological developments have led to many novels also being published in non-print media: this includesaudio books,web novels, andebooks. Another non-traditional fiction format can be found ingraphic novels. While thesecomic book versions of works of fiction have their origins in the 19th century, they have only become popular recently.
A novel is a long, fictional narrative. The novel in themodern era usually makes use of aliterary prose style. The development of the prose novel at this time was encouraged by innovations inprinting, and the introduction of cheap paper in the 15th century.
Several characteristics of a novel might include:
Fictional narrative:Fictionality is most commonly cited as distinguishing novels fromhistoriography.[citation needed] However this can be a problematic criterion.[citation needed] Throughout theearly modern period authors of historical narratives would often include inventions rooted in traditional beliefs in order to embellish a passage of text or add credibility to an opinion. Historians would also invent and compose speeches for didactic purposes. Novels can, on the other hand, depict the social, political and personal realities of a place and period with clarity and detail not found in works of history. Several novels, for exampleÔng cố vấn written byHữu Mai, were designed to be and defined as a "non-fiction" novel which purposefully recorded historical facts in the form of a novel.[citation needed]
Experience of intimacy: Both in 11th-century Japan and 15th-century Europe, prose fiction created intimate reading situations.Harold Bloom[21] characterizesLady Murasaki's use of intimacy and irony inThe Tale of Genji as "having anticipated Cervantes as the first novelist." On the other hand, verse epics, including theOdyssey andAeneid, had been recited to select audiences, though this was a more intimate experience than the performance of plays in theaters.[citation needed] A new world of individualistic fashion, personal views, intimate feelings, secret anxieties, "conduct", and "gallantry" spread with novels and the associatedprose-romance.
Length: The novel is today the longest genre of narrative prose fiction, followed by thenovella. However, in the 17th century, critics saw the romance as of epic length and the novel as its short rival. A precise definition of the differences in length between these types of fiction, is, however, not possible. The philosopher and literary criticGyörgy Lukács argued that the requirement of length is connected with the notion that a novel should encompass the totality of life.[22] However, according to the English novelistE. M. Forster, a novel should be composed with at least fifty-thousand words.[23]
East Asian countries, like China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, use the word小說 (variantTraditional Chinese andShinjitai:小説;Simplified Chinese:小说;Hangeul:소설;Pinyin:xiǎoshuō;Jyutping:siu2 syut3;Wugniu:3siau-seq7;Peh-oe-ji:sió-soat;Hepburn:shōsetsu;Revised:soseol;Vietnamese:tiểu thuyết), which literally means "small talks" or "little talks", to refer to works of fiction of whatever length.[24] In Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultures, the concept of novel as it is understood in the Western world was (and still is) termed as "long length small talk" (長篇小說), novella as "medium length small talk" (中篇小說), and short stories as "short length small talk" (短篇小說). However, in Vietnamese culture, the term 小說 exclusively refers to 長篇小說 (long-length small talk), i.e. standard novel, while different terms are used to refer to novella and short stories.
Such terms originated from ancient Chinese classification of literature works into "small talks" (tales of daily life and trivial matters) and "great talks" ("sacred" classic works of great thinkers likeConfucius). In other words, the ancient definition of "small talks" merely refers to trivial affairs, trivial facts, and can be different from the Western concept of novel. According toLu Xun, the word "small talks" first appeared in the works ofZhuang Zhou, which coined such word. Later scholars also provided a similar definition, such as Han dynasty historianBan Gu, who categorized all the trivial stories and gossips collected by local government magistrates as "small talks".
Hồ Nguyên Trừng classified his memoir collectionNam Ông mộng lục as "small talks" clearly with the meaning of "trivial facts" rather than the Western definition of novel. Such classification also left a strong legacy in interpretations of the Western definition of “novel” at the time when Western literature was first introduced to East Asian countries. For example, Thanh Lãng andNhất Linh classified the epic poems such asThe Tale of Kiều as "novel", whileTrần Chánh Chiếu emphasized the "belongs to the commoners", "trivial daily talks" aspect in one of his work.[25][26][27][28][29]
The earliest novels include classical Greek and Latin prose narratives from the first century BC to the second century AD, such asChariton'sCallirhoe (mid 1st century), which is "arguably the earliest surviving Western novel",[42] as well asPetronius'Satyricon,Lucian'sTrue Story,Apuleius'The Golden Ass, and the anonymousAesop Romance andAlexander Romance. These works were often influenced by oral traditions, such as storytelling and myth-making, and reflected the cultural, social, and political contexts of their time. Afterwards, their style was adapted in laterByzantine novels such asHysimine and Hysimines byEustathios Makrembolites[43] Narrative forms were also developed in Classical Sanskrit in India during the 5th through 8th centuries.Vasavadatta bySubandhu,Daśakumāracarita andAvantisundarīkathā byDaṇḍin, andKadambari byBanabhatta are among notable works. These narrative forms were influenced by much older classical Sanskritplays andIndian classical drama literature, as well as by oral traditions and religious texts.[44]
The 7th-century Chinese narrative prose workYou Xian Ku written by Zhang Zhuo is considered by some to be one of the earliest "romances" or "novels" of theTang dynasty,[45][46] and it was influential on later works of fiction in East Asia.[46]
Urbanization and the spread of printed books inSong dynasty (960–1279)[citation needed] led to the evolution of oral storytelling,chuanqi andhuaben, into long-form multi-volume vernacular fictionalnovels by theMing dynasty (1368–1644).
The European developments of the novel did not occur until after the invention of the printing press byJohannes Gutenberg around 1439, and the rise of the publishing industry over a century later.[47] Long European works continued to be in poetry in the 16th century. The modern European novel is often said to have begun withDon Quixote in 1605.[17] Another important early novel was the French pastoral novelL'Astrée byHonore d'Urfe, published in 1610.
Romance or chivalric romance is a type ofnarrative inprose orverse popular in the aristocratic circles ofHigh Medieval andEarly Modern Europe. They were marvel-filledadventures, often of aknight-errant withheroic qualities, who undertakes aquest, yet it is "the emphasis on heterosexual love and courtly manners distinguishes it from thechanson de geste and other kinds ofepic, which involve heroism."[48] In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes ofcourtly love.
