Anna Gooding-Call, occasional Librarian’s Library columnist, writes: “Modern readers, myself included, tend to take novels for granted. Yet for most of human history, this would have been astonishing. The quantities involved, the general literacy of the population, and the carelessness with which we treat these cheap books would utterly floor the monks who spent their lives hand-copying script. That’s why it’s so interesting to think about the novel’s origins. Why was the first novel written? What need did it fill? And most importantly, can you still read it today?”