The earliest English novels, from "Moll Flanders" (1722) to "Clarissa"
(1748), were published anonymously, with titles that implied they were
true stories. It took generations to establish the conventions of
fiction sufficiently to allow readers to take pleasure in novels that
were explicitly untrue.
-- Adam Kirsch.
"Lie to Me: Fiction in the Post-Truth Era"
New York Times (Jan. 15, 2017)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/books/lie-to-me-fiction-in-the-post-truth-era.html