An episodic, often autobiographical novel about a rogue or picaro (a person of low social status) wandering around and living off his wits. The wandering hero provides the author with the opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since the hero can wander into any situation. Picaresque novels tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail. Examples:

• Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
• Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
• Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild

A "false name" or alias used by a writer desiring not to use his or her real name. Sometimes called a nom de plume or "pen name," pseudonyms have been popular for several reasons.

First, political realities might make it dangerous for the real author to admit to a work. Beatings, imprisonment, and even execution are not unheard of for authors of unpopular works.

Second, an author might have a certain type of work associated with a certain name, so that different names are used for different kinds of work. One pen name might be used for westerns, while another name would be used for science fiction.

Lastly, an author might choose a literary name that sounds more impressive or that will garner more respect than the author's real name. Examples:

• Samuel Clemens used the name Mark Twain
• Mary Ann Evans used the name George Eliot
• Jonathan Swift used the name Lemuel Gulliver (once)

Novels written for the mass market, intended to be "a good read,"--often exciting, titillating, thrilling. Historically they have been very popular but critically sneered at as being of sub-literary quality. The earliest ones were the dime novels of the nineteenth century, printed on newsprint (hence "pulp" fiction) and sold for ten cents. Westerns, stories of adventure, even the Horatio Alger novels, all were forms of pulp fiction.

A novel faithful to a particular geographic region and its people, including behavior, customs, speech, and history. Examples:

• Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
• Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native

The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. Some kinds of rhyme (also spelled rime) include:

• Couplet: a pair of lines rhyming consecutively.
• Eye rhyme: words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed (slough, tough, cough, bough, though, hiccough. Or: love, move, prove. Or: daughter, laughter.)
• Feminine rhyme: two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed.
• Masculine rhyme: similarity between terminally stressed syllables.