By point of view chapters, I mean like Game of Thrones where each chapter is introduced with someone’s name. I’ve seen various writers do this over the years–Anne Rice does it in her “Beauty” series, for example–but the earliest I can think of this technique being used is in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.
Did Faulkner originate it the POV chapter then, or has this brand of narration actually been around a long time? I suppose in certain ways The Canterbury Tales could be seen as point of view chapters, but I think Chaucer is doing something inherently different.
Wilkie Collins did it in The Woman in White from 1859. The sections are:
First Epoch
THE STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
THE STORY CONTINUED BY VINCENT GILMORE
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE
Second Epoch
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE.
THE STORY CONTINUED BY FREDERICK FAIRLIE, ESQ.
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ELIZA MICHELSON
THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL NARRATIVES
1. THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER PINHORN
2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR
3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD
4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE
5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT
Third Epoch
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MRS. CATHERICK
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE FOSCO
THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT