Historical novel
Encyclopedia
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is
's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms
, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.
The historical novel was further popularized in the 19th century by writers classified as Romantics
. Many regard Sir Walter Scott as the first to write historical novels. Georg Lukacs, in his The Historical Novel, argues that Scotts is the first fiction writer who saw history not just as a convenient frame in which to stage a contemporary narrative, but rather as a distinct social and cultural setting. His novels of Scottish history
such as Waverley
(1814) and Rob Roy
(1818) focus upon a middling character who sits at the intersection of various social groups in order to explore the development of society through conflict. His Ivanhoe
(1820) gains credit for renewing interest in the Middle Ages
. Victor Hugo
's The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1831) furnishes another 19th century example of the romantic-historical novel as does Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
. In the United States, James Fenimore Cooper
was a prominent author of historical novels. In French literature, the most prominent inheritor of Scott's style of the historical novel was Balzac.
Though the genre has evolved since its inception, the historical novel remains popular with authors and readers to this day; bestsellers include Patrick O'Brian
's Aubrey–Maturin series
, Ken Follett
's Pillars of the Earth, and Neal Stephenson
's Baroque Cycle. A striking development in British/Irish writing in the past 25 years has been the renewed interest in the First World War. Works include William Boyd
's An Ice-Cream War
; Sebastian Faulks
' Birdsong
and The Girl at the Lion d'Or
(concerned with the War's consequences); Pat Barker
's Regeneration Trilogy
and Sebastian Barry
's A Long Long Way
.
of France
, leading to the establishment of the Monuments historiques, the French governmental authority for historic preservation
.
The genre of the historical novel has also permitted some authors, such as the Polish
novelist Bolesław Prus in his sole historical novel, Pharaoh, to distance themselves from their own time and place to gain perspective
on society
and on the human condition
, or to escape the depredations of the censor
.
In some historical novels, major historic events take place mostly off-stage, while the fictional characters inhabit the world where those events occur. Robert Louis Stevenson
's Kidnapped recounts mostly private adventures set against the backdrop of the Jacobite
troubles in Scotland
. Charles Dickens
's Barnaby Rudge
is set amid the Gordon Riots
, and A Tale of Two Cities
in the French Revolution
.
In some works, the accuracy of the historical elements has been questioned, as in Alexandre Dumas
' Queen Margot. Postmodern novelists such as John Barth
and Thomas Pynchon
operate with even more freedom, mixing historical characters and settings with invented history and fantasy, as in the novels The Sot-Weed Factor
and Mason & Dixon
respectively. A few writers create historical fiction without fictional characters. One example is I, Claudius
, by 20th century writer Robert Graves
; another is the Masters of Rome
series by Colleen McCullough
.
Time scales in historical novels vary widely. While many focus on a particular event or series of events, writers like James A. Michener
and Edward Rutherfurd
employ generations of fictional characters to tell tales that stretch for hundreds or thousands of years. Others, like McCullough
and Gore Vidal
, compose a chronological series of linked novels.
Some writers postulate an alternative to accepted historical presumptions. In I, Claudius
, by 20th century writer Robert Graves
, the Roman Emperor Claudius
, until then commonly regarded as inept by historians, is presented in a more sympathetic light. Mary Renault
's novels of ancient Greece, such as The Last of the Wine
, implied suggestions of tolerance for homosexuality. Gore Vidal
's novels about American history, including Burr
and 1876, included iconoclastic and cynical insights about the nature of political processes and American history. Historical fiction can also serve satirical purposes
. An example is George MacDonald Fraser
's tales of the dashing cad, poltroon
, and bounder Sir Harry Paget Flashman
.
Another relatively recent trend is genre mixing; creating hyphenated sub-categories like the historical-mystery novels of Iain Pears
and David Liss
(some might argue that the venerable Sherlock Holmes
stories created this mix), and the historical-thrillers of Dan Brown
. The science fiction genre also contains a couple of historical sub-genres; alternate history such as Robert Silverberg's Roma Eterna
, and time travel with historical settings, such as the "Company" stories of Kage Baker
.
. A series of novels by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
on the history of Poland popularized the country's history after it had lost its independence in the Partitions of Poland
. Subsequently the Polish
winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in literature
, Henryk Sienkiewicz
, wrote several immensely popular novels set in conflicts between the Poles and predatory Teutonic Knights
, rebelling Cossack
s and invading Swedes
. (He also penned a once popular novel about Nero's Rome and the early Christians, Quo Vadis
, which has been filmed several times.)
Scott's Waverley novels ignited interest in Scottish
history and still illuminate it. Sigrid Undset
's Kristin Lavransdatter
fulfilled a similar function for Norwegian history
; Undset later won a Nobel Prize for Literature (1928).
literary critic, essayist, and social theorist György Lukács wrote extensively on the aesthetic and political significance of the historical novel. In 1937's der historische Roman, published originally in Russian, Lukács developed critical readings of several historical novels by authors including Keller, Dickens, and Flaubert. For him, the advent of the "genuinely" historical novel at the beginning of the 19th century is to be read in terms of two developments, or processes. First, the development of a specific genre in a specific medium: the development of the historical novel's unique stylistic and narrative elements. Secondly, the development of a representative, organic artwork capable of capturing the fractures, contradictions, and problems of the particular productive mode of its time [i.e. developing, early, entrenched capitalism].