The shift from verse to prose dates from the early 13th century; for example, theRomance of Flamenca. TheProse Lancelot orVulgate Cycle also includes passages from that period. This collection indirectly led toThomas Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur of the early 1470s. Prose became increasingly attractive because it enabled writers to associate popular stories with serious histories traditionally composed in prose, and could also be more easily translated.[49]
The term "novel" originates from the production of short stories, ornovella that remained part of a European oral culture of storytelling into the late 19th century. Fairy tales, jokes, and humorous stories designed to make a point in a conversation, and theexemplum a priest would insert in a sermon belong into this tradition. Written collections of such stories circulated in a wide range of products from practical compilations of examples designed for the use of clerics to compilations of various stories such asBoccaccio'sDecameron (1354) andGeoffrey Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales (1386–1400). TheDecameron was a compilation of one hundrednovelle told by ten people—seven women and three men—fleeing theBlack Death by escaping fromFlorence to the Fiesole hills, in 1348.
1474: The customer in the copyist's shop with a book he wants to have copied. This illustration of the first printed GermanMelusine looked back to the market of manuscripts.
The modern distinction between history and fiction did not exist in the early sixteenth century and the grossest improbabilities pervade many historical accounts found in the early modern print market.William Caxton's 1485 edition ofThomas Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur (1471) was sold as a true history, though the story unfolded in a series of magical incidents and historical improbabilities.Sir John Mandeville'sVoyages, written in the 14th century, but circulated in printed editions throughout the 18th century,[51] was filled with natural wonders, which were accepted as fact, like the one-footed Ethiopians who use their extremity as an umbrella against the desert sun. Both works eventually came to be viewed as works of fiction.
In the 16th and 17th centuries two factors led to the separation of history and fiction. The invention of printing immediately created a new market of comparatively cheap entertainment and knowledge in the form ofchapbooks. The more elegant production of this genre by 17th- and 18th-century authors werebelles lettres—that is, a market that would be neither low nor academic. The second major development was the first best-seller of modern fiction, the SpanishAmadis de Gaula, by García Montalvo. However, it was not accepted as an example ofbelles lettres. TheAmadis eventually became the archetypical romance, in contrast with the modern novel which began to be developed in the 17th century.
Many different genres of literature made their debut during theEdo period in Japan, helped by a rising literacy rate among the growing population of townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries.Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan, mixing vernacular dialogue into his humorous and cautionary tales of the pleasure quarters, the so-calledUkiyozōshi ("floating world") genre.Ihara'sLife of an Amorous Man is considered the first work in this genre. Although Ihara's works were not regarded as high literature at the time because it had been aimed towards and popularized by thechōnin (merchant classes), they became popular and were key to the development and spread ofukiyozōshi.
A chapbook is an early type ofpopular literature printed inearly modern Europe. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklets, usually printed on a single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages. They were often illustrated with crudewoodcuts, which sometimes bore no relation to the text. When illustrations were included in chapbooks, they were consideredpopular prints. The tradition arose in the 16th century, as soon asprinted books became affordable, and rose to its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many different kinds ofephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such asalmanacs,children's literature,folk tales,nursery rhymes,pamphlets,poetry, and political and religioustracts.[52]
The term "chapbook" for this type of literature was coined in the 19th century. The corresponding French and German terms arebibliothèque bleue (blue book) andVolksbuch, respectively.[53][54][55] The principal historical subject matter of chapbooks was abridgements of ancient historians, popular medieval histories of knights, stories of comical heroes, religious legends, and collections of jests and fables.[56] The new printed books reached the households of urban citizens and country merchants who visited the cities as traders. Cheap printed histories were, in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially popular among apprentices and younger urban readers of both sexes.[57]
The early modern market, from the 1530s and 1540s, divided into lowchapbooks and high market expensive, fashionable, elegantbelles lettres. TheAmadis andRabelais'Gargantua and Pantagruel were important publications with respect to this divide. Both books specifically addressed the new customers of popular histories, rather than readers ofbelles lettres. The Amadis was a multi–volume fictional history of style, that aroused a debate about style and elegance as it became the first best-seller of popular fiction. On the other hand,Gargantua and Pantagruel, while it adopted the form of modern popular history, in fact satirized that genre's stylistic achievements. The division, between low and high literature, became especially visible with books that appeared on both the popular andbelles lettres markets in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries: low chapbooks included abridgments of books such asDon Quixote.
The term "chapbook" is also in use for present-day publications, commonly short, inexpensive booklets.[52]
Heroic Romance is a genre of imaginative literature, which flourished in the 17th century, principally in France.
The beginnings of modern fiction in France took a pseudo-bucolic form, and the celebratedL'Astrée, (1610) ofHonore d'Urfe (1568–1625), which is the earliest French novel, is properly styled apastoral. Although its action was, in the main, languid and sentimental, there was a side of the Astree which encouraged that extravagant love of glory, that spirit of "panache", which was now rising to its height in France. That spirit it was which animatedMarin le Roy de Gomberville (1603–1674), who was the inventor of what have since been known as the Heroical Romances. In these there was experienced a violent recrudescence of the old medieval elements of romance, the impossible valour devoted to a pursuit of the impossible beauty, but the whole clothed in the language and feeling and atmosphere of the age in which the books were written. In order to give point to thechivalrous actions of the heroes, it was always hinted that they were well-known public characters of the day in a romantic disguise.
Stories of witty cheats were an integral part of the European novella with its tradition offabliaux. Significant examples includeTill Eulenspiegel (1510),Lazarillo de Tormes (1554),Grimmelshausen'sSimplicissimus Teutsch (1666–1668) and in EnglandRichard Head'sThe English Rogue (1665). The tradition that developed with these titles focused on a hero and his life. The adventures led to satirical encounters with the real world with the hero either becoming the pitiable victim or the rogue who exploited the vices of those he met.
