What was the first novel ever written?

Question

What was the first novel ever written?

Answer 1

Gilgamesh

Answer 2

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence is brilliant! This week I read The Four Feathers by AEW Mason which I really liked. As a Stephen King Fan this was so different! Something modern which I read last month was Before I Die by Jenny Downham - novel about a 16yr old with cancer. War and Peace was long but ok! Pillars of the Earth and World without End by Ken Follett for an historical read and Sarum by Edward Rutherford. Alison Weir - Innocent Traitor also historical novel about Lady Jane Grey.

Answer 3

Gosh, that's an open question. Do you mean actually written, or simply created, or printed, or what? Do you mean, by novel, a multi-chapter work of fiction, or do you just mean "a story."
Gilgamesh goes back four or five thousand years, and is "written" on some clay tablets. Not widely published in written form, it was part of the Mesopotamian oral tradition. Grendle was the first work of English Literature to survive to the modern era (naturally). Fictional tales told for amusement have been around for three or four hundred years (about as long as general literacy in the West).
So you pick's your definitions, you gets your answer.

Answer 4

Writing was invented by the Sumerians in 3000 BC. It was a form called cuneiform- basically wedge shaped symbols used to inventory cattle and stuff. The first novel ever written was called Epic of Gilgamesh, which antedates Homer's Illiad by 1500 years. It recounts the heroic story of Gilagamesh, legendary king of Uruk and slayer of the monster Huwawa.

Answer 5

The first novel was, in fact, Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki.
The first modern novel was Don Quixote by Cervantes. The structure of Don Quixote and the types of characters is what later classic novels were/are based on. Greko-Roman tales were either in dramatic or epic format which is not a novel.

Answer 6

None of the above mentioned are novels. They are all epic poems. I believe the first book ever written in novel format was Don Quixote.

Answer 7

Tom Sawyer - The first novel ever written on a typewriter - 1876

Answer 8

In 1007 a Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote the world's first full novel. The "Story of Genji" tells the story of a prince searching for love and great wisdom.

The Iliad and Odyessey are not technically "novels", they're epics... they have a different format and style. They're epic poems.

Therefore the poster below me is incorrect. If you're referring to the "modern" novel, it's "The Story of Genji".

Answer 9

Many scholars believe that the first true novel was The Tale of Genji (11th century ad) by Japanese author Murasaki Shikibu. A portrait of court life in Japan, it focuses on the fictional Prince Genji, his love affairs, and his descendants.

Answer 10

Robinson Crusoe 1719 was one of the first in English. But it follows in a long line of spurious travel fictions that has traditions deep in the Middle Ages.