Development
An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó GuànzhōngLuo Guanzhong
Luo Ben , better known by his style name Luo Guanzhong , was a Chinese writer of the early Ming Dynasty period of Chinese history. He was also known as Huhai Sanren...
's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based on the events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in...
, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.
The historical novel was further popularized in the 19th century by writers classified as Romantics
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. Many regard Sir Walter Scott as the first to write historical novels. Georg Lukacs, in his The Historical Novel, argues that Scotts is the first fiction writer who saw history not just as a convenient frame in which to stage a contemporary narrative, but rather as a distinct social and cultural setting. His novels of Scottish history
History of Scotland
The history of Scotland begins around 10,000 years ago, when humans first began to inhabit what is now Scotland after the end of the Devensian glaciation, the last ice age...
such as Waverley
Waverley (novel)
Waverley is an 1814 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. Initially published anonymously in 1814 as Scott's first venture into prose fiction, Waverley is often regarded as the first historical novel. It became so popular that Scott's later novels were advertised as being "by the author of...
(1814) and Rob Roy
Rob Roy (novel)
Rob Roy is a historical novel by Walter Scott. It is narrated by Frank Osbaldistone, the son of an English merchant who travels first to the North of England, and subsequently to the Scottish Highlands to collect a debt stolen from his father. On the way he encounters the larger-than-life title...
(1818) focus upon a middling character who sits at the intersection of various social groups in order to explore the development of society through conflict. His Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe is a historical fiction novel by Sir Walter Scott in 1819, and set in 12th-century England. Ivanhoe is sometimes credited for increasing interest in Romanticism and Medievalism; John Henry Newman claimed Scott "had first turned men's minds in the direction of the middle ages," while...
(1820) gains credit for renewing interest in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1831. The French title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is centered.-Background:...
(1831) furnishes another 19th century example of the romantic-historical novel as does Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...
. In the United States, James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
was a prominent author of historical novels. In French literature, the most prominent inheritor of Scott's style of the historical novel was Balzac.
Though the genre has evolved since its inception, the historical novel remains popular with authors and readers to this day; bestsellers include Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE , born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centred on the friendship of English Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen...
's Aubrey–Maturin series
Aubrey–Maturin series
The Aubrey–Maturin series is a sequence of nautical historical novels—20 completed and one unfinished—by Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also a physician,...
, Ken Follett
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...
's Pillars of the Earth, and Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's Baroque Cycle. A striking development in British/Irish writing in the past 25 years has been the renewed interest in the First World War. Works include William Boyd
William Boyd (writer)
William Boyd, CBE is a Scottish novelist and screenwriter.-Biography:Of Scottish descent, Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria, in Africa...
's An Ice-Cream War
An Ice-Cream War
An Ice-Cream War is a darkly comic war novel by Scottish author William Boyd, which was nominated for a Booker Prize in the year of its publication.- Synopsis :...
; Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks
-Early life:Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire to Peter Faulks and Pamela . Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks, is his older brother. He was educated at Elstree School, Reading and went on to Wellington College, Berkshire...
' Birdsong
Birdsong (novel)
Birdsong is a 1993 war novel by the English author Sebastian Faulks. Faulks' fourth novel, it tells of a man called Stephen Wraysford at different stages of his life both before and during World War I...
and The Girl at the Lion d'Or
The Girl at the Lion D'or
The Girl at the Lion d'Or by Sebastian Faulks, was the author's second novel. Set in the tiny French village of Janvilliers in 1936. Together with Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, it makes up Faulks' France Trilogy...
(concerned with the War's consequences); Pat Barker
Pat Barker
Pat Barker CBE, FRSL is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres around themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken.-Personal life:...
's Regeneration Trilogy
Regeneration Trilogy
The Regeneration Trilogy is a series of three novels by Pat Barker on the subject of the First World War.* Regeneration * The Eye in the Door * The Ghost Road...
and Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He has been shortlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and has won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year....
's A Long Long Way
A Long Long Way
A Long Long Way is a novel by Irish author Sebastian Barry set during the First World War. The protagonist Willie Dunne leaves Dublin to fight for the Allies as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers...
.
Style and themes
Many early historical novels played an important role in the rise of European popular interest in the history of the Middle Ages. Hugo's Hunchback often receives credit for fueling the movement to preserve the Gothic architectureGothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, leading to the establishment of the Monuments historiques, the French governmental authority for historic preservation
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
.
The genre of the historical novel has also permitted some authors, such as the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
novelist Bolesław Prus in his sole historical novel, Pharaoh, to distance themselves from their own time and place to gain perspective
Perspective (cognitive)
Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another...
on society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
and on the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
, or to escape the depredations of the censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
.