A second tradition of satirical romances can be traced back toHeinrich Wittenwiler'sRing (c. 1410) and toFrançois Rabelais'Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), which parodied and satirized heroic romances, and did this mostly by dragging them into the low realm of the burlesque.Don Quixote modified the satire of romances: its hero lost contact with reality by reading too many romances in the Amadisian tradition.
A market of literature in the modern sense of the word, that is a separate market for fiction and poetry, did not exist until the late seventeenth century. All books were sold under the rubric of "History and politicks" in the early 18th century, includingpamphlets,memoirs,travel literature, political analysis, serious histories, romances, poetry, and novels.
That fictional histories shared the same space with academic histories and modern journalism had been criticized by historians since the end of the Middle Ages: fictions were "lies" and therefore hardly justifiable at all. The climate, however, changed in the 1670s.
The romance format of the quasi–historical works ofMadame d'Aulnoy,César Vichard de Saint-Réal,[59]Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras,[60] andAnne-Marguerite Petit du Noyer, allowed the publication of histories that dared not risk an unambiguous assertion of their truth. The literary market-place of the late 17th and early 18th century employed a simple pattern of options whereby fictions could reach out into the sphere of true histories. This permitted its authors to claim they had published fiction, not truth, if they ever faced allegations of libel.
Prefaces and title pages of seventeenth and early eighteenth century fiction acknowledged this pattern: histories could claim to be romances, but threaten to relate true events, as in theRoman à clef. Other works could, conversely, claim to be factual histories, yet earn the suspicion that they were wholly invented. A further differentiation was made between private and public history:Daniel Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe was, within this pattern, neither a "romance" nor a "novel". It smelled of romance, yet the preface stated that it should most certainly be read as a true private history.[61]
Late 17th-century critics looked back on the history of prose fiction, proud of the generic shift that had taken place, leading towards the modern novel/novella.[66] The first perfect works in French were those of Scarron andMadame de La Fayette's "Spanish history"Zayde (1670). The development finally led to herPrincesse de Clèves (1678), the first novel with what would become characteristic French subject matter.[67][68]
Europe witnessed the generic shift in the titles of works in French published in Holland, which supplied the international market and English publishers exploited the novel/romance controversy in the 1670s and 1680s.[69] Contemporary critics listed the advantages of the new genre: brevity, a lack of ambition to produce epic poetry in prose; the style was fresh and plain; the focus was on modern life, and on heroes who were neither good nor bad.[70] The novel's potential to become the medium of urban gossip and scandal fueled the rise of the novel/novella. Stories were offered as allegedly true recent histories, not for the sake of scandal but strictly for the moral lessons they gave. To prove this, fictionalized names were used with the true names in a separate key. TheMercure Gallant set the fashion in the 1670s.[71] Collections of letters and memoirs appeared, and were filled with the intriguing new subject matter and theepistolary novel grew from this and led to the first full blown example of scandalous fiction inAphra Behn'sLove-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684/ 1685/ 1687). Before the rise of the literary novel, reading novels had only been a form of entertainment.[72]
However, one of the earliest English novels,Daniel Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe (1719), has elements of the romance, unlike these novels, because of its exotic setting and story of survival in isolation.Crusoe lacks almost all of the elements found in these new novels: wit, a fast narration evolving around a group of young fashionable urban heroes, along with their intrigues, a scandalous moral, gallant talk to be imitated, and a brief, concise plot.[citation needed] The new developments did, however, lead toEliza Haywood's epic length novel,Love in Excess (1719/20) and toSamuel Richardson'sPamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1741).[citation needed] Some literary historians date the beginning of the English novel with Richardson'sPamela, rather thanCrusoe.[73]
The idea of the "rise of the novel" in the 18th century is especially associated withIan Watt's influential studyThe Rise of the Novel (1957).[74] In Watt's conception, a rise in fictional realism during the 18th century came to distinguish the novel from earlier prose narratives.[75]
The rising status of the novel in eighteenth century can be seen in the development of philosophical[76] andexperimental novels.
Philosophical fiction was not exactly new.Plato's dialogues were embedded in fictional narratives and hisRepublic is an early example of aUtopia.Ibn Tufail's 12th centuryPhilosophus Autodidacticus with its story of a human outcast surviving on an island, and the 13th century response byIbn al-Nafis,Theologus Autodidactus are both didactic narrative works that can be thought of as early examples of a philosophical[77] and a theological novel,[78] respectively.
An example of theexperimental novel isLaurence Sterne'sThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767), with its rejection of continuous narration.[79] In it the author not only addresses readers in his preface but speaks directly to them in his fictional narrative. In addition to Sterne's narrative experiments, there are visual experiments, such as a marbled page, a black page to express sorrow, and a page of lines to show the plot lines of the book. The novel as a whole focuses on the problems of language, with constant regard toJohn Locke's theories inAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding.[80]
The rise of the word "novel" at the cost of its rival, the romance, remained a Spanish and English phenomenon, and though readers all over Western Europe had welcomed the novel(la) or short history as an alternative in the second half of the 17th century, only the English and the Spanish had openly discredited the romance.[citation needed]
But the change of taste was brief andFénelon'sTelemachus [Les Aventures de Télémaque] (1699/1700) already exploited a nostalgia for the old romances with their heroism and professed virtue.Jane Barker explicitly advertised herExilius as "A new Romance", "written after the Manner of Telemachus", in 1715.[81]Robinson Crusoe spoke of his own story as a "romance", though in the preface to the third volume, published in 1720, Defoe attacks all who said "that [...] the Story is feign'd, that the Names are borrow'd, and that it is all a Romance; that there never were any such Man or Place".
The late 18th century brought an answer with theRomantic Movement's readiness to reclaim the word romance, with thegothic romance, and thehistorical novels ofWalter Scott.Robinson Crusoe now became a "novel" in this period, that is a work of the new realistic fiction created in the 18th century.[citation needed]
Sentimental novels relied on emotional responses, and feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance emotions rather than action. The result is a valorization of "fine feeling", displaying the characters as models of refined, sensitive emotional affect. The ability to display such feelings was thought at this time to show character and experience, and to help shape positive social life and relationships.[82]
An example of this genre isSamuel Richardson'sPamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), composed "to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes", which focuses on a potential victim, a heroine that has all the modern virtues and who is vulnerable because her low social status and her occupation as servant of a libertine who falls in love with her. She, however, ends in reforming her antagonist.[citation needed]
These works inspired asub- andcounterculture ofpornographic novels, for which Greek and Latin authors in translations had provided elegant models from the last century.[83] Pornography includesJohn Cleland'sFanny Hill (1748), which offered an almost exact reversal of the plot of novels that emphasise virtue. The prostitute Fanny Hill learns to enjoy her work and establishes herself as a free and economically independent individual, in editions one could only expect to buy under the counter.[84]
Less virtuous protagonists can also be found in satirical novels, likeRichard Head'sEnglish Rogue (1665), that feature brothels, while women authors likeAphra Behn had offered their heroines alternative careers as precursors of the 19th-centuryfemmes fatales.[85]
By around 1700, fiction was no longer a predominantly aristocratic entertainment, and printed books had soon gained the power to reach readers of almost all classes, though the reading habits differed and to follow fashions remained a privilege. Spain was a trendsetter into the 1630s but French authors supersededCervantes,de Quevedo, andAlemán in the 1640s. AsHuet was to note in 1670, the change was one of manners.[86] The new French works taught a new, on the surface freer, gallant exchange between the sexes as the essence of life at the French court.
The situation changed again from 1660s into the 1690s when works by French authors were published in Holland out of the reach of French censors.[87] Dutch publishing houses pirated fashionable books from France and created a new market of political and scandalous fiction. This led to a market of European rather than French fashions in the early 18th century.[88]
Intimate short stories:The Court and City Vagaries (1711).
By the 1680s fashionable political European novels had inspired a second wave of private scandalous publications and generated new productions of local importance. Women authors reported on politics and on their private love affairs in The Hague and in London. German students imitated them to boast of their private amours in fiction.[89] The London, the anonymous international market of the Netherlands, publishers in Hamburg and Leipzig generated new public spheres.[90] Once private individuals, such as students in university towns and daughters of London's upper class began to write novels based on questionable reputations, the public began to call for a reformation of manners.[91]
An important development in Britain, at the beginning of the century, was that new journals likeThe Spectator andThe Tatler reviewed novels. In GermanyGotthold Ephraim Lessing'sBriefe, die neuste Literatur betreffend (1758) appeared in the middle of the century with reviews of art and fiction. By the 1780s such reviews played had an important role in introducing new works of fiction to the public.
Influenced by the new journals, reform became the main goal of the second generation of eighteenth century novelists.The Spectator Number 10 had stated that the aim was now "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality […] to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses"). Constructive criticism of novels had until then been rare.[92] The first treatise on the history of the novel was a preface to Marie de La Fayette's novelZayde (1670).
A much later development was the introduction of novels into school and later university curricula.[when?]
The French churchman and scholarPierre Daniel Huet'sTraitté de l'origine des romans (1670) laid the ground for a greater acceptance of the novel as literature, that is comparable to theclassics, in the early 18th century. The theologian had not only dared to praise fictions, but he had also explained techniques of theological interpretation of fiction, which was a novelty. Furthermore, readers of novels and romances could gain insight not only into their own culture, but also that of distant, exotic countries.[citation needed]
When the decades around 1700 saw the appearance of new editions of the classical authorsPetronius,Lucian, andHeliodorus of Emesa.[93] the publishers equipped them with prefaces that referred to Huet's treatise and thecanon it had established. Also exotic works of Middle Eastern fiction entered the market that gave insight into Islamic culture.The Book of One Thousand and One Nights was first published in Europe from 1704 to 1715 in French, and then translated immediately into English and German, and was seen as a contribution to Huet's history of romances.[94]
The English,Select Collection of Novels in six volumes (1720–22), is a milestone in this development of the novel's prestige. It included Huet'sTreatise, along with the European tradition of the modern novel of the day: that is, novella fromMachiavelli's toMarie de La Fayette's masterpieces.Aphra Behn's novels had appeared in the 1680s but became classics when reprinted in collections.Fénelon'sTelemachus (1699/1700) became a classic three years after its publication. New authors entering the market were now ready to use their personal names rather than pseudonyms, includingEliza Haywood, who in 1719 following in the footsteps of Aphra Behn used her name with unprecedented pride.
The new romances challenged the idea that the novel involved arealistic depiction of life, and destabilized the difference the critics had been trying to establish, between serious classical art and popular fiction. Gothic romances exploited thegrotesque,[96] and some critics thought that their subject matter deserved less credit than the worst medieval tales ofArthurian knighthood.[97]
The authors of this new type of fiction were accused of exploiting all available topics to thrill, arouse, or horrify their audience. These newromantic novelists, however, claimed that they were exploring the entire realm of fictionality. And psychological interpreters, in the early 19th century, read these works as encounters with the deeper hidden truth of the human imagination: this included sexuality,anxieties, and insatiabledesires. Under such readings, novels were described as exploring deeper human motives, and it was suggested that such artistic freedom would reveal what had not previously been openly visible.
