May 5, 2023 3 min read

Are short novels a modern thing?

Were short novels invented for our short attention spans? Were they a product of the internet?

TLTR: No. Not even close.

Let's take a few big swings and look at how short novels have always been with us and how they're fixed in the book world today. This is a very brief, very broad overview intended to inspire more inquiry. So keeping it short...

The Tale of the Genji, often cited as the world's first novel, is about 1,000 pages long (although modern English translations are often condensed to 350 page or so). That's a hefty starting point. And we might approach it with a little skepticism.

Historical "firsts" are sometimes disingenuous. Shorter work may have been around then. Hard to say what other 11th-century writers had in their desk and what they called them. We just don't have a record of it.

For contemporary writers, the 19th-century novel is often cited as the modern model. Although let's be clear: lots of writers look beyond Europe. Lots also don't work within the era's preference for realism.

But sticking with the conventional: novels published in 19th-century Europe typically range from 400 to 700 pages. Pride and Prejudice (1813) is 448 pages in its current Penguin edition. Wuthering Heights (1847) is 418 pages (also in its Penguin edition). That tracks with the page count of most novels published today.

There are notable exceptions. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) is under 200 pages, Mark Twain published several novellas, and Henry James published a few, including Turn of the Screw (1898).

So while the 19th century solidified some literary traditions, it turns out one of them was the short novel.

If your impulse is to ask about "the great American novel," that path is broad too. Here's a relevant coincidence from the 20th century: The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams (published in 1923) is about 75 pages long, while The Great American Novel by Philip Roth (published in 1995) is 416 pages.

Williams was writing during the rise of modernism, when more and more writers were challenging conventions – including the length of their books. Publishers saw opportunities there, too, supporting work that didn't fit the 19th-century mold. Gertrude Stein and James Joyce published short novels in the 1920s as did many, many American and European authors.

In the 40s and 50s, many classic noir novels were actually novellas, notably In A Quiet Place (220) by Dorothy B. Hughes and The Postman Always Rings Twice (112) by James M. Cain.

For midcentury writers, the short novel had its appeal. In 1956, James Baldwin published Giovanni's Room (159 pages) early in his career, and while Saul Bellow's first major work, The Adventures of Augie March, is 586 pages (published in 1953), he published Dangling Man (160 pages) before it and followed up with Seize the Day (144 pages) in 1956. Bellow also published a handful short novels in his final years.

By the last half of the 20th century, Philip Roth published his share of big novels, but he also published several novellas (see Everyman [192 pages] and Deception [208 pages], among others). More bold-faced names did too: Ray Bradbury, Toni Morrison, Paula Fox, Renata Adler and Francine Prose, all to high praise.

More recently, major awards have gone to short novels. Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys (cutting it close at 220 pages) won the Pulitzer in 2020. Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature, is a master of the very short novel, including Exteriors (97 pages) and Simple Passion (67 pages).

As we've said, this list is painfully short – but isn't that what we're all about here?

Want more anyway? Here's a few short posts you might find interesting:

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