In some historical novels, major historic events take place mostly off-stage, while the fictional characters inhabit the world where those events occur. Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
's Kidnapped recounts mostly private adventures set against the backdrop of the Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
troubles in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
's Barnaby Rudge
Barnaby Rudge
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was one of two novels that Dickens published in his short-lived weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock...
is set amid the Gordon Riots
Gordon Riots
The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists Act 1778.The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and...
, and A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
in the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
.
In some works, the accuracy of the historical elements has been questioned, as in Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
' Queen Margot. Postmodern novelists such as John Barth
John Barth
John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...
and Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
operate with even more freedom, mixing historical characters and settings with invented history and fantasy, as in the novels The Sot-Weed Factor
The Sot-Weed Factor
The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth, which marks Barth's discovery of Postmodernism.-Plot:The novel is a satirical epic of the colonization of Maryland based on the life of an actual poet, Ebenezer Cooke, who wrote a poem of the same title...
and Mason & Dixon
Mason & Dixon
Mason & Dixon is a postmodernist novel by American author Thomas Pynchon published in 1997. It centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in their astronomical and surveying exploits in Cape Colony, Saint Helena, Great Britain and along the Mason-Dixon line in...
respectively. A few writers create historical fiction without fictional characters. One example is I, Claudius
I, Claudius
I, Claudius is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. As such, it includes history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41...
, by 20th century writer Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
; another is the Masters of Rome
Masters of Rome
Masters of Rome is a series of historical fiction novels by author Colleen McCullough set in ancient Rome during the last days of the old Roman Republic; it primarily chronicles the lives and careers of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Pompeius Magnus, Gaius Julius Caesar, and the early...
series by Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
.
Time scales in historical novels vary widely. While many focus on a particular event or series of events, writers like James A. Michener
James A. Michener
James Albert Michener was an American author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which were sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating historical facts into the stories...
and Edward Rutherfurd
Edward Rutherfurd
Edward Rutherfurd is a pen name for Francis Edward Wintle known primarily as a writer of epic historical novels...
employ generations of fictional characters to tell tales that stretch for hundreds or thousands of years. Others, like McCullough
Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
and Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, compose a chronological series of linked novels.
Some writers postulate an alternative to accepted historical presumptions. In I, Claudius
I, Claudius
I, Claudius is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. As such, it includes history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41...
, by 20th century writer Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, the Roman Emperor Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
, until then commonly regarded as inept by historians, is presented in a more sympathetic light. Mary Renault
Mary Renault
Mary Renault born Eileen Mary Challans, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece...
's novels of ancient Greece, such as The Last of the Wine
The Last of the Wine
The Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in Ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme...
, implied suggestions of tolerance for homosexuality. Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
's novels about American history, including Burr
Burr (novel)
Burr , by Gore Vidal, is a historical novel challenging the traditional iconography of United States history via narrative and a fictional memoir of Aaron Burr. Burr was variously the third US vice president, a US Army officer in and combat veteran of the Revolutionary War, a lawyer and a U.S....
and 1876, included iconoclastic and cynical insights about the nature of political processes and American history. Historical fiction can also serve satirical purposes
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
. An example is George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
's tales of the dashing cad, poltroon
Poltroon
Poltroon was a successful event horse ridden by American rider Torrance Watkins.* Color: pinto* Height: 15.1 hh* Sex: mare* Rider: Torrance Watkins* Breeder: Susie Beckman* Owner: The Marra Family...
, and bounder Sir Harry Paget Flashman
Harry Paget Flashman
Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser , but based on the character "Flashman" in Tom Brown's Schooldays , a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes ....
.
Another relatively recent trend is genre mixing; creating hyphenated sub-categories like the historical-mystery novels of Iain Pears
Iain Pears
Iain Pears is an English art historian, novelist and journalist. He was educated at Warwick School, Warwick, Wadham College and Wolfson College, Oxford. Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 and ZDF and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and...
and David Liss
David Liss
David Liss is an American writer of novels, essays and short fiction; more recently working also in comic books. He was born in New Jersey and grew up in South Florida. Liss received his B. A. degree from Syracuse University, an M. A. from Georgia State University and his M. Phil from Columbia...
(some might argue that the venerable Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
stories created this mix), and the historical-thrillers of Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
. The science fiction genre also contains a couple of historical sub-genres; alternate history such as Robert Silverberg's Roma Eterna
Roma Eterna
Roma Eterna is a 2003 novel by Robert Silverberg which presents an alternate history in which the Roman Empire survives to the present day.-Plot introduction:...
, and time travel with historical settings, such as the "Company" stories of Kage Baker
Kage Baker
Kage Baker was an American science fiction and fantasy writer.- Biography :Baker was born in Hollywood, California and lived there and in Pismo Beach most of her life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language...
.
Connection to nationalism
Historical fiction sometimes served to encourage movements of romantic nationalismRomantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
. A series of novels by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish writer, historian and journalist who produced more than 200 novels and 150 novellas, short stories, and art reviews He is best known for his epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine novels in seventy-nine parts.As a novelist writing about...
on the history of Poland popularized the country's history after it had lost its independence in the Partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
. Subsequently the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. A Polish szlachcic of the Oszyk coat of arms, he was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his...
