Historical novel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author. As such, the historical novel is distinguished from the alternate-history genre.
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[edit] Overview
An early example is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th-century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history.
The historical novel was popularized in the 19th century by artists classified as Romantics. Many regard Sir Walter Scott as the first to have used this technique, in his novels of Scottish history such as Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1818). His Ivanhoe (1820) gains credit for renewing interest in the Middle Ages. Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) furnishes another early example of the historical novel.
Historical fiction may center on historical or on fictional characters, but usually represents an honest attempt based on considerable research (or at least serious reading) to tell a story set in the historical past as understood by the author's contemporaries. Those historical settings may not stand up to the enhanced knowledge of later historians.
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 save Gothic architecture in France, leading to the establishment of the Monuments historiques, the French governmental authority for historic preservation.
Historical fiction has also served to encourage movements of romantic nationalism. The Polish winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in literature, Henryk Sienkiewicz, wrote several novels set in conflicts between the Poles and predatory Teutonic Knights, rebellious Cossacks and invading Swedes. (He also penned a once wildly popular novel about Nero's Rome and the early Christians, Quo Vadis, since 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).
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 in order to gain perspective on society and on the human condition, or to escape the depredations of the censor.
In some historical novels the main historic events take place mostly off-stage, while the characters inhabit the world in which those events are occurring. Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped recounts mostly private adventures set against the backdrop of the Jacobite troubles in Scotland. Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge is set amid the Gordon Riots, and A Tale of Two Cities in the French Revolution.
Other authors give historic characters a fictional setting, as in Alexandre Dumas' Queen Margot and Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon.
Historical fiction can serve satirical purposes. An example is George MacDonald Fraser's tales of the dashing Harry Paget Flashman.
The historical novel has continued to remain popular with authors to this day. The most striking developement 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' The Girl at the Lion d'Or ( concerned with the War's consequences) and Birdsong; Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy; Adam Thorpe's Nineteen Twenty-one and Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way.
[edit] Living authors
- Ann Rinaldi, writing YA 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 WW1 era. Critically acclaimed and admired.
- Writing as "William Irish," Cornell Woolrich published Waltz into Darkness (1947), set in 1880 New Orleans. Interestingly, both film versions — François Truffaut's La Sirène du Mississippi (Mississippi Mermaid, 1969) and Michael Cristofer's Original Sin (2001) — place the action at a later time (and elsewhere).
- 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/
- Martin Bertram's Vanity of Vanities is set in 12th century Europe.
- T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville (1993), set in 1907, tells the story of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of cornflakes, and his Battle Creek Sanitarium.
- Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day (1989), set in 1956, explains in flashbacks the dubious history of (fictitious) 1930s Darlington Hall and its association with Nazi Germany.
- Patrick Redmond's The Wishing Game (1999) provides a thrilling depiction of life in a strict and uncanny boarding school in 1950s rural Norfolk, England.
- Julie Myerson's novel Laura Blundy (2000) is set in Victorian London.
- Bernard Cornwell is one of today's best-known historical novelists, with his Sharpe and The Warlord Chronicles.
- Conn Iggulden is also a well known historical-fiction author of the widely acclaimed Emperor series.
- Jonathan Coe's novel The Rotters' Club (2001) evokes 1970s Britain.
- Cecelia Holland has written over twenty novels set in various parts of Europe, Asia and the United States in many periods.
- The bulk of Gore Vidal's novels have historical settings, including Burr, which has gained a wider readership than any biography of Aaron Burr.
- Neal Stephenson's series The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World), 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 Europe.
- The James Reasoner Civil War Series is a 10-volume set of historical novels set in Culpeper, Virginia.
- Amita Kanekar's A Spoke in the Wheel is a novel about the Buddha 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.
- Colleen McCullough, author of the series Masters of Rome, about the late Roman Republic.
- Marianne Curley. Her books Old Magic and the Guardians of Time Trilogy all take place partially in the past.
- Umberto Eco's novels, most notably his most famous, The Name of the Rose, are historical novels, taking place in Medieval or Early Modern Europe.
- Elizabeth Chadwick has written numerous novels set in medieval England.
- Marie-Elena John is a Caribbean writer whose debut novel Unburnable gives a slice of social history of the Caribbean, focusing on the African origins of Caribbean culture.
[edit] See also
- List of historical novelists
- List of historical novels
- historical whodunnit
- family saga
- Middle Ages in history
- Alternative history
- Historical fantasy
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Historical Fiction - Forums and Readers Groups on Historical Fiction
- The Historical Novel Society - An international organization for historical fiction writers and readers
- HistFiction.net - A comprehensive list with historical novelists
- A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales (1902) (Project Gutenberg etext)
