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 System of the World (novel) The System of the World (novel) The System of the World is a novel by Neal Stephenson and is the third and final volume in "The Baroque Cycle". The title alludes to the third volume of Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", which bears the same name. "The System of the World" won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Prometheus Award in 2005, as well as a receiving a nomination for the Arthur C. Clarke Award the same year. Daniel Waterhouse returns to England from his "Technologickal College" project in Boston in order to try to