The Novels Portal
![Title page of the 1628 edition of Bacon's New Atlantis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Bacon_1628_New_Atlantis_title_page_wpreview.png/150px-Bacon_1628_New_Atlantis_title_page_wpreview.png)
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The English word to describe such a work 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". 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, Medieval Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance". 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. Works of fiction that include marvellous or uncommon incidents are also novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Such "romances" should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love.
Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, an early 11th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world's first novel, because of its early use of the experience of intimacy in a narrative form. There is considerable debate over this, however, as there were certainly long fictional prose works that preceded it. The spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of classical Chinese novels during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qing dynasty (1616–1911). An early example from Europe was Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl in Muslim Spain. 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. Literary historian Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), argued that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century.
Recent technological developments have led to many novels also being published in non-print media: this includes audio books, web novels, and ebooks. Another non-traditional fiction format can be found in graphic novels. While these comic book versions of works of fiction have their origins in the 19th century, they have only become popular recently. (Full article...)
Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is the unfinished novelistic sequel by Mary Wollstonecraft (pictured) to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work. Wollstonecraft's philosophical and gothic novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as the patriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it. The novel pioneered the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. Such themes, coupled with the publication of Godwin's scandalous Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's life, made the novel unpopular at the time it was published. Twentieth-century feminist critics embraced the work, integrating it into the history of the novel and feminist discourse.
Selected novel quote
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/The_Writings_of_Charles_Dickens_v20_p220_%28engraving%29.jpg/150px-The_Writings_of_Charles_Dickens_v20_p220_%28engraving%29.jpg)
- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Did you know...
- ...that the romantic epistles Letters of a Portuguese Nun were from a nun to her lover?
- ...that some elements of the Jules Verne adventure story Two Years' Vacation are to be found in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, written 66 years later?
- ...that the Viagens Interplanetarias series of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian novels?
General images
Subcategories
Featured content
Featured articles
Ace Books
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
A Beautiful Crime
Big Two-Hearted River
Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang (novel)
The Bread-Winners
Brother Jonathan (novel)
Burger's Daughter
Candide
Casino Royale (novel)
A Christmas Carol
The Coral Island
Cousin Bette
The Day Before the Revolution
Len Deighton
Diamonds Are Forever (novel)
The Diary of a Nobody
Doc Savage (magazine)
Dr. No (novel)
Drama dari Krakatau
Dreamsnake
Farseer trilogy
The Fountainhead
The Fox and the Hound (novel)
From Russia, with Love (novel)
The General in His Labyrinth
Gods' Man
Goldfinger (novel)
The Good Terrorist
The Great Gatsby
The Green Child
Halo: Contact Harvest
A Handful of Dust
The Hardy Boys
The Historian
Hogwarts Express (Universal Orlando Resort)
The Hunger Games (novel)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In Our Time (short story collection)
Indian Camp
Irish Thoroughbred
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Lad, A Dog
The Left Hand of Darkness
Live and Let Die (novel)
Logan (novel)
Louis Lambert (novel)
The Man in the Moone
Mom & Me & Mom
The Monster (novella)
Moonraker (novel)
Naruto
Night (memoir)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (novel)
The Open Boat
The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
Paradises Lost
Pattern Recognition (novel)
La Peau de chagrin
The Penelopiad
Père Goriot
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.
Rachel Dyer
Raptor Red
Reception history of Jane Austen
The Red Badge of Courage
J. K. Rowling
El Señor Presidente
Seventy-Six (novel)
A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Southern Cross (wordless novel)
The Spy Who Loved Me (novel)
Starship Troopers
The Sun Also Rises
Tom Swift
The Temple at Thatch
The Time Traveler's Wife
To Kill a Mockingbird
True at First Light
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Vision in White
Emma Watson
A Wizard of Earthsea
Wordless novel
Z. Marcas
Featured lists
Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel
Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel
Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel
List of works by John Buchan
List of Charmed novels and short stories
List of works by Leslie Charteris
Winston Churchill as writer
Roald Dahl bibliography
Len Deighton bibliography
Arthur Conan Doyle bibliography
The Flashman Papers
List of works by H. Rider Haggard
List of Harry Potter cast members
List of works by Georgette Heyer
List of works by E. W. Hornung
Hugo Award for Best Novel
Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Hugo Award for Best Novella
Hugo Award for Best Short Story
List of James Bond novels and short stories
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
List of works by W. E. Johns
List of works by Kwee Tek Hoay
Lambda Literary Award for Speculative Fiction
List of awards and nominations received by J. K. Rowling
List of works by W. Somerset Maugham
List of works by H. C. McNeile
Nebula Award for Best Novella
Nebula Award for Best Novel
Newbery Medal
List of Nobel laureates in Literature
List of Women's Prize for Fiction winners
George Orwell bibliography
List of works by Sax Rohmer
List of works by Dorothy L. Sayers
Theodore Sturgeon Award
P. G. Wodehouse bibliography
World Fantasy Award—Anthology
World Fantasy Award—Collection
World Fantasy Award—Novella
World Fantasy Award—Novel
World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction
World Fantasy Special Award—Non-professional
Featured portals
Featured pictures
File:Alfons Mucha - 1896 - La Dame aux Camélias - Sarah Bernhardt.jpg
File:Archibald Standish Hartrick - Rudyard Kipling - Soldier Tales 18 - The Taking of Lungtungpen 1.jpg
File:Archibald Standish Hartrick - Rudyard Kipling - Soldier Tales 19 - The Taking of Lungtungpen 2.jpg
File:Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, Graziella, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg
File:N. M. Price - Sir Walter Scott - Guy Mannering - At the Kaim of Derncleugh.jpg
Things you can do
![]() |
|
Related portals
WikiProjects
- Main projects
- Arts • Books • Literature • Novels • Entertainment • Visual arts
- Related Projects
- Animation • Anime and manga • Biography • Comics • Film • Fictional characters • Media franchises • Music • Television • Video games
What are WikiProjects?
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
-
-
-
-
-
Random portal
Purge server cache
Recent Comments