Some of the most compelling novels I’ve read feature the lives of real historical figures: Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, Margaret George’s Elizabeth I (or any novel by Margaret George!), Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie’s novel My Dear Hamilton, Never Surrender by Michael Dobbs, many novels featuring the Tudors, Jeff Shaara’s novel The Old Lion, Drake – Tudor Corsair by Tony Riches, The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher, Babylonia by Constanza Casati just to name a few.
And, I’m not the only one who loves stories like these.
In 2015, I asked authors and readers about the characters they enjoy in historical fiction. Almost 50% of readers ranked novels featuring real people as either a 4 or 5 on a five-point scale. (Of course, those readers also enjoy other stories!)
It occurs to me that I should have added another category to the question in that 2015 survey: the lives of not-so-famous historical figures.
Marie Benedict has made a name for herself by featuring women who would fit this category in novels like The Other Einstein and The Personal Librarian which Benedict co-authored with Victoria Christopher Murray.
Gill Paul is another author who has successfully focused on this category. Among others, she has written about Lady Evelyn Herbert, the woman who took the very first step into the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (The Collector’s Daughter), about Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann (Scandalous Women), and about 1920s Manhattan with Dorothy Parker, Jane Grant, Winifred Lenihan, and Peggy Leech (The Manhattan Girls).
Many other authors have been inspired by the stories of real people:
- The Woman with the Cure by Lynne Cullen – a story about Dr. Dorothy Horstmann and the race to find a vaccine for polio
- The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin – a story about Isabella Stewart Gardner and her passion for art, ideas and letters
- Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates – a story about Marilyn Monroe
- An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris – a story about Alfred Dreyfus and Georges PicQuart who was one of the men who ‘proved’ that Dreyfus was a spy
- The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks – a story about King David of biblical times
Perhaps we could consider a continuum of novels and non-fiction books based on real people. (I built a similar continuum for a post written in 2023.) After working on the continuum, I came up with four dimensions to consider. Clearly it’s a complicated matter and there are other interim stages to consider for each of these dimensions.
Let’s close with suggestions for further reading:
Historical fiction with or without the famous … a few reader comments on today’s topic.
Gill Paul offers advice based on her experience in 9 Tips on Writing Biographical Fiction.
An Interview with Robert Kaufman, author of General Meade: A Novel of the Civil War
Fictionalizing Real Historical Figures with author Margaret George
Interview with Susanne Dunlap, author of The Portraitist which features artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
In an earlier post, David Mitchell, author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Groot, described the paradox of writing historical fiction:
“Perhaps this is the paradox that beats inside historical fiction’s rib cage: the “historical” half demands fidelity to the past, while the “fiction” half requires infidelity – people must be dreamt up, their acts fabricated and the lies of art must be told.”
I think both authors and readers are intrigued by this paradox.
FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY. There’s a SUBSCRIBE function on the right hand side of the page.
M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.
