I’m always looking for blog post ideas – however, after more than 1200 posts, it can be difficult to find something new to say! But, while trolling around this morning, I found a few articles talking about different kinds of historical fiction as well as thoughts on the history of historical fiction.
In The Historical Novel (a book I’ve written about), Jerome de Groot looks broadly at the genre and its history. Among other topics, de Groot comments on:
- Authenticity – ‘authentic characters in a factual-led framework’ – which, of course begs the question of what is an authentic character
- History – ‘writing about history demonstrates the innate falsity of History’ – which one might say invites interpretation of historical events
- Social change – referring to authors who use historical fiction to comment on social change
- Attitudes – specifically a sense that historical fiction was ‘women’s fiction’ and one ‘which was increasingly marginal in discussion of the novel proper’ (fortunately, that attitude has almost disappeared)
- Education – the value of historical fiction as a means to educate readers
- Historical romance – ‘one of the most popular, long-running and widely read types of writing in the world.’
- Women and men – historical fiction offers women ‘the imaginative space to create different, more inclusive versions of history where women take a lead role in history’; while men tend to look for stories featuring ‘adventure and heroism’.
As to the origins of historical fiction, Wikipedia has this to offer:
“Historical fiction as a Western literary genre has its foundations in the early-19th-century works of Sir Walter Scott and his contemporaries in other national literatures such as the Frenchman Honoréde Balzac, the American James Fenimore Cooper, and later the Russian Leo Tolstoy. However, the melding of historical and fictional elements in individual works of literature has a long tradition in many cultures; both Western traditions (as early as Ancient Greek and Latin literature) as well as Eastern, in the form of oral and folk traditions, which produced epics, novels, plays, and other fictional works describing history for contemporary audiences.” See here for more detail.
As one writer pointed out, Shakespeare wrote Richard III. For that matter, if we skip across the western world to China, three of the four classics of Chinese novels are set in the past – the past as it was when they were written.
The historical novel has evolved and keeps evolving.
From what I’ve read, in its early stages, historical fiction tended to blend sweeping history with fictional storytelling. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is an example. In the case of Walter Scott, his novels helped readers see history as a dramatic narrative shaped by social change. Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame which is set in 15th century Paris is another example of writing about the impact of social change. In Western literature, historical fiction evolved to large-scale epics and dramatic storytelling such as Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Gradually authors began treating the past not just as a backdrop, but as a distinct social and cultural setting. And then authors and readers began placing greater emphasis on historical accuracy and detailed research. The afterword became a focus for itemizing sources and research to showcase the authority of an author’s writing using bibliography, footnotes, maps, acknowledgements and notes detailing research.
In the latter half of the 20th century, historical fiction began to focus on ordinary people rather than kings and military heroes with increasing attention to women, minorities and marginalized voices and with an aim to portray famous historical figures more realistically and to portray the complex moral ambiguity of a particular era.
One of the attributes of historical fiction that appeals to me is the many sub-genres you can find within this ‘meta genre’: romance, adventure, thriller, mystery, drama, military stories and so on.
What about the 21st century? What stories resonate with readers? I checked Goodreads and a few other sources (like this one) to help answer this question. Admittedly a brief list of titles but ones that turned up time and again on those I checked.
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead – both a tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – a boy-meets-girl story featuring two teenagers who are caught up in the frenzy and the mortal dangers of World War II
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – the story of a Ghanaian family over more than two centuries through the lives of two branches of its descendants, one in Ghana, the other in the United States
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – set in WWII Germany, this story of a foster child who steals books is told from the POV of death
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – the story of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII’s quest to marry Anne Boleyn
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett – three women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows – a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation
- Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen – a romance set during the Great Depression with a second-rate circus struggling to survive and making one-night stands in town after town
- World Without End by Ken Follett – a sequel to Pillars of the Earth, this story is set against the devastating backdrop of the Black Death.
- People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks – the five-century journey throughout Southern Europe of the fabled Sarajevo Hagadah
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh – a rich tale of class conflict, exploitation, and forbidden love set against the background of the opium trade in 1838
- Transcription by Kate Atkinson – features a woman who had been recruited as a typist by MI5 in WWII
- An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris – the Dreyfus affair re-enacted in a suspenseful spy story
For me, what emerges from this list and other lists are an enduring fascination with World War 2, a new openness to stories from other cultures, and the power of the past to inform today.
In September 2024, author Alexander Manshel reflected on that year’s National Book Awards with this statement: “[O]ver the last several decades, a quiet revolution has taken place in American fiction: The novels recognized by major literary prizes have largely abandoned the present in favor of the past. Contemporary fiction has never been less contemporary.” Manshel also writes: “A historical novel has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 12 out of the last 15 years.”
A fitting quote to end this post!
Your thoughts are welcome as always.
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.
