What is the longest novel ever written?
List of longest novels
This is a list of the longest novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. The longest novel is "Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus", originally published (1649–54) in ten parts, each part in three volumes. "Artamène" is generally attributed to Madeleine de Scudéry.
Bleak House
George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton are among those literary critics and writers who consider "Bleak House" to be the best novel that Charles Dickens wrote. As Chesterton put it: ""Bleak House" is not certainly Dickens's best book; but perhaps it is his best novel". Harold Bloom, in his book "The Western Canon", considers "Bleak House" to be Dickens's greatest novel. Daniel Burt, in his book "The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time", ranks "Bleak House" number 12. Horror and supernatural fiction author Stephen King named it among his top 10 favourite books.
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, "The Mousetrap", and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Beware the Cat
Beware the Cat (1561) is a short English novel (or is that "novella"?) written by the printer's assistant and poet William Baldwin (sometimes called Gulielmus Baldwin), in early 1553. It is notable as the first horror fiction text longer than a short story and has also been claimed by some academics as the first novel ever published in English of any kind.
The World of William Clissold
At 797 pages, "The World of William Clissold" is H.G. Wells's longest novel. It is dedicated to Odette Keun, Wells's lover from 1924 to 1933 and with whom Wells lived in Lou Pidou, a house they built together in Grasse, France; the text often evokes the countryside of southern France.
Messiah's Kingdom
Messiah's Kingdom is a long poem by Agnes Bulmer. It was published in 1833. It is regarded as the longest poem written by a woman. It consists of some 14,000 lines grouped in twelve books. The poem is written in heroic couplet but the introduction is made up of four 13-line stanzas like this one:
Shahnameh
The Shahnameh ( "Šāhnāmah" , "The Book of Kings", also transliterated "Shahnama") is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 "distichs" or couplets (two-line verses), the "Shahnameh" is the world's longest epic poem written by a single poet. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century. Modern Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture (such as Georgia, Armenia, Turkey and Dagestan) celebrate this national epic.
Book
The novel is the most common form of fiction book. Novels are stories that typically feature a plot, setting, themes and characters. Stories and narrative are not restricted to any topic; a novel can be whimsical, serious or controversial. The novel has had a tremendous impact on entertainment and publishing markets. A novella is a term sometimes used for fiction prose typically between 17,500 and 40,000 words, and a novelette between 7,500 and 17,500. A short story may be any length up to 10,000 words, but these word lengths vary.
Madison Cooper
Madison Alexander Cooper, Jr., (June 3, 1894 – September 28, 1956) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Waco, Texas, and is best remembered for his long novel "Sironia, Texas" (1952), which made publishing history at that time as the longest novel in English originally published in book form, in two volumes totaling 1,731 pages, containing an estimated 840,000 words.
Longest words
from the Varadāmbikā Pariṇaya Campū by Tirumalāmbā, composed of 195 Sanskrit letters (428 letters in the roman transliteration, dashes excluded), thus making it the longest word ever to appear in worldwide literature.
Der Stechlin
Der Stechlin is a novel by Theodor Fontane written between 1895 and 1897, and first published in the literary journal "Über Land und Meer". It was published in book form in 1898. It is Fontane's second longest novel, and last novel before he died about a year after its publication.
Blood Meridian
Aleksandar Hemon has called "Blood Meridian" "possibly the greatest American novel of the past 25 years." In 2006, "The New York Times" conducted a poll of writers and critics regarding the most important works in American fiction from the previous 25 years; "Blood Meridian" was a runner-up, along with John Updike's four novels about Rabbit Angstrom and Don DeLillo's "Underworld" while Toni Morrison's "Beloved" topped the list. Novelist David Foster Wallace named "Blood Meridian" one of the five most underappreciated American novels since 1960 and described it as "[p]robably the most horrifying book of this century, at least [in] fiction."
Les Misérables
The novel as a whole is one of the longest ever written, with approximately 1,500 pages in unabridged English-language editions, and 1,900 pages in French. Hugo explained his ambitions for the novel to his Italian publisher:
More than a quarter of the novel—by one count 955 of 2,783 pages—is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo's encyclopedic knowledge, but do not advance the plot, nor even a subplot, a method Hugo used in such other works as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Toilers of the Sea". One biographer noted that "the digressions of genius are easily pardoned". The topics Hugo addresses include cloistered religious orders, the construction of the Paris sewers, argot, and the street urchins of Paris. The one about convents he titles "Parenthesis" to alert the reader to its irrelevance to the story line.
J. K. Rowling
In March 2017, Rowling revealed the fourth novel's title via Twitter in a game of "Hangman" with her followers. After many failed attempts, followers finally guessed correctly. Rowling confirmed that the next novel's title is "Lethal White". While intended for a 2017 release, Rowling tweeted the book was taking longer than expected and would be the longest book in the series thus far. The book was released 18 September 2018.
Dalip Frashëri
Dalip Frashëri, also known with the pen-name Hyxhretiu (the exiled), was an Albanian Bektashi poet and religious leader of the 19th century. His poem "Kopshti i te mirevet" (Garden of the martyrs) is the first and the longest epic known in the Albanian literature.
Jean Santeuil
Jean Santeuil () is an unfinished novel written by Marcel Proust. It was written between 1896 and 1900, and published after the author's death. The first French edition was published in 1952 by Gallimard. The first English version, translated from the French by Gerard Hopkins, was published in 1955 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK and in 1956 by Simon & Schuster in the US. It was first printed in three volumes, as the novel is over nine-hundred pages long.