Thehistorical romance was also important at this time. But, while earlier writers of these romances paid little attention to historical reality,Walter Scott'shistorical novelWaverley (1814) broke with this tradition, and he invented "the true historical novel".[98] At the same time he was influenced bygothic romance, and had collaborated in 1801 with'Monk' Lewis onTales of Wonder.[98] With hisWaverley novels Scott "hoped to do for the Scottish border" whatGoethe and other German poets "had done for theMiddle Ages, "and make its past live again in modern romance".[99] Scott's novels "are in the mode he himself defined as romance, 'the interest of which turns upon marvelous and uncommon incidents'".[100] He used his imagination to re-evaluate history by rendering things, incidents and protagonists in the way only the novelist could do. His work remained historical fiction, yet it questioned existing historical perceptions. The use of historical research was an important tool: Scott, the novelist, resorted to documentary sources as any historian would have done, but as a romantic he gave his subject a deeper imaginative and emotional significance.[100] By combining research with "marvelous and uncommon incidents", Scott attracted a far wider market than any historian could, and was the most famous novelist of his generation, throughout Europe.[98]
In the 19th century, the relationship between authors, publishers, and readers changed. Authors originally had only received payment for their manuscript, however, changes incopyright laws, which began in the 18th and continued into the 19th century[101] promised royalties on all future editions. Another change in the 19th century was that novelists began to read their works in theaters, halls, and bookshops.[102] Also during the nineteenth century the market forpopular fiction grew, and competed with works of literature. New institutions like thecirculating library created a new market with a mass reading public.[103]
Another difference was that novels began to deal with more difficult subjects, including current political and social issues, that were being discussed in newspapers and magazines. Under the influence of social critics likeThomas Carlyle,[104] the idea of social responsibility became a key subject, whether of the citizen, or of the artist, with the theoretical debate concentrating on questions around the moral soundness of the modern novel.[105] Questions about artistic integrity, as well asaesthetics, including the idea of "art for art's sake", proposed by writers likeOscar Wilde andAlgernon Charles Swinburne, were also important.[106]
Many 19th-century authors dealt with significant social matters.[112]Émile Zola's novels depicted the world of theworking classes, whichMarx andEngels's non-fiction explores. In the United States slavery and racism became topics of far broader public debate thanks toHarriet Beecher Stowe'sUncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which dramatizes topics that had previously been discussed mainly in the abstract.Charles Dickens' novels led his readers into contemporaryworkhouses, and provided first-hand accounts ofchild labor. The treatment of the subject of war changed withLeo Tolstoy'sWar and Peace (1868/69), where he questions the facts provided by historians. Similarly the treatment of crime is very different inFyodor Dostoyevsky'sCrime and Punishment (1866), where the point of view is that of a criminal. Women authors had dominated fiction from the 1640s into the early 18th century, but few beforeGeorge Eliot so openly questioned the role, education, and status of women in society, as she did.
As the novel became a platform of modern debate,national literatures were developed that link the present with the past in the form of thehistorical novel.Alessandro Manzoni'sThe Betrothed (1827) did this for Italy, while novelists in Russia and the surrounding Slavonic countries, as well asScandinavia, did likewise.
Along with this new appreciation of history, the future also became a topic for fiction. This had been done earlier in works likeSamuel Madden'sMemoirs of the Twentieth Century (1733) andMary Shelley'sThe Last Man (1826), a work whose plot culminated in the catastrophic last days of a mankind extinguished by the plague.Edward Bellamy'sLooking Backward (1887) andH. G. Wells'sThe Time Machine (1895) were concerned with technological and biological developments.Industrialization,Darwin'stheory of evolution and Marx's theory ofclass divisions shaped these works and turned historical processes into a subject of wide debate. Bellamy'sLooking Backward became the second best-selling book of the 19th century after Harriet Beecher Stowe'sUncle Tom's Cabin.[113][114] Such works led to the development of a whole genre of popularscience fiction as the 20th century approached.
In the second half of the 20th century,Postmodern authors subverted serious debate with playfulness, claiming that art could never be original, that it always plays with existing materials.[119] The idea that language is self-referential was already an accepted truth in the world ofpulp fiction. A postmodernist re-reads popular literature as an essential cultural production. Novels fromThomas Pynchon'sThe Crying of Lot 49 (1966), toUmberto Eco'sThe Name of the Rose (1980) andFoucault's Pendulum (1989) made use ofintertextual references.[120]
While the reader of so-calledserious literature will follow public discussions of novels, popular fiction production employs more direct and short-term marketing strategies by openly declaring a work's genre. Popular novels are based entirely on the expectations for the particular genre, and this includes the creation of a series of novels with an identifiable brand name. e.g. theSherlock Holmes series byArthur Conan Doyle.
Popular literature holds a larger market share.Romance fiction had an estimated $1.375 billion share in the US book market in 2007.Inspirational literature/religious literature followed with $819 million,science fiction/fantasy with $700 million,mystery with $650 million and then classic literary fiction with $466 million.[121]
Genre literature might be seen as the successor of the early modernchapbook. Both fields share a focus on readers who are in search of accessible reading satisfaction.[122] The twentieth century love romance is a successor of the novelsMadeleine de Scudéry,Marie de La Fayette,Aphra Behn, andEliza Haywood wrote from the 1640s into the 1740s. The modernadventure novel goes back toDaniel Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe (1719) and its immediate successors. Modernpornography has no precedent in the chapbook market but originates in libertine andhedonistic belles lettres, of works likeJohn Cleland'sFanny Hill (1749) and similar eighteenth century novels.Ian Fleming'sJames Bond is a descendant of the anonymous yet extremely sophisticated and stylish narrator who mixed his love affairs with his political missions inLa Guerre d'Espagne (1707).Marion Zimmer Bradley'sThe Mists of Avalon is influenced byTolkien, as well asArthurian literature, including its nineteenth century successors. Modernhorror fiction also has no precedent on the market of chapbooks but goes back to the elitist market of early nineteenth centuryRomantic literature. Modern popular science fiction has an even shorter history, from the 1860s.
The authors of popular fiction tend to advertise that they have exploited a controversial topic and this is a major difference between them and so-called elitist literature.Dan Brown, for example, discusses, on his website, the question whether hisDa Vinci Code is an anti-Christian novel.[123] And because authors of popular fiction have a fan community to serve, they can risk offendingliterary critics. However, the boundaries between popular and serious literature have blurred in recent years, withpostmodernism andpoststructuralism, as well as by adaptation of popular literary classics by the film and television industries.
Crime became a major subject of 20th and 21st century genre novelists andcrime fiction reflects the realities of modern industrialized societies. Crime is both a personal and public subject: criminals each have their personal motivations; detectives, see their moral codes challenged.Patricia Highsmith'sthrillers became a medium of new psychological explorations.Paul Auster'sNew York Trilogy (1985–1986) is an example of experimentalpostmodernist literature based on this genre.
