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 Travels of Lao Can The Travels of Lao Can The Travels of Lao Can (, or "The Travels of an old wreck") was a novel by Liu E (1857-1909), written in 1903-04 and published in 1907. Thinly disguising his own views in those of the physician hero, Liu describes the rise of the Boxers in the countryside, the decay of the Yellow River control system, and the hypocritical incompetence of the bureaucracy. The novel, a social satire that showed the limits of the old elite and officialdom, was an immediate success. The novel serves as an in-depth look into the everyday lives of "peasantry"