List of claimed first novels in English
A number of works of literature have each been claimed as the first novel in English Other relevant works. The following are other early long works of prose fiction in English not generally considered novels: Differing definitions of novel. There are multiple candidates for first novel in English partly because of ignorance of earlier works, but largely because the term novel can be defined so as to exclude earlier candidates. (The article for novel contains detailed information on the history of the terms "novel" and "romance" and the bodies of texts they defined  in a historical perspective.) Content and intent. Owing to the influence of Ian Watt's seminal study in literary sociology, "The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding" (1957), Watt's candidate, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), gained wide acceptance.