, wrote several immensely popular novels set in conflicts between the Poles and predatory Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
, rebelling Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
s and invading Swedes
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. (He also penned a once popular novel about Nero's Rome and the early Christians, Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis (novel)
Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, commonly known as Quo Vadis, is a historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Polish. Quo vadis is Latin for "Where are you going?" and alludes to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, in which Peter flees Rome but on his way meets Jesus and asks him why he...
, which has been filmed several times.)
Scott's Waverley novels ignited interest in Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
history and still illuminate it. Sigrid Undset
Sigrid Undset
Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.-Biography:Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924, she converted to Catholicism and became a lay Dominican...
's Kristin Lavransdatter
Kristin Lavransdatter
Kristin Lavransdatter is the common name for a trilogy of historical novels written by Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset. The individual novels are Kransen , first published in 1920, Husfrue , published in 1921, and Korset , published in 1922...
fulfilled a similar function for Norwegian history
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
; Undset later won a Nobel Prize for Literature (1928).
Authors of the past
- Stephen CraneStephen CraneStephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
- G. A. HentyG. A. HentyGeorge Alfred Henty , was a prolific English novelist and a special correspondent. He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His works include Out on the Pampas , The Young Buglers , With Clive in India and Wulf the Saxon .-Biography:G.A...
- Rosemary SutcliffRosemary SutcliffRosemary Sutcliff CBE was a British novelist, and writer for children, best known as a writer of historical fiction and children's literature. Although she was primarily a children's author, the quality and depth of her writing also appeals to adults; Sutcliff herself once commented that she wrote...
- Mika WaltariMika WaltariMika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian .- Early life :...
- General Lew WallaceLew WallaceLewis "Lew" Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, territorial governor and statesman, politician and author...
Living authors
- Ann RinaldiAnn RinaldiAnn Rinaldi is an American young-adult fiction author. She is best known for her historical fiction, including In My Father's House, The Last Silk Dress, An Acquaintance with Darkness, A Break with Charity, and Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons...
, writing YAYoung adult literatureYoung-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
historical fiction (Time Enough For Drums, A Break with Charity). She writes usually with female protagonists in the first person, set in Colonial - Civil War era America or World War I era. Critically acclaimed and admired. - Mark Turnbull, author of Decision Most Deadly, a novel set in London during 1641, as England plunged into civil war.
- Writing as "William Irish", Cornell WoolrichCornell WoolrichCornell George Hopley-Woolrich was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley....
published Waltz into Darkness (1947), set in 1880 New Orleans. Interestingly, both film versions — François TruffautFrançois TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's La sirène du (Mississippi MermaidMississippi MermaidMississippi Mermaid is a French film directed by François Truffaut. The film is adapted from the 1947 William Irish novel Waltz into Darkness. The film features Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, and others. The film was the 17th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,221,027...
, 1969) and Michael CristoferMichael CristoferMichael Ivan Cristofer is an American playwright, filmmaker and actor. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Shadow Box in 1977....
's Original Sin (2001) — place the action at a later time (and elsewhere). - George LeonardosGeorge Leonardos- Early life :Son of Anastase and Maria, Leonardos was born in Alexandria, Egypt on 20 February 1937. His father died when he was two years old and he lived with his mother in Alexandria until 1954. He was an avid reader of fiction and history, and as a high school student in Alexandria had his...
Author of historical Novels, such the trilogy for the Byzantine The Palaeologian Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of ByzantiumThe Palaeologian Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of ByzantiumThe Palaeologian Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of Byzantium is a trilogy novel describing the last dynasty of Byzantium, written by Greek author George Leonardos. For this trilogy the author was awarded with the highest State Literature Award 2008. The trilogy is wrapped up with the historical novel...
, "Mara, The Christian Sultana", the stepmother of Mehmed IIMehmed IIMehmed II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from...
the Conqueror, "Barbarossa the Pirate", "The Sleeping Beauty of MystrasMystrasMystras is a fortified town and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Sparti, of which it is a municipal unit. Situated on Mt...
etc. - Borislav PekicBorislav PekicBorislav Pekić was a Serbian writer. He was born in 1930, to a prominent family in Montenegro, at that time part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1945 until his immigration to London in 1971, he lived in Belgrade...
's novels are recognized as unusually deeply researched historical novels, taking place in Medieval and Early Modern Europe as well as several during WWII, most notably in his acclaimed, How to Quite a Vampire. His 7 volume masterpiece, "The Golden Fleece" is a family saga through which European History is uniquely examined from its birth in Homeric Greece right up to Hitler's Third Reich. - Linda ProudLinda ProudLinda Helena Proud is an English writer on cultural and philosophical themes, including The Botticelli Trilogy – three novels set in Renaissance Florence.- Biography :...
has been acclaimed for the depth of her research in recreating Renaissance Florence, particularly the philosophical currents that informed the work of Botticelli, in A Tabernacle for the Sun, Pallas and the Centaur and The Rebirth of Venus. http://www.lindaproud.com/ - Albert A. Bell, Jr. writes mysteries set in the Roman Empire with Pliny the younger as sleuth and Tacitus as sidekick. See All Roads Lead to Murder. http://www.albertbell.com/
- T.C. Boyle's The Road to WellvilleThe Road to WellvilleThe Road to Wellville is a 1993 novel by American author T. Coraghessan Boyle. Set in Battle Creek, Michigan during the early days of breakfast cereals, the story includes a historical fictionalization of John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes....