Fantasy is another major area of commercial fiction, and a major example isJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings (1954/55), a work originally written for young readers that became a major cultural artefact. Tolkien in fact revived the tradition of Europeanepic literature in the tradition ofBeowulf, the North GermanicEdda and theArthurian Cycles.
A major development in this century has been novels published asebooks, and the growth ofweb fiction, which is available primarily or solely on the Internet. A common type is the webserial: unlike most modern novels, web fiction novels are frequently published in parts over time. Ebooks are often published with a paper version.Audio books (a recording of a book reading) have also become common this century.
Another non-traditional format, popular in the 21st century, is thegraphic novel. However, though a graphic novel may be "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book",[124] the term can also refer to non-fiction and collections of short works.[125][126] While the term graphic novel was coined in the 1960s[127][128] there were precursors in the 19th century.[129] The authorJohn Updike, when he spoke to the Bristol Literary Society in 1969, on "the death of the novel", declared that he saw "no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic strip novel masterpiece".[130] A popular Japanese version of the graphic novel|url=https://neko-novel.com%7C can be found inmanga, and such works of fiction can be publishedin online versions.
Audiobooks have been available since the 1930s inschools and public libraries, and to a lesser extent in music shops. Since the 1980s this medium has become more widely available, including more recently online.[131]
Web fiction is especially popular in China, with revenues topping US$2.5 billion,[132] as well as inSouth Korea. Online literature such as web fiction inside China has over 500 million readers,[133] therefore, online literature in China plays a much more important role than in the United States and the rest of the world.[134] Most books are available online, where the most popular novels find millions of readers. Joara is S. Korea's largest web novel platform with 140,000 writers, with an average of 2,400 serials per day and 420,000 works. The company posted 12.5 billion won in sales in 2015 as profits were generated from 2009. Its membership is 1.1 million, and it uses 8.6 million cases a day on average (2016).[135] Since Joara's users have almost the same gender ratio, both fantasy and romance forms ofgenre fiction are in high demand.[136]
The development of ebooks and web novels has led to a rapid expansion of self-published works in recent years.[137] Some authors who self-publish can make more money than through a traditional publisher.[138]However, despite the challenges from digital media print remains "the most popular book format among U.S. consumers, with more than 60 percent of adults having read a print book in the last twelve months" (in September 2021).[139]
^Melville describedMoby Dick to his English publisher as "a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries," and promised it would be done by the fall. Herman Melville inHorth, Lynn, ed. (1993).Correspondence. The Writings of Herman Melville. Vol. Fourteen. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University Press and The Newberry Library.ISBN0-8101-0995-6.
^William Harmon & C, Hugh Holmam,A Handbook to Literature (7th edition), p. 237.
^Moraru, Christian (1997). "From Gnosticism to "Containment": The American Novel in the Age of Suspicion".Studies in the Novel.29 (4):561–567.JSTOR29533235.
^M. H. Abrams,A Glossary of Literary Terms (7th edition), p. 192.
^"Essay on Romance",Prose Works volume vi, p. 129, quoted in "Introduction" to Walter Scott'sQuentin Durward, ed. Susan Maning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. xxv.
^Peraldo, Emmanuelle (2020-03-10).300 Years of Robinsonades. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 4.ISBN978-1-5275-4840-4. Retrieved2025-08-06.And it is precisely the middle class thatIan Watt (1957) considers as a defining characteristic of the emerging genre of the novel: Watt sees the novel as a genre that developed in the social context of the rise of the Middle Class in England in the first half of the eighteenth century and Defoe has been considered by many critics, including Watt, as one of the fathers of the novel. InThe Rise of the Novel; Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (whose subtitle clearly mentions Defoe as an actor in the rise of the genre), lan Watt wrote that "Robinson Crusoe is certainly the first novel in the sense that it is the first fictional narrative in which an ordinary person's daily activities are the center of continuous literary attention." (Watt 1957, 74) There have been disagreements on that issue, and some critics have voiced their hesitations on Robinson Crusoe as the first novel, inReconsidering the Rise of the Novel (2000) for example. As for Defoe himself, he would never have called his writings "novels" and the "novel" is a label that was given by critics later in the eighteenth century.
^György LukácsThe Theory of the Novel. A historico-philosophical essay on the forms of great epic literature [first German edition 1920], transl. by Anna Bostock (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971).
^송민호 (February 28, 2018)."'소설'의 임계 — '장편소설(掌篇小說)'이라는 관념과 양식적 규정이라는 문제" [The Border of a ‘Novel’: On the Concept of the ‘Jangpyun Novel’ (‘Novel the Size of a Palm of a Hand’) and the Problem of Style Regulation].인문논총 [Journal of Humanities].75 (1). 서울대학교 인문학연구원: 325. Retrieved2025-05-26.
^John Robert Morgan, Richard Stoneman,Greek fiction: the Greek novel in context (Routledge, 1994), Gareth L. Schmeling, and Tim Whitmarsh (hrsg.)The Cambridge companion to the Greek and Roman novel (Cambridge University Press 2008).
^朴銀美, パクギンミ. 研究発表 『伊勢物語』 の構想とその世界―『遊仙窟』 と 『崔致遠伝』 との比較を通して―. In国際日本文学研究集会会議録 1999 Oct 1 (No. 22, pp. 9-32). 国文学研究資料館 (in Japanese). ("第一に,唐代最初であり,最古の恋愛小説であった『遊仙窟』") ("First, "Youxianku", the oldest romance novel from the Tang dynasty.")
^ab"中国・唐の伝奇小説「遊仙窟」 最古の写本、99年かけて後半発見".The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). 18 August 2022.(translation): The Chinese Tang dynasty novel "Yusenkutsu" [You Xian Ku] is said to be the first novel to come to Japan. In the oldest surviving manuscript at Kongoji Temple in Kawachi Nagano City, Osaka Prefecture, the second half of the manuscript, which was previously missing, has been found. ... "Yusenkutsu" is the work of Zhang Wencheng. It is said to have been introduced to Japan during the Nara period. ... It is also characterized by its fluent writing style, witty dialogue and poetry, and Tomohide Uesugi, a researcher at the Kyoto National Museum (Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto), who discovered the missing parts, said, "Nowadays, it can be considered as a cutting-edge foreign drama, known for its famous writing, and has influenced theMan'yōshū andThe Tale of Genji, and has been read in Japan for a long time".