Hinilawod
Hinilawod is a 29,000-verse epic that takes about three days to chant in its original form, making it one of the longest epics known, alongside that of Tibet's Epic of King Gesar. Hinilawod is one of the many pieces of oral literature passed from one generation to the next, changed and morphed by the chanter to one degree or another as he told it to his audience. The Hinilawod is not just a literary piece but also a source of information about culture, religion and rituals of the ancient people of Sulod; showing us that ancient Filipinos believed in the "sacred," in the importance of family honour and in personal courage and dignity.
Madeleine de Scudéry
Her lengthy novels, such as "Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus" (10 vols., 1648–53), "Clélie" (10 vols., 1654–61), "Ibrahim, ou l'illustre Bassa" (4 vols., 1641), "Almahide, ou l'esclave reine" (8 vols., 1661-3) were the delight of Europe, commended by other literary figures such as Madame de Sévigné. "Artamène", which contains about 2.1 million words, ranks as the longest novel ever published. Her novels derive their length from endless conversations and, as far as incidents go, successive abductions of the heroines, conceived and told decorously. Contemporary readers also enjoyed these novels because they gave a glimpse into the life of important society figures. These figures were often disguised as Persian, Greek, and Roman warriors and maidens. In fact, 
Scudéry created the roman à clef to provide a forum for her thinly veiled fiction featuring political and public figures.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling
The novel is one of the longest ever written.
To Green Angel Tower
To Green Angel Tower is the third and final novel in Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" trilogy. At over 520,000 words, it is one of the longest novels ever written. Due to the length of the novel, the paperback version had to be split into two separate volumes, known as "To Green Angel Tower: Part 1" and "Part 2". In the United Kingdom, the two paperback volumes were titled "To Green Angel Tower: Siege" and "To Green Angel Tower: Storm". The saga follows a young man named Simon as he is caught up in an epic adventure.
List of longest novels
A rough approximation can sometimes be obtained by citing the word count of a "translation" into a Latin alphabet language like English (if such a translation exists), but this will vary to some extent depending on the style of English adopted by the translator. However citing a translation has the advantage that it indicates how many words are required to convey the same "meaning" in the target text, not how many "words" the source text actually contains.
James Bond uncollected and other miscellaneous short stories
The original Young Bond short story "A Hard Man to Kill" written by Charlie Higson, is included in the companion book, "", which was released by Puffin Books on 29 October 2009. An extract from the story appears in the paperback edition of "By Royal Command". It is the longest James Bond short story yet written.
The Knight of Sainte-Hermine
The Knight of Sainte-Hermine (published in France in 2005 under the title "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine", and translated to English under the title The Last Cavalier) is an unfinished historical novel by Alexandre Dumas, believed to be Dumas' last major work. The novel was lost until the late twentieth century. Dumas scholar Claude Schopp found an almost-complete copy in the form of a newspaper serial. A number of Dumas' previously forgotten works have been found, but this novel is the largest and most complete at 900 pages.
A Storm of Swords
At the time of its publication, "A Storm of Swords" was the longest novel in the series. It was so long that in the UK, Australia, and Israel, its paperback edition was split in half, Part 1 being published as "Steel and Snow" in June 2001 (with the one-volume cover) and Part 2 as "Blood and Gold" in August 2001 (with a specially-commissioned new cover). The same division was used in the Polish and Greek editions. In France, the decision was made to cut the novel into four separate volumes.
Myrrha
Published in 8 A.D. the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid has become one of the most influential poems by the Latin writers. The "Metamorphoses" showed that Ovid was more interested in questioning how the laws interfered with people's lives than in writing epic tales like Virgil's "Aeneid" and Homer's "Odyssey". The "Metamorphoses" is not narrated by Ovid, but rather by the characters inside the stories. The myth of Myrrha and Cinyras is sung by Orpheus in the tenth book of "Metamorphoses" after he has told the myth of Pygmalion and before he turns to the tale of Venus and Adonis. As the myth of Myrrha is also the longest tale sung by Orpheus (205 lines) and the only story that corresponds to his announced theme of girls punished for forbidden desire, it is considered the centerpiece of the song. Ovid opens the myth with a warning to the audience that this is a myth of great horror, especially to fathers and daughters:
The story I am going to tell is a horrible one: I beg that daughters and fathers should hold themselves aloof, while I sing, or if they find my songs enchanting, let them refuse to believe this part of my tale, and suppose that it never happened: or else, if they believe that it did happen, they must believe also in the punishment that followed.
According to Ovid, Myrrha was the daughter of King Cinyras and Queen Cenchreis of Cyprus. It is stated that Cupid was not to blame for Myrrha's incestuous love for her father, Cinyras. Ovid further comments that hating one's father is a crime, but Myrrha's love was a greater crime. Ovid therefore blamed it on the Furies.
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz that ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. "Peanuts" is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At its peak in the mid- to late 1960s, "Peanuts" ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of around 355 million in 75 countries, and was translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion.
The Perpetual Orgy
The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary (, 1975) is a book-length essay by the Nobel Prize–winning Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa which examines Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" as the first modern novel. The first part of the book has an autobiographical tone; Vargas Llosa then goes on to examine the structure and meaning of "Madame Bovary" as well as its role in the development of the modern novel. First published in Spanish in 1975, the book was translated into English in 1986 by Helen Lane.
