A number of prose writers, who originally came from rural backgrounds, developed their work in this period.

Many excelled as short story writers and wrote in the genre of folkloric realism (ethography). They used popular language, which had not yet acquired scholarly overtones. This was the type used by Palamas and his followers: Christos Christovasilis from Epirus, Spilios Pasayannis from the Peloponnese, Ioannis Kondylakis from Crete, Yannis Vlachoyannis from Naupactus, Antonis Travlantonis from Misolonghi, Stefanos Granitsas from Roumeli, Pavlos Nirvanas and Andreas Karkavitsas.

Grigorios Xenopoulos (1867-1951, a writer widely acknowledged by the public, passed from the short story to the novel, while at the same time abandoning the environment of Zakynthos for the petit bourgeois milieu of Athens. He produced some of his most well-known works in this period: Plousioi kai Ftohoi (The Rich and the Poor), 1919; Timioi kai atimoi (The Honest and the Dishonest), 1922; Ticheroi kai atychoi (The Lucky and the Unlucky), 1924.

The writings of Konstantinos Christomanos (1867-1911) were influenced by European movements, his work belonging to the Symbolist tradition. Among his works are To Vivlio tis aftokrateiras Elisavet (The Book of Empress Elizabeth), 1907, and the novel Kerenia koukla (The Wax Doll), 1911, in which a daring realism, sensitivity and intense suggestion in rendering the environment and the psychological mood of his heroes prevail.

Around 1900 Dimosthenis Voutyras made his appearance in the field of folkloric realism (ethography) (1871-1958).

Voutyras transposed folkloric realism from the village to the shabby and suffocating quarters of the modern city, his heroes being unfortunate proletarians, frequenters of wine-shops, often having struck hard times. The atmosphere of his novels influenced many of the prose writers of the 1920s, a period in which Voutyras continued to write successfully.

Socialist ideas, social criticism and an interest in the life of the underprivileged inspired Kostas Paroritis in his (O kokkinos tragos, (The Red Buck), 1924. The social prose of Dionysios Kokkinos, which shows the influence of Zola's naturalism, describes the life of the petit bourgeois.