A novel is a long, fictional narrative. The novel in the modern era usually makes use of a literary prose style. The development of the prose novel at this time was encouraged by innovations in printing, and the introduction of … 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 … 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 … See more

Romanticism
The very word romanticism is connected to the idea of romance, and the romance genre experienced a … See more

The earliest novels include classical Greek and Latin prose narratives from the first century BC to the second century AD, such as 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 … See more

Modernism and post-modernism
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) had a major influence on modern novelists, in the way that it replaced the … See more