There are many candidates for the first English novel starting from Le Morte d’Arthur from 15th century to Gulliver’s Travels from the 18th century, however, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is widely accepted as the first English novel and thusly, in- 18th century occurred the rise of the novel in English. Among these candidates appears a common theme of travel and this theme has been kept using for a long while later than the first novels. Actually, travel accounts and writings were already common in other genres so it is not a surprise that it was applied to this newly emerging genre.

The early novels featured such a lengthy titles in their cover page explaining what the book is about, giving some interesting information to attract the reader’s at- tention to this new genre, and to convince the reader the events in the book are real. As an example, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was published with this title “The Life and Strange Surprising 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, where-on all the men perished but himself. With an account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by pyrates. Written by himself.”

Another contributing factor for the use of travel theme in early English novel is the Levant Company. It was a company doing trades between Mediterranean and Britain. For example, in J. Theodore Bent’s “Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant.”, there are many clues as to why travel theme became such a prevalent theme in the ear- ly English novel. There were heavy trades between Levant and British Isles and these trades were mostly carried on through sea.

Conclusively, early English novel heavily relied on travel theme because that was what people were interested back then, both the authors and the readers. The geo- graphical discoveries, crusades, and pilgrimages all contributed to this interest. Before the arise of the novel, the theme was already common in other genres as well. Chaucer’s frame story “Canterbury Tales” is a story of pilgrim travel.

References

  • Adams, Percy G. Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel. University Press of Kentucky, 2014.
  • Bent, J. Theodore, et al. Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant. Ashgate, 2010.