Men of Good Will
Les Hommes de bonne volonté () is an epic roman-fleuve by French writer Jules Romains, published in 27 volumes between 1932 and 1946. It has been classified both as a novel cycle and a novel and, at two million words and 7,892 pages, has been cited as one of the longest novels ever written.
Avakasikal
Avakasikal ("The Inheritors") is a Malayalam-language novel by Vilasini (M. K. Menon) published in 1980. It runs into 3958 pages, in four volumes, and is the longest novel written in any Indian language.
José Rumazo González
He is the author of the celebrated poem "Parusia", an epic poem that he began writing in 1956 and consists of 5,600 pages in 7 volumes; it contains close to 240,000 verses, which makes it one of the longest epic poems in human history; it is longer than the Mahabharata by Vyasa, the Ramayana by Valmiki, the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer, and the Aeneid by Virgil.
Thomas Wolfe
Wolfe saw less than half of his work published in his lifetime, there being much unpublished material remaining after his death. He was the first American writer to leave two complete, unpublished novels in the hands of his publisher at death. Two Wolfe novels, "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again", were edited posthumously by Edward Aswell of Harper & Brothers. The novels were "two of the longest one-volume novels ever written" (nearly 700 pages each). In these novels, Wolfe changed the name of his autobiographical character from Eugene Gant to George Webber.
The Dynasts
Because of the ambition and scale of the work, Hardy acknowledged that "The Dynasts" was not a work that could be conventionally staged in the theatre, and described the work as "the longest English drama in existence". Scholars have noted that Hardy remembered war stories of the veterans of the Napoleonic wars in his youth, and used them as partial inspiration for writing "The Dynasts" many years later in his own old age. In addition, Hardy was a distant relative of Captain Thomas Hardy, who had served with Admiral Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar. Hardy consulted a number of histories and also visited Waterloo, Belgium, as part of his research.
The Longest Voyage
"The Longest Voyage" is a science fiction short story by American writer Poul Anderson. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1961.
Sironia, Texas
Sironia, Texas is a novel by American author Madison Cooper that describes life in the fictional town of Sironia, Texas, in the early 20th century. The book won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Award. Sironia is widely thought to be a thinly disguised version of Cooper's hometown of Waco, Texas. The book contains over 1,700 pages, making it one of the longest novels in the English language. Written over a period of 11 years, it was published in 1952. It sold 25,000 copies in its initial printing, but quickly faded from public view. Cooper subtly satirized upper-class southerners throughout the book.
Bhagavad Gita
According to Jeaneane Fowler, "the dating of the "Gita" varies considerably" and depends in part on whether one accepts it to be a part of the early versions of the "Mahabharata", or a text that was inserted into the epic at a later date. The earliest "surviving" components therefore are believed to be no older than the earliest "external" references we have to the "Mahabharata" epic. The "Mahabharata" – the world's longest poem – is itself a text that was likely written and compiled over several hundred years, one dated between "400 BCE or little earlier, and 2nd-century CE, though some claim a few parts can be put as late as 400 CE", states Fowler. The dating of the "Gita" is thus dependent on the uncertain dating of the "Mahabharata". The actual dates of composition of the "Gita" remain unresolved. While the year and century is uncertain, states Richard Davis, the internal evidence in the text dates the origin of the "Gita" discourse to the Hindu lunar month of "Margashirsha" (also called "Agrahayana", generally December or January of the Gregorian calendar).
Half-Breed (short story)
"Half-Breed" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the February 1940 issue of "Astonishing Stories" and reprinted in the 1972 collection "The Early Asimov". It was the fifteenth story written by Asimov, and the fourth to be published. At 9000 words, it was his longest published story to date.
Miranda (novel)
Miranda is a novel written by Antoni Lange in 1924. It was the last great work of Lange before he died , and his most famous book today. It is said that "Miranda" is an "occultic fiction" and a "romance ranked to a philosophical treaty". The novel is also known as "novelty writing" which conciliates dystopia and utopia. It is a matter of opinion to classify the novel to modernism or interwar period.
Artamène
Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus () is a French novel sequence, originally published in ten volumes in the 17th century. The title pages credit the work to Georges de Scudéry, but it is usually attributed to his sister Madeleine. At 1,954,300 words, it is considered one of the longest novels ever published.
Middlemarch
In the twenty-first century, the novel continues to be held in high regard. The novelists Martin Amis and Julian Barnes have both described it as probably the greatest novel in the English language, and today "Middlemarch" is frequently taught in university courses. In 2013, the then British Education Secretary Michael Gove made reference to "Middlemarch" in a speech, suggesting its superiority to Stephenie Meyer's vampire novel "Twilight". 
Gove's comments led to debate concerning the teaching of "Middlemarch" in Britain, including the question of when novels like "Middlemarch" ought to be read, and the role of canonical texts in teaching. The novel has remained a favourite with readers and appears highly in rankings of reader preferences: in 2003 it was listed at number 27 on the BBC's The Big Read, and in 2007 it was number ten in "The 10 Greatest Books of All Time", based on a ballot of 125 selected writers. In 2015, in a BBC Culture poll of book critics outside the UK, the novel was ranked at number one in "The 100 greatest British novels".
Peveril of the Peak
Peveril of the Peak (1823) is the longest novel by Sir Walter Scott. Along with "Ivanhoe", "Woodstock" and "Kenilworth", this is one of Scott's English novels, with the main action taking place around 1678.
