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A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the Italian: novella for “new”, “news”, or “short story of something new”, itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning “new”. Download free novels in PDF format online. Short stories are also available

Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville,[3] Ann Radcliffe,[4] John Cowper Powys,[5] preferred the term “romance” to describe their novels. Free Novels online PDF

According to Margaret Doody, the novel has “a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years”, with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.[6] The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel.[7] Some, including M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott, have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, while the romance encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents.[8][9][10]

Works of fiction that include marvellous or uncommon incidents are also novels, including The Lord of The Rings,[11] To Kill a Mockingbird,[12] and Frankenstein.[13] “Romances” are works of fiction whose main emphasis is on marvellous or unusual incidents, and should not be confused with the romance novel, a type of genre fiction that focuses on romantic love. Free Novels online

Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, an early 11th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world’s first novel, but there is considerable debate over this — there were certainly long fictional works that preceded it. Spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of classical Chinese novels by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). An early example from Europe was written in Muslim Spain by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl entitled Hayy ibn Yaqdhan.[14] Later developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era.[15] Literary historian Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), suggested that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century.

Although early forms of the novel are to be found in a number of places, including classical Rome, 10th– and 11th-century Japan, and Elizabethan England, the European novel is often said to have begun with Don Quixote in 1605.[15] Globally, Murasaki Shikibu‘s Tale of Genji (1010) is often described as the world’s first novel[19][20] and shows essentially all the qualities for which Marie de La Fayette‘s novel La Princesse de Clèves (1678) has been praised: individuality of perception, an interest in character development, and psychological observation.[21] 

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Early novels include works in Greek such as the Life of Aesop (c. 620 – 564 BCE), Lucian (c. 125 – after 180 AD)’s A True Story, the Alexander Romance and later novels Chariton‘s Callirhoe (mid-1st century), Achilles Tatius‘ Leucippe and Clitophon (early-2nd century), Longus‘ Daphnis and Chloe (2nd century), Xenophon of Ephesus‘ Ephesian Tale (late-2nd century), and Heliodorus of Emesa‘s Aethiopica (third century), which inspire writers of medieval novels such as Hysimine and Hysimines by Eustathios Makrembolites, Rodanthe and Dosikles by Theodore Prodromos and Drosilla and Charikles by Niketas Eugenianos and Arístandros and Kallithéa by Constantine Manasses; works in Latin, such as the Satyricon by Petronius (c. 50 AD), and The Golden Ass by Apuleius (c. 150 AD); works in Sanskrit such as the 4th or 5th century Vasavadatta by Subandhu, 6th– or 7th-century Daśakumāracarita and Avantisundarīkathā by Daṇḍin, and in the 7th-century Kadambari by Banabhatta, Murasaki Shikibu‘s 11th-century Japanese work The Tale of Genji, the 12th-century Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (or Philosophus Autodidactus, the 17th-century Latin title) by Ibn Tufail, who wrote in Arabic, the 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn al-Nafis, another Arabic novelist, and Blanquerna, written in Catalan by Ramon Llull (1283), and the 14th-century Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.Free Novels online[22] 

Urbanization and the spread of printed books in Song Dynasty (960–1279) China led to the evolution of oral storytelling into fictional novels by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Parallel European developments did not occur until after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, and the rise of the publishing industry over a century later allowed for similar opportunities.[23]

By contrast, Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and Ibn al-Nafis’ Theologus Autodidactus are works of didactic philosophy and theology. In this sense, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan would be considered an early example of a philosophical novel,[24][25] while Theologus Autodidactus would be considered an early theological novel.[26] Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, with its story of a human outcast surviving on an island, is also likely to have influenced Daniel Defoe‘s Robinson Crusoe (1719), because the work was available in an English edition in 1711.Free Novels online[27]

Epic poetry exhibits some similarities with the novel, and the Western tradition of the novel reaches back into the field of verse epics, though again not in an unbroken tradition. The epics of Asia, such as the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (1300–1000 BC), and Indian epics such as the Ramayana (400 BCE and 200 CE), and Mahabharata (4th century BC) were as unknown in early modern Europe as was the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf (c. 750–1000 AD), which was rediscovered in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Other non-European works, such as the Torah, the Quran, and the Bible, are full of stories, and thus have also had a significant influence on the development of prose narratives, and therefore the novel. Then at the beginning of the 18th century, French prose translations brought Homer’s works to a wider public, who accepted them as forerunners of the novel.[citation needed] Free Novels online

Classical Greek and Roman prose narratives[28] included a didactic strand, with the philosopher Plato‘s (c. 425 – c. 348 BC) dialogues; a satirical dimension with Petronius‘ Satyricon; the incredible stories of Lucian of Samosata; and Lucius Apuleius‘ proto-picaresque The Golden Ass, as well as the heroic romances of the Greeks Heliodorus and Longus. Longus is the author of the Greek novel, Daphnis and Chloe (2nd century AD). Free Novels online

 

References

  1. ^ Britannica Online Encyclopedia [1] accessed 2 August 2009
  2. ^ The Scarlet Letter: A Romance
  3. ^ Melville described Moby 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 in Horth (1993), p. 163
  4. ^ William Harmon & C, Hugh Holmam, A Handbook to Literature (7th edition), p. 237.
  5. ^ See A Glastonbury Romance.
  6. ^ Margaret Anne Doody, The True Story of the Novel. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  7. ^ J. A. Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, ed., 4th edition, revised C. E. Preston. London: Penguin, 1999, pp. 76o-2.
  8. ^ M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (7th edition), p. 192.
  9. ^ “Essay on Romance”, Prose Works volume vi, p. 129, quoted in “Introduction” to Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward, ed. Susan Maning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. xxv.
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