English novel John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678) and Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko" (1688) are also contenders, while earlier works such as Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte d'Arthur", and even the "Prologue" to Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" have been suggested. Another important early novel is "Gulliver's Travels" (1726, amended 1735), by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, which is both a satire of human nature, as well as a parody of travellers' tales like "Robinson Crusoe". The rise of the novel as an important literary genre is generally associated with the growth of the middle class in England. Other major 18th-century English novelists are
The Better Angels The title is a reference to Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, a quote from which is the novel's epigraph, and the term is said to refer to Patrick Graham's conception of President Lockwood and Julian Hubbard. The novel is set in 1992, during an election campaign between former president Franklin Mallory and current president Bedford Forrest "Frosty" Lockwood. It opens and closes with the Midsummer and Midwinter parties held by Patrick Graham, a news anchor famous for his progressive politics, and his wife, Charlotte, and in between those isolated chapters, it is divided into four parts. Franklin Mallory wants to