Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What is the longest novel ever written?
This is a list of the longest novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. The longest novel is Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus, originally published (1649–54) in ten parts, each part in three volumes. Artamène is generally attributed to Madeleine de Scudéry.[1]
Les Hommes de bonne volonté () is an epic roman-fleuve by French writer Jules Romains, published in 27 volumes between 1932 and 1946. It has been classified both as a novel cycle and a novel and, at two million words and 7,892 pages, has been cited as one of the longest novels ever written.
Alberto Jesús Laiseca (February 11, 1941 - December 22, 2016) was an Argentine author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. He is one of the most respected writers of his generation. He published 13 novels and numerous short stories, as well as several essays and non-fiction books. He also published a book of brief poems based on Classical Chinese poetry, "Poemas chinos" ("Chinese Poetry", 1987). Most of his short stories have been collected in book collections. His monumental novel "Los sorias" (1998) -which had remained unpublished for twenty years after its completion- is currently considered, due to its extension, as the longest novel ever written in Argentine literature.
The novel as a whole is one of the longest ever written, with approximately 1,500 pages in unabridged English-language editions, and 1,900 pages in French. Hugo explained his ambitions for the novel to his Italian publisher:
More than a quarter of the novel—by one count 955 of 2,783 pages—is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo's encyclopedic knowledge, but do not advance the plot, nor even a subplot, a method Hugo used in such other works as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Toilers of the Sea". One biographer noted that "the digressions of genius are easily pardoned". The topics Hugo addresses include cloistered religious orders, the construction of the Paris sewers, argot, and the street urchins of Paris. The one about convents he titles "Parenthesis" to alert the reader to its irrelevance to the story line.
"What Ever Happened to..." is a 1991 American made-for-television thriller drama film directed by David Greene and adapted for the small screen by Brian Taggert, based on the novel "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" by Henry Farrell and the 1962 theatrical film of the same name. It stars real-life sisters Lynn Redgrave as Baby Jane Hudson and Vanessa Redgrave as Blanche Hudson, in the roles previously played by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the 1962 adaptation.
Because Straub and King were both immensely successful and popular horror and suspense writers in their own rights, anticipation of this book was extremely strong. The publisher financed a USD$550,000 promotion budget and several articles ran which hailed the collaboration of the two writers and speculated what would be “the greatest horror novel ever written.”
The novel is 16th on the Wikipedia list of longest novels, and seventh among novels written in English, and the longest novel written in America.
The novel is one of the longest ever written.
Wolfe saw less than half of his work published in his lifetime, there being much unpublished material remaining after his death. He was the first American writer to leave two complete, unpublished novels in the hands of his publisher at death. Two Wolfe novels, "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again", were edited posthumously by Edward Aswell of Harper & Brothers. The novels were "two of the longest one-volume novels ever written" (nearly 700 pages each). In these novels, Wolfe changed the name of his autobiographical character from Eugene Gant to George Webber.
Nevertheless, religious journalist Sarah Pulliam Bailey doubts whether the novel contains religious undertones. Bailey explains that many readers believe the novel promotes witchcraft, as opposed to alluding to Christian spirituality. Bailey states that conservative Christians take offense, due to the novel's potential relativistic qualities, suggesting the various interpretations of religious allusions signals anti-Christian sentiments. However, in her personal journal referencing "A Wrinkle in Time", L'Engle confirms the religious content within the novel: "If I've ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe, this is it."
Structurally, "Men of Good Will" is a "roman-fleuve"—a long work across several volumes with continuation of plot and related characters that may mean it forms a single novel. It has been described as a novel cycle or novel sequence, and as a novel, by different writers. Its full extent, at 2,000,000 words, across 7,892 pages, 779 chapters and 27 volumes, means it has been described as one of the longest novels ever written—sometimes the single longest.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is an American suspense novel by Henry Farrell published in 1960 by Rinehart & Company. The novel has earned a cult following, and has been adapted for the screen twice - in 1962 and 1991.
What Ever Happened to Baby Toto? () is a 1964 Italian black comedy film written and directed by Ottavio Alessi. It is a parody of Robert Aldrich's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?".
His last novel, "Count Ten" (1940) is his longest and most heavily marketed; it follows thirty years of the life of its protagonist, Eric Marsden. In Edmund Wilson’s estimation, the novel is "very much inferior on the whole to the ones that had gone before." Wilson also thought that it showed "what seemed internal evidence of having been written earlier," giving off the air of "one of those autobiographical novels that young men begin in college and carry around for years in old trunks."
Tokugawa Ieyasu by Sohachi Yamaoka: The 40 volumes of this historical novel were published serially between 1950 and 1967. The complete text includes more than 10 million Japanese characters. It is the longest Japanese novel but also one of the longest ever written.[65] The Popular Romance of Chinese Dynasties by Cai Dongfan: Published in 11 volumes and 1080 chapters (1040 chapters by Cai Dongfan, the last 40 chapters by Xu Jinfu), this historical novel includes 6 million Chinese characters.[66] Daibosatsu Toge by Nakazato Kaizan: Published in 41 volumes and 1533 chapters, this historical novel includes 5.7 million Japanese characters.[67] On the Plateau by Zhang Wei: Scheduled to include 4.5 million Chinese characters, the ten volume fully published in 2010 and became the longest Chinese novel in prose.[68] The Swordspeople from Shu Mountains by Huanzhulouzhu: Published in 309 chapters, this Wuxia novel includes 4.1 million Chinese characters.[69] Li Zicheng by Yao Xueyin: This historical novel completed in 1999 includes 3.4 million Chinese characters. It has been published in 5 volumes over a period of 40 years. It is currently the longest novel published in modern Chinese.[70] Avakasikal by Vilasini: This book in Malayalam is known as the longest written in an Indian language. It contains 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete.[71] The Chinese wuxia novelist Jin Yong wrote a number of long novels, of which the longest are The Deer and the Cauldron (1,230,000 characters) and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1,211,000 characters).
Tobacco Road is a play by Jack Kirkland first performed in 1933, based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell. The play ran on Broadway for a total of 3,182 performances, becoming the longest-running play in history at the time. As of 2018, it was still the 19th longest-running Broadway show in history, as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway.
The novel was initially well-received, remarked for the startling ending, and in 2013, 87 years after its release the British Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever. It is one of Christie's best known and most controversial novels, its innovative twist ending having a significant impact on the genre. Howard Haycraft included this novel in his list of the most influential crime novels ever written. The short biography of Christie which is included in 21st century UK printings of her books calls it her masterpiece, although writer and critic Robert Barnard has written that he considers it a conventional Christie novel.
Collins enjoyed ten years of great success following publication of "The Woman in White" in 1859. His next novel, "No Name" combined social commentary – the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller. "Armadale," the first and only of Collins's major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than "All the Year Round," provoked strong criticism, generally centred upon its transgressive villainess Lydia Gwilt, and provoked in part by Collins's typically confrontational preface. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by "Cornhill" for the serialisation rights was exceptional, eclipsing by a substantial margin the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels, yet the novel failed to recoup its publisher's investment. "The Moonstone," published in 1868, and the last novel of what is generally regarded as the most successful decade of its author's career, was, despite a somewhat cool reception from both Dickens and the critics, a significant return to form and reestablished the market value of an author whose success on the competitive Victorian literary market had been gradually waning in the wake of his first perceived masterpiece. Viewed by many to represent the advent of the detective story within the tradition of the English novel, "The Moonstone" remains one of Collins's most critically acclaimed productions, identified by T. S. Eliot as "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels... in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe," and Dorothy L. Sayers referred to it as "probably the very finest detective story ever written".
Millner's other books include the young adult novel "Miss You, Mina", written for Scholastic; the humor book, "The Angry Black Woman's Guide To Life", and the novel "The Vow," both written with Angela Burt-Murray and Mitzi Miller; and the three-book teen series "Hotlanta" written with Mitzi Miller. The novel "The Vow" was turned into a movie on the Lifetime network, called With This Ring, that premiered on Jan. 24, 2015. She wrote three novels and three books of non-fiction with her former husband Nick Chiles, including "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" and "What Brothers Think, What Sistahs Know", both "Essence" bestsellers. In 2007, Millner wrote the novelization of the screenplay for "Dreamgirls" and in 2012 the novelization for "Sparkle". 
"Kelidar is the longest Persian novel written to date, and surely one of the finest. The present translation is of parts I and 2 only, which are sufficiently self-contained to make for satisfying reading and which also give a good idea of what the whole is like. (...) Doulatabadi's style is that of a traditional Persian storyteller, in that he constructs his tale in a linear fashion, speaks through an omniscient narrator, and uses a balanced mixture of narrative and dialogue. (...) One wishes that readers of English could also experience the pleasures of this novel." - William L. Hanaway, World Literature Today
Last Guardian of Everness is a fantasy novel by John C. Wright (the author's first such novel, having been written before "The Golden Age"). It has a sequel, "Mists of Everness".
Next to Jelinek's novel "Neid", "The Children of the Dead" is her longest work. Although it can be classified as a postmodern horror novel, Jelinek herself calls it a "ghost story written in the tradition of the Gothic novel."
Arrival and Departure (1943) is the third novel of Arthur Koestler's trilogy concerning the conflict between morality and expediency (as described in the postscript to the novel's 1966 Danube Edition). The first volume, "The Gladiators", is about the subversion of the Spartacus revolt, and the second, "Darkness at Noon", is the celebrated novel about the Soviet Show trials. "Arrival and Departure" was Koestler's first full-length work in English, "The Gladiators" and "Darkness at Noon" were originally written in German. It is often considered to be the weakest of the three. Reviewing the novel in December 1943 George Orwell called it notable "for what must be one of the most shocking descriptions of Nazi terrorism that have ever been written."
"It’s tempting to say that Charles McCarry’s"The Tears of Autumn" is the greatest espionage novel ever written by an American, if only because it’s hard to conceive of one that could possibly be better. But since no one can claim to have read every America espionage novel ever written, let’s just say that "The Tears of Autumn" is a perfect spy novel, and that its hero, Paul Christopher, should by all rights be known the world over as the thinking man’s James Bond — and woman’s too."—Brendan Bernard, "The Great American Spy Novel," March 31, 2005', LA Weekly"
Excluded are self-published, printed-on-demand, vanity works, unpublished novels like Henry Darger's, novel sequences like the Chronicles of Barsetshire, novel cycles such as those set in the James Bond universe, and record-grabbing stunts written solely for the title of the longest work.