A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s, but longer than most

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts.

Definition

The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''.

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...

defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

and a

". No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, doing business as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, commonly known as SFWA ( or ) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While ...

defines a novella's

word count The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and ad ...

to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

History

The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, principally

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was somet ...

, author of ''

The Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; it, label=Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dan ...

'' (1353). ''The Decameron'' featured 100 tales (named novellas) told by ten people (seven women and three men) fleeing the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

, by escaping from

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

to the

Fiesole Fiesole () is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km (3 miles) northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times. Sin ...

hills in 1348. This structure was then imitated by subsequent authors, notably the French queen

Marguerite de Navarre Marguerite de Navarre (french: Marguerite d'Angoulême, ''Marguerite d'Alençon''; 11 April 149221 December 1549), also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was a princess of France, Duchess of Alençon and Berry, and Queen ...

, whose ''

Heptaméron The ''Heptaméron'' is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), published posthumously in 1558. It has the form of a frame narrative and was inspired by ''The Decameron'' of Giovanni Boccaccio ...

'' (1559) included 72 original French tales and was modeled after the structure of ''The Decameron''. The Italian genre novella grew out of a rich tradition of medieval short narrative forms. It took its first major form in the anonymous late 13th century ''Libro di novelle et di bel parlar gentile'', known as ''

Il Novellino ''Il Novellino'', also known as ''Le cento novelle antiche'' ("One Hundred Ancient Tales"), is an anonymous medieval collection of short stories written in the Tuscan vernacular between 1280 and 1300. It was first published in 1525 by , a frien ...

'', and reached its culmination with ''The Decameron''. Followers of Boccaccio such as

Giovanni Fiorentino Giovanni Fiorentino was a 14th-century Florentine writer, to whom is attributed the work '' Il Pecorone'' (''"The Simpleton"''). This was a collection of short stories, purportedly published in 1378. However, this date is disputed. The attributi ...

Franco Sacchetti Franco Sacchetti (; c. 1335 – c. 1400), was an Italian poet and novelist. Biography Born in Florence or in Ragusa (Croatia), Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik), he was the son of Benci di Uguccione, surnamed ''"Buono"'', a Florentine merchant of ...

Giovanni Sercambi Giovanni Sercambi (1348–1424) was an Italian author from Lucca who wrote a history of his city, ''Le croniche di Luccha'', as well as ''Il novelliere'' (or ''Novelle''), a collection of 155 tales. Sercambi composed ''Le croniche di Luccha'' f ...

and Simone de' Prodenzani continued the tradition into the early 15th century. The Italian novella influenced many later writers, including

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. Novellas were also written in Spain.

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

book ''

Novelas ejemplares ''Novelas ejemplares'' ("Exemplary Novels") is a series of twelve novellas that follow the model established in Italy. The series was written by Miguel de Cervantes between 1590 and 1612 and printed in Madrid in 1613 by Juan de la Cuesta. '' ...

'' (1613) added innovation to the genre with more attention to the depiction of human character and social background.Steinhauer, Harry ''Twelve German Novellas'', Introduction, University of California Press, 1977 Not until the late 18th and early 19th centuries did writers fashion the novella into a literary genre structured by precepts and rules, generally in a realistic mode. At that time, the Germans were the most active writers of the ''novelle'' (German: "Novelle"; plural: "Novellen"). For the German writer, a novella is a fictional narrative of indeterminate length—a few pages to hundreds—restricted to a single, suspenseful event, situation, or conflict leading to an unexpected turning point (''Wendepunkt''), provoking a logical but surprising end. ''Novellen'' tend to contain a concrete symbol, which is the narrative's focal point. The novella influenced the development of the

and the

throughout Europe. In the late 19th century

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

was one of the first English language critics to use the term novella for a story that was longer and more complex than a short story, but shorter than a novel. In English speaking countries the modern ''novella'' is rarely defined as a distinct literary genre, but is often used as a term for a short novel.

Characteristics

A novella generally features fewer

conflicts Conflict may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Conflict'' (1921 film), an American silent film directed by Stuart Paton * ''Conflict'' (1936 film), an American boxing film starring John Wayne * ''Conflict'' (1937 film) ...

than a

, yet more complicated ones than a

. The conflicts also have more time to develop than in short stories. Novellas may or may not be divided into chapters (good examples of those with chapters are ''

Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to crea ...

'' by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

and ''

The War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by ''Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appear ...

'' by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

According to

Warren Cariou Warren Cariou is a Canadian writer and associate professor of English at the University of Manitoba. Biography Cariou received a B.A. (Hons) from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA and PhD from the University of Toronto (1998). In 199 ...

, "The novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description.