Virgil
The "Aeneid" is widely considered Virgil's finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the "Aeneid" during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city from which Rome would emerge. The "Aeneid"'s first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the preeminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to which he alludes. Although the "Aeneid" casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the "Aeneid" into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the "Odyssey" as a model while the last six were connected to the "Iliad".
Slocum (westerns)
Slocum Westerns are the longest running series of Westerns ever written, encompassing over 400 books, all of which are published under the pen name Jake Logan. The books have been written by a number of authors, and all feature John Slocum as the protagonist.
Joseph and His Brothers
Joseph and His Brothers ("Joseph und seine Brüder") is a four-part novel by Thomas Mann, written over the course of 16 years. Mann retells the familiar stories of Genesis, from Jacob to Joseph (chapters 27–50), setting it in the historical context of the Amarna Period. Mann considered it his greatest work.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Begun probably in the autumn of 1926, the draft was completed on January 22, 1927 and it remained unrevised and unpublished in his lifetime. It is both the longest of the stories that make up his Dream Cycle and the longest Lovecraft work to feature protagonist Randolph Carter. Along with his 1927 novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", it can be considered one of the significant achievements of that period of Lovecraft's writing. "The Dream-Quest" combines elements of horror and fantasy into an epic tale that illustrates the scope and wonder of humankind's ability to dream.
Half-Breed (short story)
Asimov wrote "Half-Breed" in June 1939. His new literary agent Frederik Pohl unsuccessfully submitted it to "Amazing Stories". Asimov then submitted the story to John W. Campbell of "Astounding Science Fiction", who also rejected it. Pohl announced in October his new job as editor of two magazines by purchasing "Half-Breed" for one. It was Asimov's longest story to date at 9,000 words; "Half-Breed" was his first novelette and the first time his name appeared on the cover.
FanFiction.Net
As of December 29, 2018, the top 20 fandoms (i.e., the fandoms with the most stories submitted) on FanFiction.Net are (the figures are rounded to nearest thousand):
FanFiction.net is also home to one of the longest works of fiction ever written. "The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest", a "Super Smash Bros." fanfiction, being written by FanFiction.net user AuraChannelerChris, amounts to over four million words, more than three times as long as "In Search of Lost Time" written by Marcel Proust, and is still being written. The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest fanfiction have been in the attention of several media outlets and Tv.Tropes.com This was then surpassed by "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony", a fanfiction of "Kantai Collection", which is almost four and a half million words long. Both of these fanfictions are over six times longer than "War and Peace", which is just over half a million words long in English.
The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 1943
After "The Robe" was toppled, it still remained near the top of the chart for two more years. Thus very early in the history of the NYT best seller list, "The Robe" set the record as the adult fiction title with the longest run on the list, and it continued to hold the record at least until 1992. The book returned to the bestseller list in 1953 when a film of the same name was released. By 1975, "The Robe" had sold more than 3.7 million copies.
Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time)
Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time) is an interactive fiction game by Julian Fleetwood released in 1998. It has the longest video game minimum completion time – slightly more than three thousand years. It has never been (and in all likelihood will never be) completed without cheating. It was inspired by a description of a similar game in Terry Pratchett's novel "Only You Can Save Mankind".
Dionysiaca
The Dionysiaca (, "Dionysiaká") is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west.
Pilish
A full-length Pilish novel has been published, which currently holds the record of the longest Pilish text with 10,000 digits.
Largest creative work
The largest creative work is the largest or longest item in different fields of creative works. Some pieces were created with the specific intention of holding the record while others have been recognised for their size after completion."The Mousetrap" has been running continuously in London since 1952. It has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with more than 25,000 performances taking place, and the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era.
The world's largest hand woven carpet is a Persian carpet made in Iran and completed in 2007. It has 2.2 billion knots, measuring .
Chinese culture
The Four Great Classical or Classic Novels of Chinese literature are the four novels commonly regarded by Chinese literary criticism to be the greatest and most influential of pre-modern Chinese fiction. Dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties, they are well-known to most Chinese either directly or through their many adaptations to Chinese opera and other popular culture media.They are among the world's longest and oldest novels and are considered to be the pinnacle of China's achievement in classic novels, influencing the creation of many stories, plays, movies, games, and other forms of entertainment throughout countries in East Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
Joe Gould (writer)
In 1917, Gould worked as a reporter for the "New York Evening Mail". During his time at the newspaper, he had his epiphany for the longest book ever written. He would title this book "An Oral History of Our Time". The book was supposedly based on a word-for-word account of people's lives, which Gould had listened to. Gould stood about five feet four inches and weighed no more than 100 pounds, but he said that he hoped his work would make a larger impression. Gould talked about the manuscript frequently, and Mitchell in 1942 suggested that “it may well be the lengthiest unpublished work in existence." Edward J. O’Brien, the editor of "Best American Short Stories" and a Harvard classmate of Gould's, testified that, "Mr. Ezra Pound and I once saw a fragment of it running to perhaps 40,000 words," and deemed it to have “considerable psychological and historical importance.” Pound said: "Mr. Joe Gould’s prose style is uneven." "My history is uneven," Gould admitted. "It should be. It is an encyclopedia."
Mahabharata (comics)
The "Mahabharata" is often regarded as one of the most popular titles in the history of Amar Chitra Katha. It is also the longest series (42 issue run on an alternative title schedule; from 329-441 [1985-89] in over more than 1300 pages) to have been produced by the ACK. The series was originally planned for 60 albums, but it was later cut short to 42.
