Ahead of the Curve

Ahead of the Curve

By C. A. Asbrey

Many academics claim there are only seven basic kinds of stories when distilled down to their basic elements: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Rebirth, Comedy, and Tragedy. This is idea of reducing plots down to the essential essence was not new, though. In 1959, Foster-Harris claimed there were only three plots. Happy ending, unhappy ending, and tragedy.

Huge amounts of research have gone into frameworks, settings, characters, plots, outcomes, pacing and story arcs. With such a limited framework to work with it's amazing that human beings have managed to fill the world with tales of love, horror, tragedy, adventure, wonder, fantasy, and dystopia. But we have, and we still haven't told all our stories yet, because nobody can tell the same tale in exactly the same way. We are unique.

But what about those who got there first? Who invented our favourite genres before anyone else did, and what inspired them to go where writers had never gone before?

It's widely accepted that the first romance novel, in the sense we understand it today, was Pamela or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson, published in 1740. Written as a series of moral lessons, referred to as a Conduct Book, it was designed to inform and entertain. In a time when people, and especially women, were beginning to read for entertainment, Richardson attempted to ensure that a moral code was transmitted in a way in which people might not even notice they were receiving moral instruction.

These Conduct Books were not new, having precedents dating to ancient times. The change in the 18th century to melding them with works of fiction in the hope that readers will identify with the protagonist, and attempt to emulate their adherence to gender roles and moral conduct, was new. Pamela or Virtue Rewarded was an early attempt at this, but the problem lay with the fact that in order to give the righteous obstacles to overcome, the terrible behaviour had to be laid out—and people loved it—the bad behaviour was the biggest draw. Licentiousness and disregard for class barriers caught the public imagination, and a pamphlet denouncing it as pornographic only appeared to significantly boost sales. Even back then, there was no such thing as bad publicity.

Pamela, a mere maid, has to overcome the unwanted attentions of her employer, Mr. B. It is very much of its time, with Pamela facing stalking, scorn from society for daring to think herself above her station, attempted rape, abduction, and even her family being bribed. But Pamela was made of stern stuff, and none of that could overcome a righteous woman. By rejecting every attempt to defile her, Pamela wins everyone round, is seen as an equal by the upper classes, and is rewarded by an advantageous marriage (if you think that marriage to such a man is a reward). Written by a man, it was the first time the female servant was seen as something more than a mere object of male lust, chattel, and worthy of social elevation. It says a lot about society that much of the outrage it provoked centred around a poor woman daring to see herself as worth as much as her betters, and not the onslaught of unwanted sexual harassment and assault laid out in the books. It reads very differently to modern sensibilities, but caught the public imagination. Jane Austen admitted to being influenced by Richardson's second book, Clarissa. Austen was the first woman to write romantic books with female protagonists, and clearly did a better job of capturing a reality in the characterisations and social mores than Richardson, who admitted that he did not fully understand females until writing Clarissa. Many would argue that he did not understand them at all, but all agree that he changed novel writing forever. Austen's work still resonates today.

Horace Walpole

The first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, was published in 1764 by Horace Walpole, whilst he was a member of parliament in the UK. The elements of the gothic genre are generally agreed to contain some kind of castle or old mansion, suspense or mystery, some kind of ghost or monster, a hapless victim (often a damsel), drama, a tortured protagonist, nightmares, and death. Terrible weather often features, whether it be the lightening in Frankenstein, the storm when the ghostly hand appears in Wuthering Heights, or the mists of the Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles. They often feature creatures that are part-human, or who can pass as human, like werewolves, vampires, or ghosts.

The plot of The Castle of Otranto was said to be loosely based on the life of Manfred of Sicily, and Walpole was known to be a keen medievalist. The plot revolves around a prophesy that Manfred would die without an heir, and when his only son is killed, Manfred becomes increasingly desperate to prove the prophesy wrong, and then spirals into a cycle of desperation that ensures it comes to pass.

This was a threshold that opened up a whole new kind of literary fiction; mixing the fantastical with the suspenseful. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is widely considered to be the first science fiction book, as well as being a horror story. Vampires feature in ancient folk lore in many cultures and in epic poems of the 18h century such as the German poem The Vampire (1748), and Lenore (1773). The first prose version is a story by John William Polidori based on the life and legend of Lord Byron. Bram Stoker's 1897 book arguably became the most famous, but it followed on the heels of Varney the Vampire (1847) and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872).

