This study is concerned with the identification and the description of the limits, patterns and forms of a particular genre of fiction, the 'Kunstlerroman', or novel of the artist, through a comparison among texts from some of the main European literatures. After a preliminary survey of the origin and 'story’ of the genre 'Kunstlerroman', the thesis proceeds with a section devoted to a distinction between the genre in question and all the other genres which constitute 'borderline cases'. Once the 'area' of the 'Kunstlerroman' has been defined, its content patterns are analyzed in detail according to the stages in the life of the artist-hero. The structure of the genre is then described in its various components (chronology, narrator, plot) and the special case of double - or indeed triple - versions of the same novel is taken into consideration. A separate section is devoted to the female 'Kunstlerroman', after a brief panorama of the female narrative tradition, in order to point out the similarities and the differences with the prevailing male prototype. A 'hard' history of the 'Kunstlerroman' is then attempted, through a short, indicative survey of the possible interrelations - in the form of influence, personal knowledge, friendships, correspondences, positive or negative comments, and so on - among some of the authors here considered - who are simply representative and certainly not exhaustive examples of this tradition. Different paths bring different authors to experiment with the same literary genre. There may be autobiographical reasons - writing about someone like yourself, who has had the same experiences and disillusions can have a liberating effect. On the other hand, there may be didactic reasons - showing errors and misjudgements can prevent their happening to someone else. The 'Kunstlerroman'-author may also intend to make a statement about the predicament of the modern artist through the description of the problems and experiences of his own artist-hero. But it is interesting and thought-provoking to see how apparently unrelated authors may have known, read or thought about each other, or may have had at least the same motivation and the same problematic, characteristic of the Kunstlerroman genre, thus contributing to the coherence and duration of the genre itself. Finally, one must consider the changes brought in the aesthetics of the 'Kunstlerroman' by historical, political, and, above all, social developments. If this novel originated as a 'subgenre’ of the 'Bildungsroman' in eighteenth century Germany, it is also true that it spread in the rest of Europe - with obvious changes - during the ninenteenth and the twentieth century. In this regard, it is interesting and fruitful to examine the import of the personality of Richard Wagner and the consequences of Wagnerism, as well as moderns like John Barth, Malcolm Lowry or other authors - so as to see how the 'Kunstlerroman' has changed with the times, and to suggest its possible survival in present day fiction.