WikiProject Novels aims to define a standard of consistency for articles about novels and literary genres associated with fictional narratives. It also aims to encourage and provide the structure for enhancing the writing of high quality articles on all manner of different novels. For the purpose of this project, "Novels" are deemed to include all works of narrative fiction that exhibit novel-like structure, regardless of length and genre. (This includes full novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories.) It also aims to encourage and promote the writing of articles on all types of such Novels.
Oroonoko is a short novel by Aphra Behn (June 10, 1640 – April 16, 1689), published in 1688, concerning the love of its hero, an enslaved African in Surinam in the 1660s, and the author's own experiences in the new South American colony. It is generally claimed (most famously by Virginia Woolf) that Aphra Behn was the first professional female author in English, living entirely by her own earnings. While this is not entirely true, Behn was the first professional female dramatist, as well as one of the first English novelists, male or female. Although she had written at least one novel previously, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is both one of the earliest English novels and one of the earliest by a woman. Behn worked for Charles II as a spy during the outset of the Second Dutch War, working to solicit a double agent. However, Charles either failed to pay her for her services or failed to pay her all that he owed her, and Behn, upon returning to England, needed money. She was widowed and destitute and even spent some time in debtor's prison before scoring a number of successes as an author. She wrote very fine poetry that sold well and was the basis of her fame for the following generation, and she had a number of highly successful plays staged, which established her fame in her own lifetime. In the 1670s, only John Dryden had plays staged more often than Behn. She turned her hand to extended narrative prose toward the end of her dramatic career; Oroonoko was published less than a year before her death.
 - In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat.In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practiced today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
 - ... that the science fiction novel The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg, which featured a naked time traveler from the future, was a nominee for the 1969 Nebula Award?
- ... that in the fictional 1977 novel The Sword of Shannara, Shea Ohmsford is the only descendant of Jerle Shannara left in the Four Lands, and therefore the only one left who can use the Sword of Shannara?
- ... that Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated 1910–13 Antarctic expedition was the inspiration for two of Doris Lessing's novels, The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8?
- ... that Jack Womack's 2000 alternate history novel Going, Going, Gone is set in two converging parallel versions of New York?
- ... that the Lord Peter Wimsey novel Thrones, Dominations was started by Dorothy L. Sayers in 1936 and completed by Jill Paton Walsh over 60 years later?
- ... that David Drake wrote his first novel, The Dragon Lord, after another author declined to develop the plot Drake had written?
- ... that the Beth Groundwater novel A Real Basket Case was nominated for the Best First Novel Agatha Award in 2007?
Announcements and open tasks
 | WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories)
Announcements and open tasks | → Please help with tagging articles!
Purge server cache |