Versus novel

The term ''novel'', borrowed from the Italian ''novella'', originally meant "any of a number of tales or stories making up a larger work; a short narrative of this type, a fable", and was then many times used in the plural, reflecting the usage as in ''

'' and its followers. Usage of the more italianate ''novella'' in English seems to be a bit younger. The differenciation of the two terms seems to have occurred only in the 19th century, following the new fashion of the novella in German literature. In 1834,

John Lothrop Motley John Lothrop Motley (April 15, 1814 – May 29, 1877) was an American author and diplomat. As a popular historian, he is best known for his works on the Netherlands, the three volume work ''The Rise of the Dutch Republic'' and four volume ''His ...

could still speak of "Tieck's novels (which last are a set of exquisite little tales, novels in the original meaning of the word)". But when the term ''novella'' was used it was already clear that a rather short and witty form was intended: "The brief Novella has ever been a prodigious favorite with the nation…since the days of Boccaccio." In 1902,

William Dean Howells William Dean Howells (; March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ...

wrote: "Few modern fictions of the novel's dimensions…have the beauty of form many a novella embodies." Sometimes, as with other genres, the genre name is mentioned in the title of a single work (compare the ''

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and ...

'' or

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

's '' Das Märchen''). Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's ''Die Schachnovelle'' (1942) (literally, "The Chess Novella", but translated in 1944 as ''

The Royal Game ''The Royal Game'' (also known as Chess Story; in the original German ''Schachnovelle'', "Chess Novella") is a novella by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig written in 1941, the year before the author's death by suicide. In some editions, the title ...

'') is an example of a title naming its genre. This might be suggestive of the genre's historicization. Commonly, longer novellas are referred to as novels; Robert Louis Stevenson's ''

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...

'' (1886) and Joseph Conrad's ''

Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel ...

'' (1899) are sometimes called novels, as are many

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

works such as H. G. Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'' (1897) and Philip Francis Nowlan's ''

Armageddon 2419 A.D. ''Armageddon 2419 A.D.'' is a science fiction novella by Philip Francis Nowlan that first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine ''Amazing Stories''. A sequel called '' The Airlords of Han'' was published in the March 1929 iss ...

'' (1928). Less often, longer works are referred to as novellas. The subjectivity of the parameters of the novella genre is indicative of its shifting and diverse nature as an art form. In her 2010 ''

Open Letters Monthly ''Open Letters Monthly'' or ''Open Letters Monthly: an Arts and Literature Review'', was an online arts and culture magazine. It was founded in 2007 by Sam Sacks, John Cotter, and Steve Donoghue, and published its last issue in 2017. It features lo ...

'' series, "A Year With Short Novels", Ingrid Norton criticizes the tendency to make clear demarcations based purely on a book's length, saying that "any distinctions that begin with an objective and external quality like size are bound to be misleading."

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

, in his introduction to ''

Different Seasons ''Different Seasons'' (1982) is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more dramatic bent, rather than the horror fiction for which King is famous. The four novellas are tied together via subtleties that relate to each of the four se ...

'', a 1982 collection of four novellas, notes the difficulties of selling a novella in the commercial publishing world, since it does not fit the typical length requirements of either magazine or book publishers. Despite these problems, however, the novella's length provides unique advantages; in the introduction to a novella anthology titled ''Sailing to Byzantium'',

Robert Silverberg Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand ...

writes: In his essay, "Briefly, the case for the novella", Canadian author George Fetherling (who wrote the novella ''Tales of Two Cities'') said that to reduce the novella to nothing more than a short novel is like "insisting that a

pony A pony is a type of small horse ('' Equus ferus caballus''). Depending on the context, a pony may be a horse that is under an approximate or exact height at the withers, or a small horse with a specific conformation and temperament. Compared ...

is a baby horse". The sometimes blurry definition between a novel and a novella can create controversy, as was the case with British writer

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...

's ''

On Chesil Beach ''On Chesil Beach'' is a 2007 novella by the British writer Ian McEwan. It was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist. ''The Washington Post'' and Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Jonathan Yardley placed ''On Chesil Beach'' on his to ...

'' (2007). The author described it as a novella, but the panel for the

Man Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...

in 2007 qualified the book as a "short novel". Thus, this "novella" was shortlisted for an award for best original novel. A similar case is found with a much older work of fiction: ''

The Call of the Wild ''The Call of the Wild'' is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Bu ...

'' (1903) by

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

. This book, by modern standards, is short enough and straightforward enough to qualify as a novella. However, historically, it has been regarded as a novel.

Versus novelette

Dictionaries define ''novelette'' similarly to ''novella''; sometimes identically, sometimes with a disparaging sense of being trivial or sentimental. Some

literary award A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Ma ...

s have a longer "novella" and a shorter "novelette" category, with a distinction based on

. Among awards, a range between 17,500 and 40,000 words is commonly used for the novella category, whereas 7,500–17,500 is commonly used for novelettes. According to ''The Writer'', a novelette is approximately between 7,000 and 20,000 words in length, anything shorter being considered a short story.

Notable examples

This list contains those novellas that are widely considered to be the best examples of the genre, through their appearance on multiple best-of lists.

Word counts

Some

literary awards A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. M ...

include a "best novella" award and sometimes a separate "best novelette" award, separately from "best short story" or "best novel". The distinction between these categories may be entirely by

References

External links

{{Authority control Fiction forms Literary terminology