Agnes Bulmer
Agnes Bulmer (31 August 1775 – 20 August 1836) was an English poet. She is believed to have written the longest epic poem ever written by a woman. The piece, "Messiah's Kingdom", took over nine years to complete.
The &quot;Genius&quot; (novel)
"The only figure of literary repute who ever rated "The "Genius"" as first among the novels of Theodore Dreiser was Theodore Dreiser," literary historian Larzer Ziff observed. His fifth published novel, "The "Genius"" was actually the third novel Dreiser began work on and, as his most autobiographical work, remained the novel closest to his heart. He worked on it in stages over a four-year period. The credit he felt he deserved (and did not receive) for his honesty about sexual urges and damaged relationships and his original publisher's decision not to stand by the novel in the face of criticism contributed to his lifelong feeling that the book had never been given its due. After "An American Tragedy", it is his longest book; the final draft ran to over 700 pages in a close-set type.
List of novels considered the greatest of all time
This is a list of novels considered "the greatest of all time", so claimed by at least one expert or one group of experts.
Devta (novel)
Spanning 56 volumes and 11,206,310 words, "Devta" is the longest continuously-published stories on record. It was started in February, 1977 and appeared every month in "Suspense Digest", with its concluding chapter published in January 2010. The final chapter involves the death of Farhad lying in front of Madam Sonia according to the prophecy which was originally revealed by Baba Fareed Wasti.
L'Astrée
Possibly the single most influential work of 17th century French literature, "L'Astrée" has been called the "novel of novels", partly for its immense length (six parts, forty stories, sixty books in 5399 pages) but also for the success it had throughout Europe: it was translated into a great number of languages and read at every royal court. Even today, this novel is regularly republished, both in full and in abridged edition, and even in comic book form. The first three parts were published in 1607, 1610 and 1619; after Honoré d'Urfé's death in 1625 the fourth was completed by Balthazar Baro, and a fifth and sixth were supplied in 1626 by Pierre Boitel, sieur de Gaubertin. The last two are often counted as one.
Against the Day
Against the Day is a 2006 historical novel by Thomas Pynchon. The narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I and features more than a hundred characters spread across the United States, Europe, Mexico, Central Asia, and "one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all," according to the book jacket blurb written by Pynchon. Like its predecessors, "Against the Day" is an example of historiographic metafiction or metahistorical romance. At 1,085 pages it is the longest of Pynchon's novels to date.
Novel
Early works of extended fictional prose, or novels, include works in Latin like the "Satyricon" by Petronius (c. 50 AD), and "The Golden Ass" by Apuleius (c. 150 AD), works in Ancient Greek such as "Daphnis and Chloe" by Longus (c. late second century AD), works in Sanskrit such as the 6th– or 7th-century "Daśakumāracarita" by Daṇḍin, and in the 7th-century "Kadambari" by Banabhatta, Murasaki Shikibu's 11th-century Japanese work "The Tale of Genji", the 12th-century "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan" (or "Philosophus Autodidactus", the 17th-century Latin title) by Ibn Tufail, who wrote in Arabic, the 13th-century "Theologus Autodidactus" by Ibn al-Nafis, another Arabic novelist, and "Blanquerna", written in Catalan by Ramon Llull (1283), and the 14th-century Chinese "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by Luo Guanzhong.
Leslie Charteris
Charteris spent 55 years - 1928 to 1983 - as either writer of or custodian of Simon Templar's literary adventures, one of the longest uninterrupted spans of a single author in the history of mystery fiction, equalling that of Agatha Christie, who wrote her novels and stories featuring detective Hercule Poirot.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is both a "Bildungsroman" and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London, and is among the earliest English prose works to be classified as a novel. It is the earliest novel mentioned by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1948 book "Great Novelists and Their Novels" among the ten best novels of the world. It totals 346,747 words divided into 18 smaller books, each preceded by a discursive chapter, often on topics unrelated to the book itself. It is dedicated to George Lyttleton.
Slovene historical fiction
The most influential form of historical literature was yet the historical narrative of various lengths. Throughout the 19th century the subtitle "zgodovinska povest" (historical tale) prevailed. Till 2008, 359 narratives, longer than 10.000 words, were published, with production peaks in the years 1905–10, 1925–35 and 1995–2000. 143 authors produced the volume of 26 billion words: historical narrative is the most prolific Slovene narrative genre, with the standard labelling "zgodovinski roman" (historical novel) since 1950. Franc Malavašič’s "Erazem iz Jame" (1845), and Valentin Mandelc’s "Jela" (1859) share the first place on the chronological list of texts.
The Longest Memory
The Longest Memory is a short novel (138 pages long) by British writer Fred D'Aguiar that was published in 1994. It was the Guyana-born poet's first novel, The story takes place on a Virginian plantation, in the period before the American Civil War, between 1790 and 1810. The book is told through many different people and in different forms. It begins in the first person, with Whitechapel, the oldest and most respected slave on the plantation, recounting the sorrows of his life. From there on, each chapter is narrated by a different character, sometimes speaking through verse, via diary entry or in the second person. Most of the chapters are narrated by characters central to the story; however, chapter 11 is purely made up of fictitious editorials from the local newspaper known as "The Virginian".
The Long Walk
While not the first of King's novels to be published, "The Long Walk" was the first novel he wrote, having begun it in 1966–67 during his freshman year at the University of Maine some eight years before his first published novel "Carrie" was released in 1974.
