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The Historical Novel
The historical novel is an enduringly popular genre that raises crucial questions about key literary concepts, fact and fiction, identity, history, reading, and writing. In this comprehensive, focused guide, Jerome de Groot offers an accessible introduction to the genre and critical debates that surround it,
the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fictiondifferent genres, such as sensational or ‘low’ fiction, crime novels, literary works, counterfactual writing and related issues of audience, value, and authenticitythe many functions of historical fiction, particularly the challenges it poses to accepted histories and postmodern questioning of ‘grand narratives’the relationship of the historical novel to the wider cultural sphere with reference to historical theory, the internet, television, and filmkey theoretical concepts such as the authentic fallacy, postcolonialism, Marxism, queer and feminist reading.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from across the centuries and around the globe The Historical Novel is essential reading for students exploring the interface of history and fiction.
the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fictiondifferent genres, such as sensational or ‘low’ fiction, crime novels, literary works, counterfactual writing and related issues of audience, value, and authenticitythe many functions of historical fiction, particularly the challenges it poses to accepted histories and postmodern questioning of ‘grand narratives’the relationship of the historical novel to the wider cultural sphere with reference to historical theory, the internet, television, and filmkey theoretical concepts such as the authentic fallacy, postcolonialism, Marxism, queer and feminist reading.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from across the centuries and around the globe The Historical Novel is essential reading for students exploring the interface of history and fiction.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 8, 2017
As a fan of historical fiction I was a little bit nervous about reading this book. Again, this was a book that I wanted to read to prepare me for analyzing the main text of my dissertation - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is classified more as English literature compared to historical fiction but it does have a few of the elements. The book itself is sectioned off into various topics including: European novels, specific genres like crime and war etc., novels for men versus for women and much more. I actually really enjoyed this book, especially reading up on the different genres of historical novels as well as the gender specific ones. Essentially the author spends some time really exploring why men are geared toward one type of historical novel (hero-types featuring war, crime and adventure) whereas women are geared toward a different type (heroine-types featuring romance, domestic etc.). I personally love Jerome de Groot's writing style and the way he really explores his subjects. If I had to pick something I disliked or wanted to warn other readers on is that its very European specific. It doesn't subtract from the content but it is something to keep in mind. I would definitely recommend this to anyone working on an essay on the topic or anyone interested in target market breakdowns and historical fiction in general.
May 26, 2022
It took me a long while to finish this scholarly examination of historical fiction. It starts with the works of Sir Walter Scott, positing that his Waverly novels are the first historical fiction (I'm not sure I agree with this, given that The Recess was published in 1786 and Waverly in 1814, but I digress).
Anyway, this text begins with Scott and into modern times, even examining what the author calls "counterfactual" or alternate history (e.g., Harry Turtledove's Ruled Brittania). The book is, given its purpose as a textbook, often fairly pedantic. Still, it's an excellent survey of the genre.
Anyway, this text begins with Scott and into modern times, even examining what the author calls "counterfactual" or alternate history (e.g., Harry Turtledove's Ruled Brittania). The book is, given its purpose as a textbook, often fairly pedantic. Still, it's an excellent survey of the genre.
May 14, 2026
This book is a literary study, including literary criticism and theory. Its audience includes the serious student or individual willing to understand the past and present of the historical novel within literary studies. As such, many may feel the discussion on theory challenging to read and absorb.
That said, this short book is rich in information.
This book describes the evolution of the historical novel and its place in literature and literary concepts.
The book covers the origins of the historical novel (citing Walter Scotts’s Waverley novels as its origins); the evolution through the 19th and 20th centuries; the motivations of women, men, and children in reading.
Preceded by the Gothic novel, in its early existence it was more aligned with history than with literature. Moreover, some thought it made for educational material.
In its early days, it was often called historical romance and not considered serious literature. This was the province of women. Men’s historical fiction stemmed more from adventure and military stories. “What can be seen with early twentieth-century historical fiction is the bifurcation of historical romance into that for men and that for women; the one concerned with adventure and quest, the other with love and relationships.” (p 79)
“[The discipline of] History is the other, and the present familiar. The historian’s job is often to explain the transition between these states. The historical novelist similarly explores the dissonance and displacement between then and now, making the past recognizable but simultaneously authentically unfamiliar.” (p 3)
Historical novelists concentrate on the pages between factual history and that which is lived, for a variety of purposes.
