To tone your thighs fast - three words ladies - squats and walking lunges. I took a fitness bootcamp for women last fall. We met three times a week and these two exercises were at the core of each meeting. My husband noticed a difference after week one.
Don Quijote de la Manca by the Spanish author Cervantes has such a role in the Western literary tradition, that it's hard to mention anything posterior to it as the first fiction novel. Jerry mentioned Moll Flanders. That's a nice pick: the very novel that combined literature of roguery and picaresque novel.
The first one to come up with a story was Polidori, who began his now famous tale The Vampyre. Its main protagonist Lord Ruthven was supposedly modeled on Lord Byron. However, Mary Shelley was not that quick in creating her first piece of literature.