(1993), set in 1907, tells the story of Dr. John Harvey KelloggJohn Harvey KelloggJohn Harvey Kellogg was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism and is best known for the invention of the corn flakes breakfast cereal...
, inventor of cornflakes, and his Battle Creek SanitariumBattle Creek, MichiganBattle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...
. - Colleen McCulloughColleen McCulloughColleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
has written the famous Masters of Rome series, which deals with the end of the great Roman Republic and great personalities like Caesar, Gaius Marius and Sulla. - John JakesJohn JakesJohn William Jakes is an American writer, best known for American historical fiction.-Early life and education:...
has written the best-selling North and South Trilogy on the life and times of members of two families during the American Civil war and also The Kent Family Chronicles. - Gillian BradshawGillian BradshawGillian Marucha Bradshaw is an American writer of historical fiction, historical fantasy, children's literature, science fiction, and contemporary science-based novels, who currently lives in Britain...
, a classical scholar, writes historical fiction set in Ancient EgyptAncient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Ancient GreeceAncient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, the Duchy of Brittany, the Byzantine EmpireByzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, SakaSakaThe Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....
and the Greco-Bactrian KingdomGreco-Bactrian KingdomThe Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC...
, Imperial Rome, Sub-Roman BritainSub-Roman BritainSub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...
and Roman BritainRoman BritainRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
. - Kazuo IshiguroKazuo IshiguroKazuo Ishiguro OBE or ; born 8 November 1954) is a Japanese–English novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing...
's novel The Remains of the DayThe Remains of the DayThe Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's third published novel. One of the most highly-regarded post-war British novels, the work was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989...
(1989), set in 1956, explains in flashbacks the dubious history of (fictitious) 1930s1930sFile:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
Darlington Hall and its association with Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. - Patrick RedmondPatrick RedmondPatrick Redmond is an English author of psychological thrillers; typical themes include insanity, secrets and death. Before becoming a writer, he went to Felsted School,then studied law at Leicester University and British Columbia in Vancouver, and worked for eight years as a solicitor in...
's The Wishing GameThe Wishing GameThe Wishing Game is a psychological suspense novel by Patrick Redmond. It is set in a boarding school for boys in 1950s Norfolk. It deals with bullying, secrets, supernatural phenomena, and homosexuality.-Synopsis:...
(1999) provides a thrilling depiction of life in a strict and uncanny boarding schoolBoarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
in 1950s1950sThe 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...
rural NorfolkNorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, England. - Julie MyersonJulie MyersonJulie Myerson is an English author and critic. As well as writing both fiction and non-fiction books, she is also known for having written a long-running column in The Guardian entitled "Living with Teenagers" based on her own family experiences...
's novel Laura BlundyLaura BlundyLaura Blundy is a historical novel by Julie Myerson set in Victorian London. It is the story of a woman whose life takes a turn for the worse.-Plot summary:...
(2000) is set in Victorian LondonVictoria of the United KingdomVictoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
. - Bernard CornwellBernard CornwellBernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...
is one of today's best-known historical novelists, with his SharpeRichard Sharpe (fictional character)Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....
and The Warlord ChroniclesThe Warlord ChroniclesThe Warlord Chronicles is a trilogy of books about Arthurian Britain written by Bernard Cornwell...
. - Conn IgguldenConn IgguldenConn Iggulden is a British author who mainly writes historical fiction. He also co-authored The Dangerous Book for Boys.-Background:...
is also a well known historical-fiction author of the widely acclaimed Emperor series, The Conqueror series and the Dangerous Book for Boys, although it should be noted that the Emperor series is best known for its gross historical inaccuracies. - Jonathan CoeJonathan CoeJonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name...
's novel The Rotters' Club (2001) evokes 1970s1970sFile:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
Britain. - Cecelia HollandCecelia Holland-Biography:She was born December 31, 1943 in Henderson, Nevada, and began writing at the age of twelve, recording the stories she made up for her own entertainment. From the beginning, her focus was on history because "being twelve, I had precious few stories of my own...
has written over twenty novels set in various parts of Europe, Asia and the United States in many periods. - The bulk of Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
's novels have historical settings, including BurrBurr (novel)Burr , by Gore Vidal, is a historical novel challenging the traditional iconography of United States history via narrative and a fictional memoir of Aaron Burr. Burr was variously the third US vice president, a US Army officer in and combat veteran of the Revolutionary War, a lawyer and a U.S....
, which has gained a wider readership than any biography of Aaron BurrAaron BurrAaron Burr, Jr. was an important political figure in the early history of the United States of America. After serving as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, Burr became a successful lawyer and politician...