In addition, historical novels also tend to have accompanying paratext, adding to their authenticity appeal: “footnotes, additions, acknowledgements, bibliographies, author information, maps. From these materials, we can garner a huge amount of information about the text itself, how it is being presented and represented.” (p 63)
A good example of the dissonance innate to the form is the author’s note. It might be the rule of thumb to define the historical novel as something which has an explanatory note from the writer describing their own engagement with the period in question, either through schooling or, more commonly, through their reading and research. (p 3)
The central paradox of historical fiction, the consciously false realist representation of something which can never be known, seems to prefigure the postmodern crisis in historical writing. Indeed, the practices with which this book opened, that the historian’s job is to explain the otherness of the past, whilst the novelist explores the differences of the past, seem to no longer be so distinct. Both the novelist and the historian are using trope, metaphor, prose, and narrative style to interpret and render a version of something which is innately other and unknown. (p113)
During the twentieth century… “the historical novel increasingly becomes a form written and read by women, suggesting that the decline in interest is due to the patriarchal literary history rather than a shift in practices and quality…” (pp 45-46)
Historical Novel as Education: Historical fiction is not history, but is often better than history… may easily teach more and carry a deeper impression than whole chapters of description and analysis… will probably succeed in making a period live in the imagination when textbooks merely give us dry bones. [Baker, 1968] (p 47)
Concepts… have been present in historical fiction since their inception: self-consciousness, indeterminacy, and the problematising of ordered narratives. (p 121)
In more recent years, historical fiction has also challenged national myths, uplifted marginal voices, engaged with folklore, and challenged orthodoxy and history itself.
The book is filled with examples. Early chapters focus primarily on British authors, expanding to European ones, but with acknowledgements of US and South American authors. Below is a short list of books discussed in detail.
The book includes a list of definitions. These terms appear in bold in the text.
Also, the authors and books referred to in the text are listed in the bibliography, which spans ten pages.
Some Books Discussed (this is a small number)
This is a very Eurocentric (including American’s) view. Though the author acknowledges the epic from China, Luo Guanzhong’s Three Kingdoms (1522) as a prose historical fiction, and does give antecedents to Walter Scott’s novels, e.g., Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605)
Sir Walter Scott
• Waverly (1814)
• Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquarian (1816), Rob Roy (1817), Heart of Midlothian (1818), and Ivanhoe (1819).
• This is the point at this the ‘historical novel is thought to have originated as a form (p 17, Ch 2)
H.G. Wells
• The Time Machine (1895) (p 44, Ch 2)
Catherine Cookson
• Kate Hannigan (1950) (p 55, Ch 3)
Books about Anne Boleyn (pp 69-78), e.g.,
• Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
Alexander Dumas
• Three Musketeers (1844), Twenty Years After (1845), The Vicomte de Bradelonne (1847)
• Provide important paradigm for twentieth-century historical adventure fiction
• Contain long, involved adventures questions
• Introduce the key ide of the team of adventurers, probably soldiers, whose virtuous actions are the templte for the reader’s fantasy self-projects (pp 79-80, Ch 3)
Emmuska Orczy’s
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)
• Abstracted the adventurous romance novel and added elements from the swashbuckling fictions of Dumas. (p 80, Ch 3)
C.S. Forester
• Hornblower novels (1937-67)
• Add vulnerability of the hero (p 80-81, Ch 3)
Sebastian Faulk, Birdsong (1993) (p 102, Ch 4)
Ian McEwon
• Atonement (2002)
• Provide an extraordinary moment of metafictional self-consciousness at the end which undermines historical novel writing in many ways by demonstrating the authenic fallacy of the realist novel. (p105)
• Authenic fallacy: The concept that readers of historical novels want to believe that what they are reading is somehow real or authentic, provoked often by the realist or mimetic mode of writing. (p 183)
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969, p 121, Ch 5)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980)
• Scholar as detective (p 125, Ch 5)
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred years of Solitude (1967)
• Magical Realism and History (p 128, Ch 5)
Cormac MacCarthey, Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West (1985)
• Challenges national narrative (p 141, Ch 6)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
• Challenges narrative of slavery (p 148, Ch 6)
Sarah Water Trilogy of Victorian Novels
• Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), Fingersmith (2002)
• Moved lesbian historical fiction into the mainstream of publishing and reading. (p 151, Ch 6
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha (1997)
• Anti-romantic historical novel
Chinua Acebe, Trilogy
• Things Fall Apart (1959), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964)
• Teaching readers of their past (p 163, Ch 6)
Thomas Harris
• Archangel (1998), Fatherland (1992)
• Highlights the draw of alternative, “what if,” histories (p 174, Ch 6)
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003)
• Historical conspiracy fiction
That said, this short book is rich in information.
This book describes the evolution of the historical novel and its place in literature and literary concepts.
The book covers the origins of the historical novel (citing Walter Scotts’s Waverley novels as its origins); the evolution through the 19th and 20th centuries; the motivations of women, men, and children in reading.
Preceded by the Gothic novel, in its early existence it was more aligned with history than with literature. Moreover, some thought it made for educational material.
In its early days, it was often called historical romance and not considered serious literature. This was the province of women. Men’s historical fiction stemmed more from adventure and military stories. “What can be seen with early twentieth-century historical fiction is the bifurcation of historical romance into that for men and that for women; the one concerned with adventure and quest, the other with love and relationships.” (p 79)
“[The discipline of] History is the other, and the present familiar. The historian’s job is often to explain the transition between these states. The historical novelist similarly explores the dissonance and displacement between then and now, making the past recognizable but simultaneously authentically unfamiliar.” (p 3)
Historical novelists concentrate on the pages between factual history and that which is lived, for a variety of purposes.
