A novel is a long, fictional narrative. The novel in the modern era usually makes use of a literary prose style. The … See more

The earliest novels include classical Greek and Latin prose narratives from the first century BC to the second century AD, such as Chariton's Callirhoe (mid 1st century), which is "arguably the earliest surviving Western no… See more

The European developments of the novel did not occur until after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1439, and the rise of the publishing industry over a century later. Long European … See more

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 … See more

The idea of the "rise of the novel" in the 18th century is especially associated with Ian Watt's influential study The Rise of the Novel (1957). In Watt's conception, a rise in fictional realism during the 18th century came to dis… See more

The very word romanticism is connected to the idea of romance, and the romance genre experienced a revival, at the end of the 18th century, with gothic fiction, that began in 1764 with Horace Walpole's The Castle of O… See more