. - Neal StephensonNeal StephensonNeal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's series The Baroque CycleThe Baroque CycleThe Baroque Cycle is a series of novels by American writer Neal Stephenson. It was published in three volumes containing 8 books in 2003 and 2004. The story follows the adventures of a sizeable cast of characters living amidst some of the central events of the late 17th and early 18th centuries in...
(QuicksilverQuicksilver (novel)Quicksilver is a historical novel by Neal Stephenson, published in 2003. It is the first volume of The Baroque Cycle, his late Baroque historical fiction series, succeeded by The Confusion and The System of the World . Quicksilver won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the Locus...
, The ConfusionThe ConfusionThe Confusion is a novel by Neal Stephenson. It is the second volume in The Baroque Cycle and consists of two sections or books, Bonanza and The Juncto. In 2005, The Confusion won the Locus Award, together with The System of the World....
, and The System of the WorldThe System of the World (novel)The System of the World, a novel by Neal Stephenson, is the third and final volume in The Baroque Cycle.The title alludes to the third volume of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which bears the same name....
), published in 2003 and 2004, deals with the rise of the scientific worldview and the beginnings of modern capitalism in late 17th and early 18th century EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Cryptonomicron is set in World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. - Iain PearsIain PearsIain Pears is an English art historian, novelist and journalist. He was educated at Warwick School, Warwick, Wadham College and Wolfson College, Oxford. Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 and ZDF and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and...
is the author of several historical novels, including An Instance of the FingerpostAn Instance of the FingerpostAn Instance of the Fingerpost is a 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears.-Synopsis:A murder in 17th-century Oxford is related from the contradictory points of view of four of the characters, all of them unreliable narrators...
and Stone's FallStone's Fall-Synopsis:An aging BBC reporter approaching retirement in 1953, Matthew Braddock is on a farewell tour, visiting the old Paris bureau. Chancing upon a familiar name in the obituary notices, he decides to attend the funeral of an acquaintance he has not seen for many years. After the service, he is...
. - The James Reasoner Civil War SeriesJames Reasoner Civil War SeriesThe American Civil War Battle Series by author James Reasoner is a ten volume series of historical novels about the American Civil War. The series centers on the fictional Brannon family, which resides in Culpeper, Virginia, a village and county in north central Virginia north of the Rapidan River...
is a 10-volume set of historical novels set in Culpeper, Virginia. - Amita KanekarAmita KanekarAmita Kanekar is a Mumbai-based writer, whose well-received debut novel A Spoke in the Wheel was published by Harper Collins Publishers, India. Kanekar teaches comparative mythology at the University of Mumbai. She was born in Goa in 1965. She is currently working on her second novel. She has...
's A Spoke in the Wheel is a novel about the BuddhaGautama BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
and his disciples, that alternates between the time of the Buddha, i.e. about 566 BCE, and the time of Ashoka the Great, i.e. about 250 BCE. - Marianne CurleyMarianne CurleyMarianne Curley, is an Australian author best known for her Guardians of Time Trilogy and Old Magic books.-Life:According to her official biography, Marianne Curley now lives in Coffs Harbour, on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales...
. Her books Old Magic and the Guardians of Time TrilogyGuardians of Time TrilogyThe Guardians of Time Trilogy is a series of novels written by Marianne Curley.The plot of the trilogy consists of the Guardians of Time , trying to protect the past, present, and future by traveling into the past to thwart their enemies, the Order of Chaos , who are trying to change past events to...
all take place partially in the past. - Umberto EcoUmberto EcoUmberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's novels, most notably his most famous, The Name of the RoseThe Name of the RoseThe Name of the Rose is the first novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
, are historical novels, taking place in Medieval or Early Modern Europe. - Marie-Elena JohnMarie-Elena JohnMarie-Elena John is a Caribbean writer whose first novel, Unburnable, was published in 2006. She was born and raised in Antigua and is a former development specialist of the African Development Foundation, the World Council of Churches’ Program to Combat Racism, and Global Rights , where she...
is a Caribbean writer whose debut novel UnburnableUnburnableUnburnable, a novel published in 2006 by HarperCollins/Amistad, was penned by Caribbean writer Marie-Elena John , who spent a career as an Africa Development specialist in New York and Washington, D.C. prior to turning to writing. Unburnable is her debut novel...
gives a slice of social history of the Caribbean, focusing on the African origins of Caribbean culture. - Arturo Pérez-ReverteArturo Pérez-ReverteArturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez is a Spanish novelist and journalist. He worked as a war correspondent for twenty-one years . His first novel, El húsar, set in the Napoleonic Wars, was released in 1986. He is well known outside Spain for his "Alatriste" series of novels...
is the Spanish author of the Captain AlatristeCaptain AlatristeCaptain Alatriste is a series of novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It deals with the adventures of the title character, a Spanish soldier living in the 17th century.-Series:...
novels and other historical novels. - Robert HarrisRobert Harris (novelist)Robert Dennis Harris is an English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC television reporter.-Early life:Born in Nottingham, Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local...
has written four historical novels so far: EnigmaEnigma (novel)Enigma is a novel by Robert Harris about Tom Jericho, a young mathematician trying to break the Germans' "Enigma" ciphers during World War II. It was adapted to film in 2001...