In addition, historical novels also tend to have accompanying paratext, adding to their authenticity appeal: “footnotes, additions, acknowledgements, bibliographies, author information, maps. From these materials, we can garner a huge amount of information about the text itself, how it is being presented and represented.” (p 63)
A good example of the dissonance innate to the form is the author’s note. It might be the rule of thumb to define the historical novel as something which has an explanatory note from the writer describing their own engagement with the period in question, either through schooling or, more commonly, through their reading and research. (p 3)
The central paradox of historical fiction, the consciously false realist representation of something which can never be known, seems to prefigure the postmodern crisis in historical writing. Indeed, the practices with which this book opened, that the historian’s job is to explain the otherness of the past, whilst the novelist explores the differences of the past, seem to no longer be so distinct. Both the novelist and the historian are using trope, metaphor, prose, and narrative style to interpret and render a version of something which is innately other and unknown. (p113)
During the twentieth century… “the historical novel increasingly becomes a form written and read by women, suggesting that the decline in interest is due to the patriarchal literary history rather than a shift in practices and quality…” (pp 45-46)
Historical Novel as Education: Historical fiction is not history, but is often better than history… may easily teach more and carry a deeper impression than whole chapters of description and analysis… will probably succeed in making a period live in the imagination when textbooks merely give us dry bones. [Baker, 1968] (p 47)
Concepts… have been present in historical fiction since their inception: self-consciousness, indeterminacy, and the problematising of ordered narratives. (p 121)
In more recent years, historical fiction has also challenged national myths, uplifted marginal voices, engaged with folklore, and challenged orthodoxy and history itself.
The book is filled with examples. Early chapters focus primarily on British authors, expanding to European ones, but with acknowledgements of US and South American authors. Below is a short list of books discussed in detail.
The book includes a list of definitions. These terms appear in bold in the text.
Also, the authors and books referred to in the text are listed in the bibliography, which spans ten pages.
Some Books Discussed (this is a small number)
This is a very Eurocentric (including American’s) view. Though the author acknowledges the epic from China, Luo Guanzhong’s Three Kingdoms (1522) as a prose historical fiction, and does give antecedents to Walter Scott’s novels, e.g., Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605)
Sir Walter Scott
• Waverly (1814)
• Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquarian (1816), Rob Roy (1817), Heart of Midlothian (1818), and Ivanhoe (1819).
• This is the point at this the ‘historical novel is thought to have originated as a form (p 17, Ch 2)
H.G. Wells
• The Time Machine (1895) (p 44, Ch 2)
Catherine Cookson
• Kate Hannigan (1950) (p 55, Ch 3)
Books about Anne Boleyn (pp 69-78), e.g.,
• Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
Alexander Dumas
• Three Musketeers (1844), Twenty Years After (1845), The Vicomte de Bradelonne (1847)
• Provide important paradigm for twentieth-century historical adventure fiction
• Contain long, involved adventures questions
• Introduce the key ide of the team of adventurers, probably soldiers, whose virtuous actions are the templte for the reader’s fantasy self-projects (pp 79-80, Ch 3)
Emmuska Orczy’s
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)
• Abstracted the adventurous romance novel and added elements from the swashbuckling fictions of Dumas. (p 80, Ch 3)
C.S. Forester
• Hornblower novels (1937-67)
• Add vulnerability of the hero (p 80-81, Ch 3)
Sebastian Faulk, Birdsong (1993) (p 102, Ch 4)
Ian McEwon
• Atonement (2002)
• Provide an extraordinary moment of metafictional self-consciousness at the end which undermines historical novel writing in many ways by demonstrating the authenic fallacy of the realist novel. (p105)
• Authenic fallacy: The concept that readers of historical novels want to believe that what they are reading is somehow real or authentic, provoked often by the realist or mimetic mode of writing. (p 183)
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969, p 121, Ch 5)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980)
• Scholar as detective (p 125, Ch 5)
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred years of Solitude (1967)
• Magical Realism and History (p 128, Ch 5)
Cormac MacCarthey, Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West (1985)
• Challenges national narrative (p 141, Ch 6)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
• Challenges narrative of slavery (p 148, Ch 6)
Sarah Water Trilogy of Victorian Novels
• Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), Fingersmith (2002)
• Moved lesbian historical fiction into the mainstream of publishing and reading. (p 151, Ch 6
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha (1997)
• Anti-romantic historical novel
Chinua Acebe, Trilogy
• Things Fall Apart (1959), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964)
• Teaching readers of their past (p 163, Ch 6)
Thomas Harris
• Archangel (1998), Fatherland (1992)
• Highlights the draw of alternative, “what if,” histories (p 174, Ch 6)
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003)
• Historical conspiracy fiction
August 25, 2021
this book is informative & pleasant & all if you don't have to study it for an exam with a teacher who never explained it in class and rejects you and makes you retake said exam n-times if you don't know exactly every line and concept expressed in it & where it's mentioned #cursed
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews