Short answers, pulled from the story.
Literature is any collection of written work. The term is also used more narrowly for writings considered an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems, and in recent centuries has expanded to include oral literature.
The word literature derives from the Latin litteratura, meaning learning, writing, and grammar, originally writing formed with letters. It comes from littera, meaning a letter.
Ancient Egyptian literature and Sumerian literature are considered the world's oldest literatures. The primary genres of ancient Egyptian literature were written almost entirely in verse.
Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe around 1450, making books less expensive to produce and more widely available. The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng had made movable type of earthenware around 1045, and Koreans invented metal type movable printing around 1230.
Selma Lagerlof, who lived from 1858 to 1940, was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1909. She was also the first woman granted membership in The Swedish Academy, in 1914.
James Joyce's novel Ulysses was banned in the United States from 1921 until 1933 on the grounds of obscenity. Vladimir Nabokov called it a divine work of art and the greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose, and it is now a central literary text in English courses worldwide.