The King of the Cats
"Beware the Cat", written in 1553 and first published in 1561, known as the first horror fiction text longer than a short story and possibly the first novel (or is that "novella"?]]) ever published in English, contains two traditional tales about cats, which appear in similar forms both before and after its publication; of which "The King of the Cats" is a notable example.
Literary influence of Hamlet
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is a tragedy, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. It tells the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark—who takes revenge on the current king (Hamlet's uncle) for killing the previous king (Hamlet's father) and for marrying his father's widow (Hamlet's mother)—and it charts the course of his real or feigned madness. "Hamlet" is the longest play—and Hamlet is the largest part—in the entire Shakespeare canon. Critics say that "Hamlet" "offers the greatest exhibition of Shakespeare's powers".
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina () is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many authors consider "Anna Karenina" the greatest work of literature ever written, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical "The Russian Messenger."
Nero Wolfe
Stout wrote 33 novels and 41 novellas and short stories from 1934 to 1975, with most of them set in New York City. The stories have been adapted for film, radio, television and the stage. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated for Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was a nominee for Best Mystery Writer of the Century.
The Nero Wolfe stories take place contemporaneously with their writing and depict a changing landscape and society. The principal characters in the corpus do not age. Nero Wolfe's age is 56 according to Rex Stout, although it is not directly stated in the stories.
The Longest Journey (novel)
The Longest Journey is a bildungsroman by E. M. Forster, first published in 1907. It is the second of Forster's six published novels, following "Where Angels Fear to Tread" (1905) and preceding "A Room With A View" (1908) and "Howards End" (1910). It has a reputation for being the least known of Forster's novels, but was also the author's personal favourite and one of his most autobiographical. It is the only one of Forster's novels not to have received a film or television adaptation.
Hercule Poirot in literature
"Short story collections listed as "ss""
Poirot settles down in London and opens a private detective agency. These are the short story years (25 short stories and only 4 novels).Christie increased her novel production during this time (14 novels, 21 total short stories and one theatre play). Twelve short stories form "The Labours of Hercules". The other short stories listed here take place in this period but were published before and after the publication of "Hercules". The theatre play is named "Black Coffee" and was written by Agatha Christie, who stated a frustration with other stage adaptations of her Poirot mysteries. In 1998, author Charles Osborne adapted the play into a novel.A new detective, Miss Marple, enters the stage and Hercule Poirot mysteries become rare. In 36 years Agatha Christie wrote only 13 novels and one short story.
Some Poirot adventures were later expanded into other stories or re-written. They are:
Other stories were adapted by Christie into plays, sometimes removing Poirot:
In addition, the 1930 play "Black Coffee" was novelized by Charles Osborne in 1998.
Kelidar
"Kelidar is the longest Persian novel written to date, and surely one of the finest. The present translation is of parts I and 2 only, which are sufficiently self-contained to make for satisfying reading and which also give a good idea of what the whole is like. (...) Doulatabadi's style is that of a traditional Persian storyteller, in that he constructs his tale in a linear fashion, speaks through an omniscient narrator, and uses a balanced mixture of narrative and dialogue. (...) One wishes that readers of English could also experience the pleasures of this novel." - William L. Hanaway, World Literature Today
Meghna Pant
Pant has been invited as a speaker for literary festivals and conferences including Young Makers Conclave, #RiseWithTwitter, The Feminist Conference, the Kala Ghoda Literature Festival, the Pune International Literary Festival, as well as TEDx.Pant abridged the world’s longest epic, The Mahabharata, into one hundred tweets that The Guardian (UK) called "wonderfully descriptive and paced".
Hamlet
"Hamlet" is Shakespeare's longest play, and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". It was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime, and still ranks among his most performed, topping the performance list of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its predecessors in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1879. It has inspired many other writers—from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Charles Dickens to James Joyce and Iris Murdoch—and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after "Cinderella"".
A Dance with Dragons
On March 3, 2011, the publisher announced that the novel, though at that point still not completed, would be officially published on July 12, 2011. Martin claimed this July 2011 publication date was different from the previous publication dates mentioned, in that this was "real", as opposed to earlier "wishful thinking, boundless optimism, cockeyed dreams, [and] honest mistakes". On March 12, he revealed that the unfinished manuscript had exceeded "A Storm of Swords" in length, making it the longest volume in the entire series. On March 27, he announced that the manuscript had exceeded 1,600 pages. On April 27, 2011, it was announced that Martin had completed "A Dance with Dragons". After incorporating requested changes made by his book editor and her staff copy-editors, suggested final draft notes from trusted friends, and his own final "sweat" (a line-by-line reread done to tighten and eliminate any unnecessary "fat" remaining in the manuscript), the final draft had been reduced to 1,510 pages; this made "Dragons" the second-longest novel, by a narrow margin, to volume three, "A Storm of Swords". The novel was now ready to meet its July 12, 2011 release date.
A Dance with Dragons
On March 2, 2010, Martin remarked that he had reached 1,311 manuscript pages, making "Dance" the second-longest novel in the series at that point, behind only the 1,521-page manuscript of "A Storm of Swords". On July 8, 2010, Martin spoke at a conference and confirmed the current length of the book to be 1,400 manuscript pages. He expressed his disappointment that he was unable to completely finish the novel by the conference, although he would not speculate how soon the book would be completed after his return home on July 11. At the same conference, Martin also confirmed that he has written one Sansa, one Arya, and two Arianne chapters for the planned sixth novel, "Winds of Winter", and had transferred two Cersei chapters from that book into "A Dance with Dragons". On August 7, 2010, Martin confirmed that he had completed eight POVs, excluding the prologue and epilogue.
Punica (poem)
The Punica is a Latin epic poem in seventeen books in dactylic hexameter written by Silius Italicus (c. 28 – c. 103 AD) comprising some twelve thousand lines (12,202, to be exact, if one includes a probably spurious passage in book 8). It is the longest surviving Latin poem from antiquity. Its theme is the Second Punic War and the conflict between the two great generals Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. The poem was re-discovered in either 1416 or 1417 by the Italian humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini.
Watchmen
A critical and commercial success, "Watchmen" is highly regarded in the comics industry and is frequently considered by several critics and reviewers as comics' greatest series and graphic novel. In time, the series has also become one of the best-selling graphic novels ever published. "Watchmen" was the only graphic novel to appear on "Time"s 2005 "All-"Time" 100 Greatest Novels" list, where "Time" critic Lev Grossman described the story as "a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium." It later appeared on "Time"s 2009 "Top 10 Graphic Novels" list, where Grossman further praised "Watchmen", proclaiming "It’s way beyond cliché at this point to call Watchmen the greatest superhero comic ever written-slash-drawn. But it’s true." In 2008, "Entertainment Weekly" placed "Watchmen" at number 13 on its list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, describing it as "The greatest superhero story ever told and proof that comics are capable of smart, emotionally resonant narratives worthy of the label 'literature'." "The Comics Journal", however, ranked "Watchmen" at number 91 on its list of the Top 100 English-language comics of the 20th century.
Phantasmagoria (poem)
"Phantasmagoria" is a poem written by Lewis Carroll and first published in 1869 as the opening poem of a collection of verse by Carroll entitled "Phantasmagoria and Other Poems". The collection was also published under the name "Rhyme? And Reason?" It is Lewis Carroll's longest poem. Both the poem and the collection were illustrated by A. B. Frost.
Nightfall (Asimov novelette and novel)
Campbell's opinion was to the contrary: "I think men would go mad". He and Asimov chose the title "Nightfall" together. At more than 13,000 words it was Asimov's longest story yet, and including a bonus from Campbell he received US$166 ( cents per word), more than twice any previous payment for a story. His name appeared on the cover of "Astounding" for the first time, and the story made Asimov—who later said that before "Nightfall" neither he nor anyone else other than perhaps Campbell considered him more than a "third rater"—one of the industry's top writers. Asimov believed that the unusual plot of "Nightfall" distinguished it from others, but "The Last Question" was his own favorite story.
Cyclops
"Dionysiaca", composed in the 4th or 5th century BC, is the longest surviving poem from antiquity – 20,426 lines. It is written by the poet Nonnus in the Homeric dialect, and its main subject is the life of Dionysus. It describes a war that occurred between Dionysus' troops and those of the Indian king Deriades. In book 28 of the "Dionysiaca" the cyclops join with Dionysian troops, and the prove to be great warriors and crush most of the Indian king's troops.
Longest word in English
James Joyce made up nine 100-letter words plus one 101-letter word in his novel "Finnegans Wake", the most famous of which is Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. Appearing on the first page, it allegedly represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. As it appears nowhere else except in reference to this passage, it is generally not accepted as a real word. Sylvia Plath made mention of it in her semi-autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar", when the protagonist was reading "Finnegans Wake".
Emperor and Galilean
Emperor and Galilean (in ) is a play written by Henrik Ibsen. Although it is one of the writer's lesser known plays, on several occasions Henrik Ibsen called "Emperor and Galilean" his major work. "Emperor and Galilean" is written in two complementary parts with five acts in each part and is Ibsen's longest play.
Women and Men
The novel is 16th on the Wikipedia list of longest novels, and seventh among novels written in English, and the longest novel written in America.
Odia literature
Dinakrushna Das’s "Rasokallola" and Abhimanyu Samanta Simhara’s "Bidagdha Chintamani" are also prominent kavyas of this time. "Bidagdha Chintamani" is considered the longest Kavya in Odia literature with 96 cantos exceeding that of Upendra's longest kavya of 52 cantos. Other famous works of Abhimanyu Samanta Simhara are "Sulakhshyana, Prema Chintaamani, Prema Kala, Rasaabati, Prematarangini" etc. These poets significantly influenced modern Odia Literature.
Jordan Ganchovski
Jordan Ganchovski is a Bulgarian writer, poet, literary critic and playwright. He owns the American publishing house The World Publishing in Illinois. His literary-critical research focuses on avant-garde literature as well as social anthropology and cultural heritage. Ganchovski is the chief editor of "Zlatorog" and "The Chicagoan" and "World Reports". He wrote the novel "Night of the Tenth Day", which is the novel with shortest story-time in world literature history.
P C K Prem
[Five Volumes "i.e." I. "Aastha" II. "Manthan", III. "Sangharsh", IV. "Prayaschit", V. "Pratishodh"(2300 pages), (scholars of Hindi Literature consider it as one of the longest novels in Hindi)] Some noteworthy Articles on the works of P C K Prem:
Iliad
The "Iliad" is paired with something of a sequel, the "Odyssey", also attributed to Homer. Along with the "Odyssey", the "Iliad" is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. In the modern vulgate (the standard accepted version), the "Iliad" contains 15,693 lines; it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. According to Michael N. Nagler, the "Iliad" is a more complicated epic poem than the "Odyssey".