, which is set during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
As well as PompeiiPompeii (novel)Pompeii is a novel by author and journalist Robert Harris published by Random House in 2003. It is a blend of fictional characters with the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 that overwhelmed Pompeii and its surrounding towns. Pompeii is especially notable for the author's...
, ImperiumImperium (novel)Imperium is a 2006 novel by English author Robert Harris. It is a fictional biography of Cicero, told through the first-person narrator of his secretary Tiro, beginning with the prosecution of Verres....
and LustrumLustrumA lustrum was a term for a five-year period in Ancient Rome.The lustration was originally a sacrifice for expiation and purification offered by one of the censors in the name of the Roman people at the close of the taking of the census...
, which are set in Ancient RomeAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
. - Courtney ThomasCourtney ThomasCourtney Elizabeth Thomas, is an American beauty pageant titleholder from the village of Sigel in Eldred Township Pennsylvania who was named Miss Pennsylvania 2010.-Biography:...
's Walls of Phantoms accurately documents the daily news events of 1989 - including providing the historical framework of what lead to these events - in this meticulously wrought epic. - Anurag KumarAnurag KumarProf. Anurag Kumar is currently a professor at the Department of Electrical Communication and the chairman of Electrical Sciences Division at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India. He holds a PhD from Cornell University, obtained after graduating from Dhirubhai Ambani International School....
's Recalcitrance, set in the Great Uprising or Indian Mutiny of 1857 - Michael Goodspeed's Three to a Loaf, a carefully researched and highly readable Canadian spy novel illustrates the societies as well as the lives and attitudes of Allied and German soldiers locked in the cauldron of the Western Front.
- Thomas PynchonThomas PynchonThomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
's three novels Gravity's RainbowGravity's RainbowGravity's Rainbow is a postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest...
, Mason & DixonMason & DixonMason & Dixon is a postmodernist novel by American author Thomas Pynchon published in 1997. It centers on the collaboration of the historical Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in their astronomical and surveying exploits in Cape Colony, Saint Helena, Great Britain and along the Mason-Dixon line in...
and Against the DayAgainst the DayAgainst the Day is a novel by Thomas Pynchon. The narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I and features more than a hundred characters spread across the United States, Europe, Mexico, Central Asia, and "one or two places not strictly...
are historical, and they variously contrast outrageous personal, subjective, hallucinogenic or even supernatural events with very real, well-researched accuracies from the past. - Tim PowersTim PowersTimothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
's novels, or many of them, for example DeclareDeclareDeclare is a supernatural spy novel by Tim Powers. It presents a secret history of the Cold War in which an agent for a secret British spy organization learns the true nature of several beings living on Mount Ararat. In this he is opposed by real-life communist traitor Kim Philby, who did travel...
, are meticulously researched historical novels that slip supernatural elements into aspects of the history. - S.J.A.Turney's 2009 debut, Marius' Mules, based on Julius Caesar's invasion of Gaul, viewed from the perspective of a Legionary commander, along with the 2010 sequel following the campaign against the Belgae.
- Rimi B. ChatterjeeRimi B. ChatterjeeRimi B. Chatterjee is an author based in Kolkata , India. She has published three novels and one academic history which won the SHARP deLong Prize for History of the Book in 2006, as well as a number of translations and short stories. She has been nominated twice for the Vodafone Crossword Book...
, set her second novel The City of LoveThe City of LoveThe City of Love is a novel by Rimi B. Chatterjee set in 16th century Asia against the background of the spice trade, piracy and the rise of various mystical religious cults. It traces the lives of four characters all of whom are in search of spiritual and material fulfilment embodied in the idea...
in 16th century Malaysia, Burma and Bengal and dealt with spice traders, pirates, tantrics and sufis. Parts of her third novel Black Light are set in the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE and the 7th century and the early 20th century CE. - Nerea Riesco set her second novel Ars MagicaArs Magica (Nerea Riesco novel)Ars Magica is the second novel of Spanish author Nerea Riesco, first published on May fourth 2007. Its rights are sold for translation in Italian, German, polish, Portuguese, Russian and Romanian. - Synopsis :...
in Spain's early 17th century. - Richard ZimlerRichard ZimlerRichard Zimler is a best-selling author of fiction. His books, which have earned him a 1994 National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and the 1998 Herodotus Award, have been published in many countries and translated into more than 20 languages...
has an award-winning series of novels about different generations of a Portuguese-Jewish family of manuscript illuminators and kabbalists. The books are entitled The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon (16th-century LisbonLisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
), Hunting Midnight (19th century PortoPortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
and Charleston, South CarolinaCharleston, South CarolinaCharleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
), Guardian of the Dawn (17th-century GoaGoaGoa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
) and The Seventh Gate (BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in the 1930s). He has also written an historical mystery set in the Warsaw GhettoWarsaw GhettoThe Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
in 1940-41 entitled The Warsaw Anagrams. According to the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, "This mystery set in the most infamous Jewish ghetto of World War II deserves a place among the most important works of Holocaust literature." - Julian StockwinJulian StockwinJulian Stockwin is an author of historical action-adventure fiction.-Biography:Born in 1944, Stockwin soon developed a love for the sea...
has an internationally acclaimed series tracing one man's journey from pressed man to Admiral in the Age of Fighting Sail. - Michael Cawood GreenMichael Cawood GreenMichael Cawood Green is a South African born academic and writer.As a researcher he is most noted for his monograph, Novel Histories which explores the uses of history in South African fiction...
