Talk:List of novellas

Clockwork Orange

According to the definition at novella, A Clockwork Orange is too long to be considered a novella. It is 192 pages whereas novellas are a maximum of around 100. So I have removed it RoyBatty42 04:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Collections

The this article is a list of notable novellas, not a list of collections. Hence I removed these two entries:

• Sermons and Soda Water (1960) John O'Hara -- a collection of novellas
• Transgressions (2005) a collection of novellas by various authors edited by Ed McBain

I moved the The Decameron to the novella series section.

In addition, I broke down the two Stephen King collections (Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight) to show the actual novellas. HOWEVER - I think this should also be expunged and only the novellas themselves be listed. But that should follow a general purge of this entire article. It supposed to be notable novellas, but seems more like every novella people could come up with. But, I will leave that for further debate. RoyBatty42 04:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Order

Looks as though they may have started in title order; would date order be better ? GrahamHardy (talk) 14:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Shadow out of Time

On its wikipedia page it calls it a short story, therefore I replaced it with an H. P. Lovecraft novella called The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which is an H. P. Lovecraft fan favorite and has been loosely adapted several times. Sacularamacal13 (talk) 20:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Genre

I think we should be a lot more careful about what is classified as a "novella." Works like "Oroonoko" and "The Decameron" were written far before the idea of a novel was even conceived, and I seriously doubt any literary scholar would call either text a novella. It's misleading to have these works on this page, and I'm going to go ahead and take them off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.46.247 (talk) 07:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to expand on this, the word novella (plural novelle) in Medieval Italian meant "a tale". So each individual tale in the Decameron is literally a novella, but that word doesn't mean what it does in contemporary English. We have to be careful not to include Medieval/Renaissance novelle in with modern novellas. Protoblast (talk) 12:05, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Is there a more objective way to create a list, using reliable sources? Green Cardamom (talk) 04:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Right, we need to follow the guidelines at WP:STANDALONE here, and specify some sort of inclusion criteria. Ideally something like The Reliable Source's List of the Best 42 Novellas Ever. I've added tags in the article to that effect. U+003F^? 09:38, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Until we develop these criteria, it seems reasonable that we keep the novellas which do have references.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:39, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Not quite. According to WP:CSC, we should keep those novellas which have their "own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia", which currently discounts In the Country by Mia Alvar. Such an entry would be acceptable if it was "verifiably a member of the listed group" but we can't say that until we've set out inclusion criteria. As an aside, that book is a collection of novellas, so is probably out of place here anyway. U+003F^? 13:11, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. When the inclusion criteria get worked out, In The Country will certainly be back in.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any suggestions as to what such criteria should be? U+003F^? 15:43, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, okay, okay. Wondering what people think about this list or this list or this list or this list or this list? Problem is, which of these are reliable sources? Publishers may be trying to push their own authors. I don't think Publishers Weekly has a list of bestselling novellas -- here is the PW site. I think we'll run into more trouble if we do newer books, like maybe we should exclude books that are less than 10 years old.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:25, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Also short story guide and the novella award. None are obviously better or worse than any other. U+003F^? 17:17, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

What do you think of the AbeBooks ref? The list is titled "25 Excellent Novellas" and deviates somewhat from the others that describe themselves as a "Best X List". U+003F^? 14:25, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmmmmm, well, lemme think... Okay so I'm not so good at thinking, so lemme guess... Seems like there is much consistency among the several lists, since many name the same novellas, such as 'Heart of Darkness', that is, the AbeBooks list is somewhat consistent with the other lists. A concern might be that the AbeBooks list might be pushing only Abe's books (!) but this is probably not the case, since I think AbeBooks is a retailer (?) not a publisher (right?). So perhaps I'm leaning towards inclusion since it passed the ultimate Wikipedia test, namely, being included by User:U+003F such as here. My two cents.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:39, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I did include it, but am having second thoughts. The AbeBooks list certainly suffers from recentism; were three of the best 25 novellas ever really written in 2011, just before the publication of the article? Still, let's leave it for now. A problem with many lists of this sort is the temptation for the author to "make their mark": pick the obviously best books, then throw in a few books you've never heard of to demonstrate how well-read or innovative they are. A better test for notability would be appearance on two independent lists; that, as it stands, would leave us with only ten books. Maybe they really are the ten best novellas ever written?! U+003F^? 14:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, but then again, if we leave out the newer novellas, there might be somewhat of a modernist (early 20th century) as well as a 19th century bias. How about this: we split the list in twain -- the top list will be novellas that made 2+ lists -- all 10 -- plus the bottom list will be something like Other notable novellas.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:09, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

One other thing to emphasize, as we probably already know, that adjectives like 'best' and 'excellent', when applied to something as subjective as fiction writing, are going to be problematic. Perhaps the best we can do is try to use inclusion criteria, such as 'being on several best-of lists', or numbers of references, to winnow out those novellas which has withstood the test of time, ie, classics. That is, generation after generation of readers have liked X novella. Etc.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

How's that? U+003F^? 17:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Oooooh. Impressive.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Looking through this page I saw several books whose classification as novellas surprised me. All of them were in the second section, with the same single source (the Huffington Post one). A brief look at the source makes it clear what the issue is. It says 'we’ve compiled a list of short, classic works, some novels and some novellas, that are all under 200 pages'. Since it explicitly says some of the works listed are not novellas, we shouldn't include a book from that list unless some other source claims it is a novella. So I suggest removing the following, unless anyone wants to argue that some of them are actually novellas: The Awakening; The Big Sleep; Frankenstein; The Great Gatsby; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Northanger Abbey; O Pioneers!; The Picture of Dorian Gray; and The Sorrows of Young Werther. Passing and The Pearl also don't appear on any other list, but the articles on those two books have sources which refer to them as novellas, so I'd suggest keeping them (and citing those sources on this page). Especially Lime (talk) 14:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Good catch. Go for it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Novellas suggested to be added to the list

This was copied from the main page...--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Reader Suggested Additions:

• True Grit by Charles Portis
• The Lilies of the Field by William Edmund Barrett

Will look into this.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC) Update: I searched for sources, found one for True Grit, added it to the list, but I didn't find one for Lilies of the Field even though I agree it is probably an excellent novella, and I bet there is a source somewhere. What has been established here, as criteria for inclusion, is that a novella can't just have positive reviews, but must be on a "best-of" list, preferably from a reliable source, and not just a "best of" for a particular year, but a "best of" for all time.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

If we add one from any source, we should add them all. I'm not sure the quora one is reliable enough, and moreover lists best novellas from a sub-genre, rather than from all possibles. U+003F^? 06:23, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I too have doubts about the quora source. My general sense is that our ability to gauge the reliability of sources is limited, at best, and it might be that we should not even try. Rather, a possible way to go about this is simply that when we find a "best of" list, we add all of the books listed, as you have suggested, and the stellar novellas will clearly pop out, and move to the top, since they'll have multiple references. That is, we can continue to use the criterion of having multiple references as a way to signify (to Wikipedia readers) the best of the best-ofs.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:52, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

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Questionable Inclusions

Not here to start controversy, but I wouldn't consider Brokeback Mountain, The Dead, or Kitchen to be novellas. If I recall correctly both Brokeback and The Dead run about 40 pages, which is essentially the length of most of Alice Munro's stories. Now, I know we can debate all day about what exact length constitutes a novella, but I think we can all agree that Kitchen which is listed at over 200 pages is past that length, yes? ANDROMITUS (talk) 16:30, 20 August 2019 (UTC)