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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". Such "romances" should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love. 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.

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 the vernacular classic 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...)

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First edition cover (1843)

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory. (Full article...)

Selected novel quote

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Wendy Moira Angela Darling,’ she replied with some satisfaction. ‘What is your name?’
‘Peter Pan.’
She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a comparatively short name.
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes,’ he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Wendy Moira Angela.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Peter gulped.
She asked where he lived.
‘Second to the right,’ said Peter, ‘and then straight on till morning.’
‘What a funny address!’
Peter had a sinking feeling. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a funny address.
“A moment after the fairy’s entrance the window was blow open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in.”

Peter Pan

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Did you know...

...that Maya Angelou wrote one of her characters in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to demonstrate how she survived her childhood as a black in a white-dominated world?
...that the novel Uncle Daddy by Ralph Fletcher (pictured) was awarded a 2002 Christopher Medal in the books for ages 10–12 category?
...that the only Rod Serling short story in the 2009 Twilight Zone anthology was called the least Twilight Zone-like story in the collection?

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General images

The following are images from various novel-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) (from Novel)
Image 2Image from a Victorian edition of Walter Scott's Waverley (1814) (from Novel)
Image 3J. K. Rowling, 2010 (from Novel)
Image 4King Kong (1932) novelization of King Kong (1933) (from Novelization)
Image 51719 newspaper reprint of Robinson Crusoe (from Novel)
Image 6"Oh Edward! How can you?", a late-19th-century illustration from Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen, a pioneer of the genre (from Romance novel)
Image 7Dan Brown (from Novel)
Image 8Novelization of chapter 8 of the film series Les Vampires (1915–16) (from Novelization)
Image 9The chapbook Jack the Giant Killer (from Chapbook)
Image 10The frontispiece of a late 18th-century chapbook edition of Voltaire's The Extraordinary Tragical Fate of Calas, depicting Jean Calas being broken on the wheel (from Chapbook)
Image 11A modern chapbook (from Chapbook)
Image 12Richard Head, The English Rogue (1665) (from Novel)
Image 13First edition of Aleksis Kivi's The Seven Brothers (1870) (from Novel)
Image 141915 novelization of the original 1904 play Peter and Wendy (from Novelization)
Image 15Statue of Ostap Bender in Elista (from Picaresque novel)
Image 16Woodcut of a fairy-circle from a 17th-century chapbook (from Chapbook)
Image 17A nineteenth-century painting by the Swiss-French painter Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre depicting a scene from Longus's Daphnis and Chloe (from Romance novel)
Image 18Chaucer reciting Troilus and Criseyde: early-15th-century manuscript of the work at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (from Novel)
Image 19Paper as the essential carrier: Murasaki Shikibu writing her The Tale of Genji in the early 11th century, 17th-century depiction (from Novel)
Image 20Madame de Pompadour spending her afternoon with a book (François Boucher, 1756) (from Novel)
Image 21Intimate short stories: The Court and City Vagaries (1711). (from Novel)
Image 22Harlequin novels (from Romance novel)
Image 23Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol.6, pp. 70–71 (1769) (from Novel)
Image 24One of the most influential novels on the picaresque genre was The Golden Ass by Apuleius, which he published sometime in the 2nd century AD. (ms. Vat. Lat. 2194, Vatican Library) (1345 illustration). (from Picaresque novel)
Image 25Chinua Achebe, Buffalo, 2008 (from Novel)
Image 26Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1741) (from Novel)
Image 27Adventure novels and short stories were popular subjects for American pulp magazines. (from Adventure fiction)
Image 28A light novel bookstore in Macau (from Light novel)
Image 291474: The customer in the copyist's shop with a book he wants to have copied. This illustration of the first printed German Melusine looked back to the market of manuscripts. (from Novel)
Image 30Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vladivostok, 1995 (from Novel)
Image 31The picaresque genre began with the Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) (Pictured: Its title page) (from Picaresque novel)

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