Throughout history, man has told stories. For a shorter part of history, man has written stories down. Here is a summary of some of the most important stories ever written down.Â
Gilgamesh - Oldest written piece of fiction
What it’s about: Gilgamesh was a Sumerian king who is two-thirds god and one-third human. He generally behaves badly until his subjects implore the gods to help them out. They create Enkidu, who first fights with, then befriends Gilgamesh. They have many adventures together, but eventually, Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh is upset about this and decides to seek immortality. He meets an immortal who challenges Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh fails. He is given another chance. He must retrieve a plant from the bottom of a lake. He does, but he sets the plant aside and it is stolen by a serpent.
Why it’s important: The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known written work of fiction. It shows us that even in ancient Sumeria, people were telling stories. However, this is the first known instance of someone writing one down.
Tale of Genji - Arguably, the first novel
What it’s about: Hikaru Genji is one of the many sons of the Emperor of Japan. The Tale of Genji mostly revolves around his love life. It is a tale of forbidden love, unfulfilling love, more unfulfilling love, love that makes him kidnap a ten year old girl and love of someone who dies. It continues on about Genji’s sons and their love lives.
Why it’s important: The novel format is so basic to us that we hardly think about it, but there was a time when the main format for storytelling was the epic poem. Genji marks one of the first long-form, prose stories about a single subject. It is also one of the first manuscripts to feature clear chapter divisions.Â
Bible - First book (in codex form)
What it’s about: It’s the Bible. In the off chance that you haven’t heard of it, it’s about the creation of the world and the human race, their fall, salvation and the eventual destruction of the Earth.
Why it’s important: A codex is what we usually think of as a book. It has a front cover, a back cover, and a number of pages in between. Before the advent of the codex, people wrote in scrolls. There are several major downsides to this: 1) If you are looking for a specific portion of the work, you have to unroll the entire thing up to that point 2) Because of all this rolling and unrolling, scrolls wear out quickly and 3) Scrolls are less convenient to store than codices. With codices, the lives of scholars became much easier.
The Gutenberg Bible - First book to be printed on a printing press
What it’s about: See above
Why it’s important: There was a time when a book was the main luxury item of the upper class. Owning even a single book would be akin to owning a Ferrari today. All books had to be copied by hand, usually by monks. They were written on vellum, which was made from calf skin. Vellum wasn’t cheap and you needed a lot of it to make a book. Then there was the man-hours involved. Imagine picking up a copy of the Bible and copying every word by hand. With the invention of the printing press (technically, the invention of movable type, as well as paper that could hold ink, ink that would stick to paper and a metal alloy that could be shaped into letters) copying a book went from being a matter of months and years to a matter of days and weeks. When a monk finished copying a book, there was one more copy; with the printing press, a large number of copies could be made at once. This was the the beginning of the spread of literacy, the spread of knowledge and the start of the Information Age.Â
