Early history " in
The Violet Fairy Book (1906) '' (1906) While elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were part of literature from its beginning, fantasy elements also occur throughout ancient religious texts such as the
Epic of Gilgamesh. The ancient Babylonian creation epic, the
Enûma Eliš, in which the god
Marduk slays the goddess
Tiamat, reflects the theme of cosmic conflict between good and evil, which is characteristic of the modern fantasy genre.
The Tales of the Court of King Khufu, which is preserved in the
Westcar Papyrus and was probably written in the middle of the second half of the eighteenth century BC, preserves a mixture of stories with elements of historical fiction, fantasy, and satire. Egyptian funerary texts preserve mythological tales, The comedies of
Aristophanes are filled with fantastic elements, particularly his play
The Birds,
Beowulf is among the best known of the Old English tales in the English-speaking world, and it has deeply influenced the fantasy genre; several fantasy works have retold the story, for example,
John Gardner's novel
Grendel.
Norse mythology, as found in the
Elder Edda and
Younger Edda collections, includes such figures as the god
Odin and his fellow
Aesir, in addition to
dwarves,
elves,
dragons, and
giants. These elements have been directly imported into various fantasy works. The distinct folklores of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland have sometimes been used indiscriminately for "Celtic" fantasy, sometimes with great success; other writers have specified the use of a single source. The
Welsh tradition has been particularly influential, because of its connection to the legendary
King Arthur and its collection into a single work, the epic
Mabinogion.
Modern fantasy 's novel
The Princess and the Goblin Although pre-dated by
John Ruskin's story
The King of the Golden River (1841), the history of modern fantasy literature is usually said to begin with
George MacDonald, the Scottish author of such novels as
Phantastes (1858) and
The Princess and the Goblin (1872); the former is widely considered to be the first fantasy novel ever written for adults. MacDonald was a major influence on both
J. R. R. Tolkien and
C. S. Lewis. The other major fantasy author of this era was
William Morris, an English poet who wrote several novels in the latter part of the century, including
The Wood Beyond the World (1894) and ''
The Well at the World's End'' (1896). Despite MacDonald's future influence with the novel
At the Back of the North Wind (1871), Morris's popularity with his contemporaries, and
H. G. Wells's novel
The Wonderful Visit (1895), it was not until the 20th century that fantasy fiction began to reach a large audience.
Lord Dunsany established the genre's popularity in both the novel and the short story forms.
H. Rider Haggard,
Rudyard Kipling, and
Edgar Rice Burroughs began to write fantasy around this time. These authors, along with
Abraham Merritt, established what was known as the
lost world subgenre; this was the most popular form of fantasy in the early decades of the 20th century, although several classic children's fantasies, such as
Peter Pan and
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, were also published around this time.
Juvenile fantasy was considered more acceptable than fantasy intended for adults, with the consequence that writers who wished to write fantasy for adults needed to fit their work into forms aimed at children.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, intended for children, although his works for adults only verged on fantasy. For many years, this book and successes such as the novel ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) created a circular effect: all fantasy works, even the later series The Lord of the Rings'', were therefore classified as children's literature. Political and social trends can affect a society's reception of fantasy. In the early 20th century, the
New Culture Movement's enthusiasm for Westernization and science in China compelled them to condemn the fantastical
shenmo genre of traditional Chinese literature. The spells and magical creatures in these novels were viewed as superstitious and backward, products of a feudal society hindering the modernization of China. Stories of the supernatural continued to be denounced once the Communists rose to power, and mainland China experienced a revival in fantasy only after the
Cultural Revolution had ended. Fantasy became a genre of
pulp magazines published in the West. The first all-fantasy fiction magazine,
Weird Tales, was published in 1923. Many similar magazines eventually followed, including
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (
F&SF). When this magazine was founded in 1949, the pulp format was at the height of its popularity;
F&SF was instrumental in bringing fantasy fiction to a wide audience in both the US and the UK. Such magazines were also instrumental in the rise of science fiction, and the two genres were first associated with each other around this time. By 1950,
sword and sorcery fiction had begun to find a wider audience, with the success of
Robert E. Howard's
Conan the Barbarian stories and
Fritz Leiber's
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. However, it was the advent of
high fantasy—especially
J. R. R. Tolkien's novels
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings, which reached new heights of popularity in the late 1960s—that allowed fantasy to
enter the mainstream. Several other series, such as
C. S. Lewis's
The Chronicles of Narnia and
Ursula K. Le Guin's
Earthsea, helped to cement the genre's popularity. The popularity of the fantasy genre has continued to increase in the 21st century, as evidenced by the best-selling status of several series:
J. K. Rowling's
Harry Potter,
Robert Jordan's
The Wheel of Time,
George R. R. Martin's
Song of Ice and Fire,
Steven Erikson's
Malazan Book of the Fallen,
Brandon Sanderson's
The Stormlight Archive and
Mistborn, and
A. Sapkowski's
The Witcher. ==Media==