Regional novel

 A regional novel depicts a particular geographical area,  and the people belonging to it as the basis for the plot.

 

Features of a regional novel

The setting is an important feature in a regional novel. It is usually set in a rural or provincial area having a distinguishable life style.

 

Such a novel emphasises and documents the culture, history, customs and speech of the region it is set in, with more focus than for mere background.

 

Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (1800) is believed to be the first regional novel in English. Famous regional novelists include Thomas Hardy, who recreated western England in many of his novels and revived the name 'Wessex'; the American novelist William Faulkner, who based his fictional region Yoknapatawpha County on the American South; the Indian writer R.K. Narayan, whose Malgudi was the setting of almost all his work; and the Canadian author Margaret Laurence, who set her stories in the fictional town of Manawaka.