Werewolves are another horror trope with roots stretching back to ancient times. Thought to have been inspired by people with hypertrichosis, the figure even features in The Epic of Gilgamesh dating from ancient Mesopotamia. The Scottish werewolf is actually a friendly hermit who left fish for people too ill to catch their own, but most are ravenous beasts with a taste for human flesh. Sutherland Menzies wrote Hugues, the Wer-Wolf in 1838. The Phantom Ship (1839) is said to be the first story that has a femme fatale who transforms into a wolf, and one of the earliest books was written by William Sabine Barine-Gould in 1868. You might be familiar with Sabine Barine-Gould's most famous work, Onward Christian Soldiers. I now challenge you to hear that without thinking about werewolves.

George MacDonald is widely regarded as the writer of the first modern fantasy novel. Like Sabine Barine-Gould, MacDonald was also a minister. He was also the mentor of Lewis Carroll, but his influences extend to Mark Twain, J.M. Barrie, G.K. Chesterton, even to Neil Gaiman, and many, many more. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women was published in 1858. A young man is pulled into a dreamworld where he searches for his ideal of female beauty whilst undergoing numerous adventures. It's worth noting that Gulliver's Travels (1726) whilst being a fantasy, was written as a work of satire. Swift himself said that he wrote the book more "to vex the world than divert it". For that reason, I can't put it in the category of pure fantasy, but will rate it as the first political satire.

Jonathan Swift was a member of the Scriblerus Club, an eighteenth-century association of authors. And they they disliked the trend for adventure stories based on exotic travels and derring-do at the time. However, in a world where few had travelled very far, they were hugely popular, but seen as poorly-written and fanciful by many men of letters at the time. Books like Robinson Crusoe (1719) was one of such book, although that, in itself, was credited as being new way of combining realistic narrative with fiction.

We often forget how subversive Gulliver's Travels was at the time. Swift wrote many drafts, and had those re-written, then printed, then re-printed to ensure that his handwriting could not be identified. It was not just a work of Menippean satire (one that challenges mindsets and attitudes instead of individuals and entities), but Swift had been an active pamphleteer in Irish causes, and his Drapier's Letters, were seen as seditious. It was an open secret that Swift wrote them, despite their anonymity. The books could be read as tales of fantasy and adventure, but on another level they could be read as satire of the rivalries between European states, on religious differences hurting the ordinary people, and the cost to society of the dogma of certain types of government. Swift created another first in the world of fiction.

We have to go much later to get the first dystopian novel, although there's an argument for including Swift in that. My choice is a work that describes an apocalyptic pandemic wiping out huge swathes of humanity, and the impact that has on the systems of government and the structures of society. It also features religious fundamentalists who try to exert control over the country, and grab power through manipulating fear and using disinformation. Sound remarkably modern? Mary Shelley had The Last Man was published in 1826. She truly was ahead of her time.

Mary Shelley

The Murders in the Rue Morgue was a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and was the first detective tale, but to get the first book, it depends on your definition. Wilkie Collins published The Moonstone in 1868—and that was a complete book. However, as so many books at that time were actually published in parts in periodicals (Dickens was famous for this), another good candidate is The Notting Hill Mystery which was published between 1862 and 1863 by Dickens' main competitor. It features a private investigator hired to investigate the death of a woman who has died after having huge life insurance policies taken out. It's practically unknown nowadays, but it was written by Charles Felix, the pen name of Charles Warren Adams. Finding Adams was a detective story in itself. Prof. Paul Collins from Portland university searched the archives, and although he could find the publisher, he could find no letters between the publisher and the author - until he hit upon a literary gossip column for The Manchester Times in 1864. There was no correspondence between the writer and the publisher because Charles Warren Adams was Saunders, Otley and Company. The author was the publisher.

The first Western novel again is a matter of interpretation. Many say it's The Virginian, by Owen Wister, published in 1902. It features a ranch hand in Wyoming, and was later to inspire a much sunnier version of the characters in a famous TV series. I say that The Administratrix by Emma Ghent Curtis takes that crown, as it appeared in 1889 and was the first to feature the current tropes outside of dime novels. It features a schoolteacher who dresses as a man to get revenge and justice after her lover is murdered. Another contender is Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. Although not featuring cowboys, it is set in a much earlier American frontier, even if it's not in the west. As I say, it's all down to how much of a purist you are.

Illustration from the novel's 1896 edition depicting Hawk-eye 

I hope you've got some ideas and plot bunnies from this piece. New life can spring from the oldest material, which takes us right back to the beginning of this post. There are only so many stories, but the ways we can tell them are infinite.

Do you have suggestions of books that are firsts of their kind? Have I missed any? Feel free to comment and give me your opinion.