possible antedating of "novel" = any long unified prose narrative.

[Jonathan Lighter]

1888 Laura Alexandrine Smith _The Music of the Waters_ (London: Keegan Paul, Trench & Co) xxiv : In his admirably nautical novel, "Two Years before the Mast, or a Sailor's Life at Sea," Mr. Dana says of the chanties : "The sailors' songs for capstans and falls are of a peculiar kind...." [etc. -JL]

  We'll never know what Smith was thinking when she wrote these words, but Dana's book was well known as autobiographical nonfiction.  "Admirably nautical" suggests to me that Smith erroneously believed that it was indeed fiction, but the factual passage she quotes gains its authority from direct experience.

  A harmless slip of the pen - or something far more disturbing ?????

  YOU be the judge !

  JL


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