The very first recorded literary works in history were fantasy: Homer's Odyssey，The Book of a Thousand nights and a Night and countless others.Modern literature forms are based on them.
Fantasy is particularly the only form of literature that has no clear boundaries between adult fiction and children's fiction.Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, for instance, were published over 100 years ago.The books were in fact written for a child—the original Alice, who was the daughter of a friend of Carroll's.However, they are just as often read by adults looking for an escape back to a simple time.A more modern example is J．K.Rowling's Harry Potter series, which have caused a revolution in the publishing world.While these again are aimed at a youth market，they have become a fashion for people of all ages.
Recently, fantasy has enjoyed popularity，the main reason for the popularity is the success of The Lord of the Rings series of films.Fantasy novel sales have benefited from social change，with the original The Lord of the Rings novels，the Harry Potter series becoming a force on bestseller lists.Even more recently，a work of historical fantasy，Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, has caught the imagination of the world.The novel was on top of The New York Times' hardcover fiction bestseller list on April 11，2005.It is clear that fantasy is showing no signs of reducing in popularity.
[阅读障碍词]
1．boundary n． 边界
2．popularity n. 流行
3．hardcover adj. 精装的
