Early novels

The novel is usually considered a modern genre of literature, its history beginning in the 17th century. However, there are several ancient and medieval texts that fully qualify as novels in the sense of "extended fictional narrative in prose".

There was a tradition of prose fictions, both in a satirical mode (with Petronius's Satyricon and the incredible stories of Lucian of Samosata), and a heroic strain (with the romances of Heliodorus and Longus). The ancient Greek romance was revived by Byzantine novelists of the 12th century. All of these traditions were then rediscovered in the 17th and 18th centuries, ultimately influencing the modern book market. Following the medieval romance, it is difficult to give a full catalog of the genres that finally culminated—with the works of Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Niccolò Machiavelli and Miguel de Cervantes—in the "novel" as known today .

Ancient and medieval

The Story of Sinuhe - ca. 18th century BC
The Education of Cyrus by Xenophon (Greek, 4th century BC) - A fictional account of the education of King Cyrus the Great of Persia
The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius and Λουκιος η Ονος by Lucian of Samosata - (2nd century) both based on lost original by Lucius of Patrae
The Adventures of the Ten Princes by Sri Dandin - (Indian Sanskrit in the 6th or 7th century)
Kadambari by Banabhatta - (Sanskrit, 7th century)
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter by Anonymous - (Japanese, 10th century)
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (Italian, 1353)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong - (Chinese, 14th century)
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (English, 1390s)

Modern

* Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dyl Ulenspiegel, geboren uß dem Land zu Brunßwick (German chapbook, 1510)
Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous - (Spanish, 1554)
Historia von D. Iohan Fausten (German, 1587)
Guzmán de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán - (Spanish, 1599)
* Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes - (1605) generally considered to be the origin of the modern European novel
Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1668, sometimes named as the first German novel)
Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (English, 1688; Behn is sometimes considered both the first female novelist and the first English novelist)

Latin American

The Mangy Parrot by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi - (1816)

French Canadian

L'influence d'un livre by Phillipe-Ignace François Aubert du Gaspé - (1816)

See also

*First novel in English