Romance

     The romance genre has been around for a long, long time. The romance novel was a literary genre that was developed in Western culture. In the traditional sense of the genre, these novels must have an emotionally satisfying or optimistic ending. This is obviously not always the case, but it was how it was set up. Romance novels are the most popular genre in modern literature in North America. In 2004, it was recorded that 55% of all paperbacks sold were of the romance genre. Romance novels appear in 90 languages, but English is by far the most common as most of these authors come from the English-speaking countries.
     One of the earliest romance novels was Samuel Richardson's popular novel in 1740 titled Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. It was a revolutionary novel, having focused entirely on courtship and throughout the whole story, told it from the point of view of the female. In the next century, Jane Austen expanded this genre with multiple books. The most famous and debatably most popular novel was Pride and Prejudice. It is often considered the epitome of the genre. Many more writers to come would increase and expand the genre, including authors like Georgette Heyer and Kathleen Woodiwiss. Woodiwiss's book, The Flame and the Flower brought forth the modern romance genre. It was also the first single-title romance novel to be published as an original paperback in the United States. The genre has further developed in the decades that followed, including all the works by Simone Elkeles.