The Secret History of the Mongols
The Secret History of the Mongols (Traditional Mongolian: "Mongγol-un niγuča tobčiyan", Khalkha Mongolian: Монголын нууц товчоо, "Mongolyn nuuts tovchoo") is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolian language. It was written for the Mongol royal family some time after the 1227 death of Genghis Khan (also known as Temujin). The author is anonymous and probably originally wrote in the Mongolian script, but the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions or translations into Chinese characters that date from the end of the 14th century and were compiled by the Ming dynasty under the title "The Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty" (). Also known as "Tobchiyan" () in the "History of Yuan".
Hamlet
"Hamlet" is Shakespeare's longest play. The Riverside edition constitutes 4,042 lines totaling 29,551 words, typically requiring over four hours to stage. It is rare that the play is performed without some abridgments, and only one film adaptation has used a full-text conflation: Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version, which runs slightly more than four hours.
Patience (graphic novel)
"Patience" is Clowes' longest book, at around 180 pages, and is the second by him, after "Wilson", to not have been serialised first, either in "Eightball" - his own comic book series - or elsewhere. Clowes credits in the book Alvin Buenaventura, of Buenaventura Press (which has worked with several graphic novelists), with technical and production assistance. Buenaventura committed suicide in February 2016, the month before "Patience"'s release.
Poor Fellow My Country
Poor Fellow My Country is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Xavier Herbert. At 1,463 pages, it is the longest Australian work of fiction ever written. Primarily, it is the story of Jeremy Delacy and his illegitimate grandson Prindy in the years leading up to World War II. The novel's subject matter includes Aboriginal affairs and Australian patriotism and Australian nationalism, issues also dealt with in Herbert's 1938 novel "Capricornia".
The Betrothed (Manzoni novel)
The Betrothed ( ) is an Italian historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, first published in 1827, in three volumes. It has been called the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language.
The Luminaries
The Luminaries is the second novel by Eleanor Catton. It was published by Victoria University Press in August 2013, and by Granta Books on September 5, 2013. On October 15, it was announced as the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize. It is the longest book (at 832 pages), and Catton is the youngest author (at age 28), ever to have won the award.
The Pale King
The Pale King is an unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace, published posthumously on April 15, 2011. It was planned as Wallace's third novel, and the first since "Infinite Jest" in 1996, but it was not completed at the time of his death. Before his suicide in 2008, Wallace organized the manuscript and associated computer files in a place where they would be found by his widow, Karen Green, and his agent, Bonnie Nadell. That material was compiled by his friend and editor Michael Pietsch into the form that was eventually published. Wallace had been working on the novel for over a decade. Even incomplete, "The Pale King" is a long work, with 50 chapters of varying length totaling over 500 pages.
Ken Campbell
Campbell achieved notoriety in the 1970s for his nine-hour adaptation of the science-fiction trilogy "Illuminatus!" and his 22-hour staging of Neil Oram's play cycle "The Warp". The "Guinness Book of Records" listed the latter as the longest play in the world.
Three Years
Three Years () is an 1895 novella by Anton Chekhov originally published in the January and February 1895 issues of "Russkaya Mysl". At 130 pages it is Chekhov's second-longest narrative. The story takes a negative position on the progress of society, featuring individuals of the merchant and factory owner class and their workers, without offering political solutions.
Lipogram
Interest in lipograms was rekindled by Georges Perec's novel "La Disparition" (1969) (openly inspired by Wright's "Gadsby") and its English translation "A Void" by Gilbert Adair. Both works are missing the letter "E", which is the most common letter in French as well as in English. A Spanish translation instead omits the letter "A", the second most common letter in that language. Perec subsequently wrote "Les revenentes" (1972), a novel that uses no vowels except for "E". Perec was a member of Oulipo, a group of French authors who adopted a variety of constraints in their work. "La Disparition" is, to date, the longest lipogram in existence.
Agnes Bulmer
Her earliest published work was "On the Death of Charles Wesley," in 1788. Bulmer wrote an elegy for Hester Ann Rogers, after Rogers died in 1793. The piece was published in 1794. She wrote "Messiah's Kingdom", an epic poem. The latter was published in a series of twelve books, in 1833. "Messiahs' Kingdom" is considered the longest poem ever written by a woman. The piece took nine years to complete, with over 14,000 lines. Her children's biblical stories, "Scripture Histories," were regularly published in Methodist publications. She wrote her first biography in 1835, about her friend Elizabeth Mortimer, "The Memoirs of Elizabeth Mortimer".
Unfinished creative work
The size of a project can be such that a piece of literature is never finished. Geoffrey Chaucer never completed "The Canterbury Tales" to the extensive length that he originally intended. Chaucer had, however, already written much of the work at the time of his death, and the "Canterbury Tales" are considered to be a seminal work despite the unfinished status. English poet Edmund Spenser originally intended "The Faerie Queene" to consist of 12 books; even at its unfinished state—six books were published before Spenser's death—it is the longest epic poem in the English language. Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist, completed nearly 100 pieces for his novel sequence "La Comédie humaine", but a planned 48 more were never finished. Notes and plot outlines left behind by an author may allow a successor to complete a novel or series of novels. Frank Herbert left behind extensive notes related to his "Dune" universe, which led to son Brian Herbert and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson's completing several prequels to the popular series. Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast novels, meant to write a complete biography of the main character, Titus, but died after only completing three books in the series.