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A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word 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 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 commonly called novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

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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The cover of the first edition of The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane. Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer. Although Crane was born after the war, and had not at the time experienced battle firsthand, the novel is known for its realism. He began writing what would become his second novel in 1893, using various contemporary and written accounts (such as those published previously by Century Magazine) as inspiration. It is believed that he based the fictional battle on that of Chancellorsville; he may also have interviewed veterans of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Orange Blossoms. Initially shortened and serialized in newspapers in December 1894, the novel was published in full in October 1895. Several of the themes that the story explores are maturation, heroism, cowardice, and the indifference of nature. Adapted several times for the screen, the novel became a bestseller. It has never been out of print, and is now thought to be Crane's most important work and a major American text.

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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

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...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 1First edition of Aleksis Kivi's The Seven Brothers (1870) (from Novel)
Image 2Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) (from Novel)
Image 31915 novelization of the original 1904 play Peter and Wendy (from Novelization)
Image 4Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vladivostok, 1995 (from Novel)
Image 5"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 61474: 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 7A light novel bookstore in Macau (from Light novel)
Image 8J. K. Rowling, 2010 (from Novel)
Image 9Dan Brown (from Novel)
Image 10Richard Head, The English Rogue (1665) (from Novel)
Image 11Chinua Achebe, Buffalo, 2008 (from Novel)
Image 12Intimate short stories: The Court and City Vagaries (1711). (from Novel)
Image 13Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1741) (from Novel)
Image 14Image from a Victorian edition of Walter Scott's Waverley (1814) (from Novel)
Image 15The 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 16Paper as the essential carrier: Murasaki Shikibu writing her The Tale of Genji in the early 11th century, 17th-century depiction (from Novel)
Image 17Harlequin novels (from Romance novel)
Image 18A 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 19One 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 20Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol.6, pp. 70–71 (1769) (from Novel)
Image 21The chapbook Jack the Giant Killer (from Chapbook)
Image 22Statue of Ostap Bender in Elista (from Picaresque novel)
Image 23King Kong (1932) novelization of King Kong (1933) (from Novelization)
Image 241719 newspaper reprint of Robinson Crusoe (from Novel)
Image 25Woodcut of a fairy-circle from a 17th-century chapbook (from Chapbook)
Image 26Chaucer reciting Troilus and Criseyde: early-15th-century manuscript of the work at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (from Novel)
Image 27The picaresque genre began with the Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) (Pictured: Its title page) (from Picaresque novel)
Image 28Novelization of chapter 8 of the film series Les Vampires (1915–16) (from Novelization)
Image 29A modern chapbook (from Chapbook)
Image 30Adventure novels and short stories were popular subjects for American pulp magazines. (from Adventure fiction)
Image 31Madame de Pompadour spending her afternoon with a book (François Boucher, 1756) (from Novel)

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