About the Journal

Focus and Scope

As the name Ancient Narrative indicates, the areas of interest of the journal are: Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions, including novels proper, the "fringe", as well as the fragments; narrative texts of the Byzantine age, early Christian narrative texts - and the reception of these works in modern literature, film and music. Ancient Narrative encourages approaches which range from editorial and philological work on these texts, and literary-theoretical studies, to theological, sociological, cultural and anthropological approaches. No particular area or methodology is preferred. The audience of our journal will thus comprise not only those who are working mainly in classical or religious studies, but all those who are interested in the birth and development of narrative fiction in all its aspects, from antiquity to the modern times.

Ancient Narrative (AN) is first and foremost an electronic journal, in which selected articles will be discussed during a period of several months. At the end of the year the authors have the opportunity to revise their articles. A volume containing all revised articles of the past year will appear both in print and on the website.

AN also publishes special, theme-oriented issues. Your suggestions for such issues are very welcome.

AN is the electronic continuation of the Petronian Society Newsletter (ed. Gareth Schmeling) and the Groningen Colloquia on the Novel (eds. Heinz Hofmann and Maaike Zimmerman). Therefore, AN will, besides full articles, publish bibliographical information as well as brief notes on relevant subjects. The editors will also invite specialists for reviews, which will be published in the electronic journal and in the annual printed volume of AN.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Reader Registration

We encourage readers to sign up for the publishing notification service for this journal. This registration will result in the reader receiving the Table of Contents by email for each new issue of the journal. This list also allows the journal to claim a certain level of support or readership. See the journal's Privacy Statement, which assures readers that their name and email address will not be used for other purposes.

Petronian Society Newsletter (PSN)

Until recently the website of Ancient Narrative also hosted the Petronian Society Newsletter Volume 38 and following, while the digitalized print issues of PSN 1-30 were available at https://www.uhd.edu/academics/humanities/news-community/petronian-society/Pages/default.aspx. 

The Petronian Society Newsletter now has its own website, https://ugp.rug.nl/psn. All  issues of PSN, including the digitalized issues 1-30, will be added in the course of 2022. We will keep you up to date through our notifications, which you will receive when you register as a Reader.