psychological novel

American  

noun

1. a novel that focuses on the complex mental and emotional lives of its characters and explores the various levels of mental activity.

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Etymology

Origin of psychological novel

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

The psychological novel gained prominence as the 19th-century world became mapped and colonized, the mind offering a new realm for discovery.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 8, 2025

In a sense, she’s a person who always has a psychological novel going on inside her head, and where would the psychological novel be without Dostoyevsky?

From The New Yorker • Jan. 16, 2017

But British Author Shaw, a stage and movie actor who wrote the book between engagements, describes his characters deftly in the manner of the standard psychological novel.

From Time Magazine Archive

The hero of a psychological novel is the man whose reactions are most important.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is therefore usually used in the "psychological novel."

From Materials and Methods of Fiction With an Introduction by Brander Matthews by Hamilton, Clayton Meeker