's historical fiction about the Trappist mission at Mariannhill, "For the Sake of Silence" has been awarded the 2009 Olive Schreiner prize by the English Academy of South Africa. His academic monograph "Novel Histories" is an exploration of the uses of history in fiction. - Bevis LongstrethBevis LongstrethBevis Longstreth is a retired lawyer and former Commissioner of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission . He is also a writer, having authored two historical novels set in Ancient Persia...
wrote two novels set in the Ancient Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Spindle and Bow (2005), and Return of the Shade (2009), which tells the story of Queen Parysatis (444BC to 384BC) who ruled Ancient Persia. - Jack WhyteJack WhyteJack Whyte is a Scottish-Canadian novelist of historical fiction. Born and raised in Scotland, Whyte has been living in Canada since 1967. He resides in Kelowna, British Columbia....
wrote A Dream of EaglesA Dream of EaglesA Dream of Eagles is a historical novel series written by the Canadian author Jack Whyte. It was published in the United States as the Camulod Chronicles....
during the 1990s and 2000s. Dream of Eagles is a set of novels about the rise of Camelot after the Roman departure from Britain in the late 4th/early 5th century. Whyte also wrote The Templar Trilogy, a set of novels that discusses the foundation, rise, and fall of the Knights TemplarKnights TemplarThe Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders... - Phil Ward, an American Vietnam veteran, is the author of the meticulously researched Raiding Forces SeriesRaiding Forces SeriesThe Raiding Forces Series is a sequence of World War II novels, written by American novelist and Vietnam veteran Phil Ward.- Overview :Phil Ward, a decorated combat veteran and former instructor at the Army Ranger School, makes his literary debut with the release of the Raiding Forces Series...
which is set during the Second World War in Europe. - A.F. Eleazar, wrote the KalangitanKalangitanKalangitan is a Philippine Historical Fiction Novel written by A.F. Eleazar. Its plot revolves around a princess named Dayang Kalangitan that will become Queen Regnant of Namayan,Teunduk,and Bitukang Manok kingdom. It is set in Manila during 1450 A.D...
, set in 1400 A.D a FilipinoFilipino peopleThe Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
writer who also creates Matteok Series. He creates various Historical Fictions.
Theory and criticism
The MarxistMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
literary critic, essayist, and social theorist György Lukács wrote extensively on the aesthetic and political significance of the historical novel. In 1937's der historische Roman, published originally in Russian, Lukács developed critical readings of several historical novels by authors including Keller, Dickens, and Flaubert. For him, the advent of the "genuinely" historical novel at the beginning of the 19th century is to be read in terms of two developments, or processes. First, the development of a specific genre in a specific medium: the development of the historical novel's unique stylistic and narrative elements. Secondly, the development of a representative, organic artwork capable of capturing the fractures, contradictions, and problems of the particular productive mode of its time [i.e. developing, early, entrenched capitalism].
See also
- Georg LukácsGeorg LukácsGyörgy Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the concept of reification to Marxist philosophy and theory and expanded Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. Lukács' was also an influential literary...
- Historical fictionHistorical fictionHistorical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
- List of historical novelists
- List of historical novels
- Historical whodunnitHistorical whodunnitThe historical whodunnit is a sub-genre of historical fiction which bears elements of the classical mystery novel, in which the central plot involves a crime and the setting has some historical significance. One of the big areas of debate within the community of fans is what makes a given setting...
- Historical romanceHistorical romanceHistorical romance is a subgenre of two literary genres, the romance novel and the historical novel.-Definition:Historical romance is set before World War II...
- Family sagaFamily sagaThe family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time...
- Middle Ages in history
- Alternate history
- Historical fantasyHistorical fantasyHistorical fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy and related to historical fiction, which makes use of specific elements of real world history. It is used as an umbrella term for the sword and sorcery genre and sometimes, if fantasy is involved, the sword-and-sandal genre too...
- Walter Scott PrizeWalter Scott PrizeThe Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction is a British literary award founded in 2010. At £25,000 it is one of the largest literary awards in the UK...
External links
- Audio Archives from Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth: 2009 Key West Literary Seminar (accessed 08-2010)
- The Historical Novel Society (accessed 08-2010) - An international organization for historical fiction writers and readers
- HistFiction.net (accessed 08-2010) - A comprehensive list of historical novelists
- A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales (1902). Project Gutenberg etext (accessed 08-2010)
- A selection of historical novels set by epoch and author. (accessed 08-2010)
- An annotated list of historical novels for children and teens Anchorage Public Library (accessed 08-2010)