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
Four Freedoms (novel) Four Freedoms (novel) Four Freedoms is a 2009 historical novel by American writer John Crowley. It follows the adventures of several characters centring on a fictional aircraft manufacturing plant near Ponca City, Oklahoma during World War II, specifically from 1942 to 1945. The plant chiefly produces the fictional B-30 "Pax" bomber. It is Crowley's first novel after the completion of his Ægypt Sequence, and marks a turning in his style from the historically speculative series to historical realism. The novel deals with the manufacturing and war industries during World War II, but rather than dealing with the most able-bodied during