SOURCE: Blake, Warren E. “Chariton's Romance—The First European Novel.” Classical Journal 29, no. 4 (January 1934): 284-88.

In the following essay, Blake explains why Chariton can be considered the earliest known Greek novelist.

In an age when, as the book-dealers tell us, over seventy-five per cent of the annual output of literature consists of novels, it must have occurred to many people to wonder who stands first in time at the head of this army of countless thousands of novelists. It is, of course, futile to speak of the “inventor” of the novel. Specialized mechanical inventions, such as the electric light, the steam engine, and even the printing press, may with accuracy be attributed to certain definite great geniuses. But in the less tangible realm of literature it is exceedingly difficult and generally impossible to put one's finger on a single name and to say, “So-and-so discovered the use of...