The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600

By Steven Moore

Book Overview

Encyclopedic in scope and heroically audacious, The Novel: An Alternative History is the first attempt in over a century to tell the complete story of our most popular literary form. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the novel did not originate in 18th-century England, nor even with Don Quixote, but is coeval with civilization itself. After a pugnacious introduction, in which Moore defends innovative, demanding novelists against their conservative critics, the book relaxes into a world tour of the pre-modern novel, beginning in ancient Egypt and ending in 16th-century China, with many exotic ports-of-call: Greek romances; Roman satires; medieval Sanskrit novels narrated by parrots; Byzantine erotic thrillers; 5000-page Arabian adventure novels; Icelandic sagas; delicate Persian novels in verse; Japanese war stories; even Mayan graphic novels. Throughout, Moore celebrates the innovators in fiction, tracing a continuum between these pre-modern experimentalists and their postmodern progeny.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1441145478
• ISBN13: 9781441145475
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Continuum
• Length: 704 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 5.7" x 8.8"