^Leitch, R. (1990). "'Here Chapman Billies Take Their Stand': A Pilot Study of Scottish Chapmen, Packmen and Pedlars".Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquarians 120. pp. 173–88.
^See Rainer Schöwerling,Chapbooks. Zur Literaturgeschichte des einfachen Lesers. Englische Konsumliteratur 1680–1840 (Frankfurt, 1980),Margaret Spufford,Small Books and Pleasant Histories. Pleasant Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981) and Tessa Watt,Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 1990).
^See Johann Friedrich Riederer German satire on the widespread reading of novels and romances: "Satyra von den Liebes-Romanen", in:Die abentheuerliche Welt in einer Pickelheerings-Kappe, vol. 2 (Nürnberg, 1718)online edition
^Compare also: Günter Berger,Der komisch-satirische Roman und seine Leser. Poetik, Funktion und Rezeption einer niederen Gattung im Frankreich des 17. Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1984), Ellen Turner GutiérrezThe reception of the picaresque in the French, English, and German traditions (P. Lang, 1995), and Frank Palmeri,Satire, History, Novel: Narrative Forms, 1665–1815 (University of Delaware Press, 2003).
^See hisDom Carlos, nouvelle histoire (Amsterdam, 1672) and the recent dissertation by Chantal Carasco,Saint-Réal, romancier de l'histoire: une cohérence esthéthique et morale (Nantes, 2005).
^Jean Lombard,Courtilz de Sandras et la crise du roman à la fin du Grand Siècle (Paris: PUF, 1980).
^See Paul Scarron,The Comical Romance, Chapter XXI. "Which perhaps will not be found very Entertaining" (London, 1700) with its call for the new genre.online edition
^See [Du Sieur,] "Sentimens sur l'histoire" in:Sentimens sur les lettres et sur l'histoire, avec des scruples sur le stile (Paris: C. Blageart, 1680)online edition and Camille Esmein'sPoétiques du roman. Scudéry, Huet, Du Plaisir et autres textes théoriques et critiques du XVIIe siècle sur le genre romanesque (Paris, 2004).
^SeeRobert Ignatius Letellier,The English novel, 1660–1700: an annotated bibliography (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997).
^See the preface toThe Secret History of Queen Zarah (Albigion, 1705)– the English version of Abbe Bellegarde, "Lettre à une Dame de la Cour, qui lui avoit demandé quelques Reflexions sur l'Histoire" in:Lettres curieuses de littérature et de morale (La Haye: Adrian Moetjens, 1702)online edition
^DeJean, Joan.The Essence of Style: How the French Invented Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour (New York: Free Press, 2005).
^Cevasco, George A.Pearl Buck and the Chinese Novel, p. 442. Asian Studies – Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, 1967, 5:3, pp. 437–51.
^Orr, Leah (2017). "Defining the 'Novel'".Novel Ventures: Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690-1730. University of Virginia Press. p. 11.ISBN9780813940137.
^The Rise of the Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 10.
^SeeJonathan Irvine Israel,Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 591–599, Roger Pearson,The fables of reason: a study of Voltaire's "Contes philosophiques" (Oxford University Press 1993), Dena Goodman,Criticism in action: Enlightenment experiments in political writing (Cornell University Press 1989), Robert Francis O'Reilly,The Artistry of Montesquieu's Narrative Tales (University of Wisconsin., 1967), and René Pomeau and Jean Ehrard,De Fénelon à Voltaire (Flammarion, 1998).
^Samar Attar,The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought, Lexington Books,[ISBN missing].
^Muhsin Mahdi (1974), "The Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn at-Nafis by Max Meyerhof, Joseph Schacht",
^Griffin, Robert J. (1961). "Tristram Shandy and Language".College English.23 (2):108–12.doi:10.2307/372959.JSTOR372959.
^See the preface to herExilius (London: E. Curll, 1715)
^Richard Maxwell and Katie Trumpener, eds.,The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period (2008).
^The elegant and clearly fashionable edition ofThe Works ofLucian (London: S. Briscoe/ J. Woodward/ J. Morphew, 1711), would thus include the story of "Lucian's Ass", vol.1 pp. 114–43.
^See Robert Darnton,The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: Norton, 1995), Lynn Hunt,The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500–1800 (New York: Zone, 1996), Inger Leemans,Het woord is aan de onderkant: radicale ideeën in Nederlandse pornografische romans 1670–1700 (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2002), and Lisa Z. Sigel,Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815–1914 (January: Scholarly Book Services Inc, 2002).
^Pierre Daniel Huet,The History of Romances, transl. by Stephen Lewis (London: J. Hooke/ T. Caldecott, 1715), pp. 138–140.
^See for the following: Christiane Berkvens-Stevelinck, H. Bots, P.G. Hoftijzer (eds.),Le Magasin de L'univers: The Dutch Republic as the Centre of the European Book Trade: Papers Presented at the International Colloquium, Held at Wassenaar, 5–7 July 1990 (Leiden/ Boston, MA: Brill, 1992).
^See also the article onPierre Marteau for a profile of the European production of (not only) political scandal.
^SeeGeorge Ernst Reinwalds Academien- und Studenten-Spiegel (Berlin: J.A. Rüdiger, 1720), pp. 424–427 and the novels written by such "authors" as Celander, Sarcander, and Adamantes at the beginning of the 18th century.
^Jürgen Habermas,The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of the Bourgeois Society [1962], translated by Thomas Burger (MIT Press, 1991).
^See theEntertainments pp. 74–77, Jane Barker's preface to herExilius (London: E. Curll, 1715), andGeorge Ernst Reinwalds Academien- und Studenten-Spiegel (Berlin: J.A. Rüdiger, 1720), pp. 424–27.
