List of claimed first novels in English

List of candidates

• Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur,
• William Baldwin, Beware the Cat,
• John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and his England
• Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
• Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World,
• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come
• Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave
• Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates and The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
• Daniel Defoe, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent
• Samuel Richardson, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

  Other relevant works

• William Caxton's 1483 translation of Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, The Book of the Knight of the Tower
• Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton
• Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub
• Daniel Defoe, The Consolidator
• Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships

  Differing definition of novel

Length

• Critics typically require a novel to have a certain length. This would exclude Oroonoko, arguably a novella.

  Content and intent

• Critics typically require a novel to be wholly original and so exclude retellings such as Le Morte d'Arthur.
• Critics typically make a distinction between collections of short stories, even those sharing common themes and settings, and novels per se, which typically has a single protagonist and narrative throughout. This might also lead to the exclusion of Le Morte d'Arthur.
• Critics typically distinguish between the romance, which has a heroic protagonist and fantastic elements, and the novel, which attempts to present a realistic story. This would, yet again, exclude Le Morte d'Arthur.
• Critics typically distinguish between the allegory and the novel, in which characters and events stand only for themselves, and so exclude The Pilgrim's Progress and A Tale of a Tub'.
• Critics typically distinguish between the picaresque, made up of a connected sequence of episodes, and the novel, which has unity of structure, and so exclude The Unfortunate Traveller.