Novel
a prose narrative of fictitious events connected by a plot, and involving portraitures of character and descriptions of scenery. Is generally applied to narratives of everyday life and manners; while the romance deals with what is ideal, marvelous, mysterious, or supernatural. Prose fiction written for entertainment is of considerable antiquity. Among the Greeks we find mention of a collection of stories known as the "Milesian Tales," before which a sort of historical romance, the "Cyropædia," had been produced by Xenophon (430-357 в. c.). There were several other Greek writers of fiction before the Christian era, but the most notable name is that of Heliodorus in the 4th century after Christ. He was followed by Achilles Tatius and by Longus.
Among the Romans the chief names are Petronius Arbiter and Apuleius.
The romances of the Middle Ages were metrical in form. The true novel, in the stories of Boccaccio's "Decamas understood to-day, had its beginnings eron" (1358). The success of this collection gave rise to numberless imitations, and since that time the development of the novel has been steadily progressive. At first we have nothing but tales of love intrigue, as in the "Decameron," in the "Hundred New Tales" (15th century), and the "Heptameron" of Margaret of Navarre (1559). But during the 16th and 17th centuries there is very marked progress, and we now find produced the comic romance, the picaresque romance or ro- Nova Scotia is supposed to have been first visited and discovered by the Cab-mance of amusing rogwery, and the NOVEL NOVEL pastoral romance. The first variety is containing the author's theories of love, worthily represented by the "Gargan- education, religion, and society. In the tua" and "Pantagruel" of Rabelais department of humorous and satirical (died 1553). Next in point of date fiction the palm belongs to Le Sage, comes the "Life of Bertoldo" of Julio Cesare Croce, a narrative of the humorous and successful exploits of a clever peasant. Some years after appeared the "Don Quixote" of Cervantes (1605), which gave the death-blow to the romance of chivalry. About the same time the first of the picaresque romances appeared in Spain. Matteo Aleman gives us in Guzman Alfarache a hero who is successively beggar, swindler , student, and galley-slave, and is said to have suggested to Le Sage the idea of "Gil Blas." The "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sydney blends pastoral with chivalrous manners, and marks the transition to the romances of conventional love and metaphysical gallantry. In the 17th century century prose fiction in most of its leading types had become an established form of literature in the principal languages of Europe.
The full-fledged modern English novel may be said to date from Defoe.
The effect of his "Robinson Crusoe," "Colonel Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., is caused by the delineation and skillful combination of practical details, which give to the adventures the force of realities. The novel of everyday life was further improved by Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. The "Tristram Shandy" of Sterne displays admirable author of "Gil Blas," the "Lame Devil," etc. As a writer of satirical fiction Voltaire is entitled to high rank by his "Candide," "Zadig," "Princess of Babylon," etc. The translation of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" by Galland (1704-1717) revived the taste for the exaggerations of Eastern fiction .
In Germany three great names tower above all others-Wieland; Jean Paul Richter, whose works abound in strokes of humor, pathos, and fancy; and Goethe, whose novels are attempts to represent or solve the great problems of life and destiny. Popular romantic legendary tales (Volksmärchen) constitute a special department of German literature, which was successfully cultivated by Ludwig Tieck, De la Motte Fouqué, Chamisso, Clemens Brentano, Zschokke, Hoffmann, Musäus, and others. others .
In entering on the 19th century the first name met with is that of the author of "Waverley." Sir Walter Scott may be said to have created the modern historical novel. Since his day the British novelists are perhaps the most numerous class in the the list of authors; and among the more prominent we may note Galt, Charles Lever, Mrs. Gore, Disens , Thackraeli, Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens , eray, James, Ainsworth, the sisters Brontë, Mrs. Trollope, Anthony Trol- George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Miss Braddon, Mrs. Oliphant, Miss Thackeray, Miss Yonge, Thomas Hughes, Charles Reade, William Black, Thomas Hardy, Richard Blackmore, Walter Besant, W.
E. Norris, James Payn, Clark Russell, Rider Haggard, R. L. Stevenson, George Meredith, Hall all Caine , James M. Barrie, A. Conan Doyle, Maurice Hewlett, H. G.
Wells, Arnold Bennett, Compton Mc- Kenzie, John Galsworthy, J. D. Bensford, and W. L. George. In the United States it was not till after the Revolutionary War that the earliest attempts in prose fiction were made.
The first notable adventurer in this field was Charles Brockden Brown, who was followed by J. Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Edgar A. Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. After these came a younger, and in some respects a more markedly American school, represented by such names as Bret Harte, Henry James, W. D. Howells, E. P.
Roe, Amelia Barr, Gen. Lew. Wallace, Cable, Crawford, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Winston Churchill, P. L. Ford, character painting, and humor deeper lope, Mrs. Craik, Kingsley, Marryat, and finer in quality than that of of his contemporaries. Next appeared Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which possesses a higher moral tone than any that had preceded it. Among the best works of secondary rank may be mentioned Johnson's "Rasselas," Madame D'Arblay's "Evelina," and Beckford's "Vathek."
Tales of terror and the supernatural for a time held sway, as exemplified in the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe, author of "The Mysteries of Udolpho"; M. G.
Lewis's "The Monk," and Maturin's "Melmoth." A return to stricter realism is manifested in Miss Edgeworth and Miss Austen, who describe domestic life with minuteness, good sense, a clear moral aim, and charming simplicity of style.
In France, among the novels treating of social life in the 18th century the most prominent are the "Life of Marianne" and the "Successful Peasant" of Marivaux, "Manon l'Escaut" by the Abbé Prévost, the "New Héloise," and the "Emile" of Rousseau, 1 NOVEMBER Miss Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock). Henry Harland, Robert Chambers, Constance Woolson, Mary Wilkins, Thomas N. Page, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Booth Tarkington, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, James Lane Allen, and many others. are The most celebrated of the French novelists of the 19th century Madame de Staël, Chateaubriand, Victor century Hugo, Dumas (father and son), Balzac, Alphonse Karr, Stendhal, De Maupassant, George Sand, Feuillet, Prosper Mérimée, Edmond About, Erckmann- Chatrian, Gautier, Zola, Daudet, etc.
The more noteworthy names in the German literature of fiction are those of Gutzkow, Wilibald Alexis (Wilhelm Häring), Hackländer, Spielhagen, Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel, Auerbach, Rodenberg, G. zu Putlitz, Gustav Freytag, Paul Heyse, Georg Ebers, Rosegger, etc. Among the most important novels in other languages are those in the Italian by Manzoni, in Danish by Hans Christian Andersen, in Swedish by Frederika Bremer, and Madame Carlen, in Hungarian by Maurus Jokái, in Russian by Ivan Tourguenieff, Tolstoï and Dostoievsky, in Polish by Sienkiewicz, in Spanish by Valdés, Bazan, and Galdós.