^See Hugh Barr Nisbet, Claude Rawson (eds.),The Cambridge history of literary criticism, vol. IV (Cambridge University Press 1997); and Ernst Weber,Texte zur Romantheorie: (1626–1781), 2 vols. (München: Fink, 1974/ 1981) and the individual volumes of Dennis Poupard (et al.),Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800: (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co, 1984 ff.).
^The Works of T. Petronius Arbiter [...]second edition [...] (London: S. Briscoe/ J. Woodward/ J. Morphew, 1710);The Works of Lucian,, 2 vols. (London: S. Briscoe/ J. Woodward/ J. Morphew, 1711). SeeThe Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclia [...], 2 vols. (London: W. Taylor/ E. Curll/ R. Gosling/ J. Hooke/ J. Browne/ J. Osborn, 1717),
^August Bohse's (alias Talander) "Preface" to the German edition. (Leipzig: J.L. Gleditsch/ M.G. Weidmann, 1710).
^See Geoffrey Galt Harpham, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature, 2nd ed. (Davies Group, Publishers, 2006).
^See Gerald Ernest Paul Gillespie, Manfred Engel, and Bernard Dieterle,Romantic prose fiction (John Benjamin's Publishing Company, 2008).
^abcThe Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature, ed. Marion Wynne Davis. New York: Prentice Hall, 1990, p. 885.
^The Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature, ed. Marion Wynne Davis, p. 884.
^abThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol.2, 7th edition, ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 2000, pp. 20–21.
^See Mark Rose,Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright 3rd ed. (Harvard University Press, 1993) and Joseph Lowenstein,The Author's Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
^See Susan Esmann, "Die Autorenlesung – eine Form der Literaturvermittlung",Kritische Ausgabe 1/2007PDF; 0,8 MBArchived 2009-02-24 at theWayback Machine.
^See Richard Altick and Jonathan Rose,The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900, 2nd ed. (Ohio State University Press, 1998) and William St. Clair,The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: CUP, 2004).
^Tillotson, Kathleen (1956).Novels of the Eighteen-Forties. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 150–6.All serious novelists were affected by [the influence of Carlyle] in some degree, both in ways common to all and individually modified; and it is an influence not merely upon the content but upon the mode and temper of the novel. ... After Carlyle, the poetic, prophetic, and visionary possibilities of the novel are fully awakened.
^See: James Engell,The committed word: Literature and Public Values (Penn State Press, 1999) and Edwin M. Eigner, George John Worth (ed.),Victorian criticism of the novel (Cambridge: CUP Archive, 1985).
^Gene H. Bell-Villada,Art for Art's Sake & Literary Life: How Politics and Markets Helped Shape the Ideology & Culture of Aestheticism, 1790–1990 (University of Nebraska Press, 1996).
^Arthur C. Benson, "Charles Dickens".The North American Review, Vol. 195, No. 676 (Mar., 1912), pp. 381–91.
^Jane Millgate, "Two Versions of Regional Romance: Scott'sThe Bride of Lammermoor and Hardy'sTess of the d'Urbervilles.Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, Vol. 17, No. 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn, 1977), pp. 729–38.
^See Scott Donaldson and Ann MassaAmerican Literature: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (David & Charles, 1978), p. 205.
^Claire Parfait,The Publishing History of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852–2002 (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007).
^See Erwin R. Steinberg (ed.)The Stream-of-consciousness technique in the modern novel (Port Washington, N.Y: Kennikat Press, 1979). On the extra-European usage of the technique see also: Elly Hagenaar/ Eide, Elisabeth, "Stream of consciousness and free indirect discourse in modern Chinese literature",Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 56 (1993), p. 621 and P.M. Nayak (ed.),The voyage inward: stream of consciousness in Indian English fiction (New Delhi: Bahri Publications, 1999).
^See, for example, Susan Hopkins,Girl Heroes: The New Force in Popular Culture (Annandale NSW:, 2002).
^Kavadlo, Jesse (Fall–Winter 2005). "The Fiction of Self-destruction: Chuck Palahniuk, Closet Moralist".Stirrings Still: The International Journal of Existential Literature.2 (2): 7.
^See: Charles Irving Glicksberg,The Sexual Revolution in Modern American Literature (Nijhoff, 1971) and hisThe Sexual Revolution in Modern English Literature (Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).
^See for a first surveyBrian McHale,Postmodernist Fiction (Routledge, 1987) and John Docker,Postmodernism and popular culture: a cultural history (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
^See Gérard Genette,Palimpsests, trans. Channa Newman & Claude Doubinsky (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press) and Graham Allan,Intertextuality (London/New York: Routledge, 2000);Linda Hutcheon,Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox (London: Routledge, 1984) and Patricia Waugh,Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction (London: Routledge 1988).
Bakhtin, Mikhail.About novel.The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981. [written during the 1930s]
Madden, David; Charles Bane; Sean M. Flory (2006) [1979].A Primer of the Novel: For Readers and Writers (revised ed.). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.ISBN978-0-8108-5708-7. Updated edition of pioneering typology and history of over 50 genres; index of types and technique, and detailed chronology.
McKeon, Michael,Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
Histories of the novel
Armstrong, Nancy (1987).Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-504179-8.
Mentz, Steve (2006).Romance for sale in early modern England: the rise of prose fiction. Aldershot: Ashgate.ISBN0-7546-5469-9
Moore, Steven.The Novel: An Alternative History. Vol. 1, Beginnings to 1600: Continuum, 2010. Vol. 2, 1600–1800: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Müller, Timo (2017).Handbook of the American Novel of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Boston: de Gruyter.
Price, Leah (2003).The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel: From Richardson to George Eliot. London: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-53939-5. fromLeah Price
Relihan, Constance C. (ed.),Framing Elizabethan fictions: contemporary approaches to early modern narrative prose (Kent, Ohio/ London:Kent State University Press, 1996).ISBN0-87338-551-9
Richetti, John,The English Novel in History 1700-1780 (Routledge, 1999).
Roilos, Panagiotis,Amphoteroglossia: A Poetics of the Twelfth-Century Medieval Greek Novel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005).
Rubens, Robert, "A hundred years of fiction: 1896 to 1996. (The English Novel in the Twentieth Century, part 12)." Contemporary Review, December 1996.
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