Historical fiction

Historical fiction is a literary genre where made-up stories unfold against the backdrop of actual historical events. While often associated with novels, the term also covers theatre, opera, film, television, video games, and graphic novels. A key feature is its setting in the past, with careful attention to the customs, social conditions, and period-specific details of that era.

Introduction

Definitions of what qualifies as a historical novel vary. The Historical Novel Society considers works written at least fifty years after the events they describe, while critic Sarah Johnson defines them as novels set before the mid-20th century, based on research rather than personal experience. Lynda Adamson notes that a common definition is a novel set at least 25 years before it was written, though some readers treat older works, like those of Jane Austen, as historical fiction.

19th century

Historical fiction has sometimes fueled romantic nationalism. Walter Scott’s Waverley novels sparked interest in Scottish history.

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s series on Poland’s history popularized the nation’s past after it lost independence. Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote popular novels about Polish conflicts with Teutonic Knights, Cossacks, and Swedes, winning the 1905 Nobel Prize; his Quo Vadis, set in Nero’s Rome, was adapted for film multiple times. Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter similarly promoted Norwegian history, earning her the 1928 Nobel Prize.

Many early historical novels boosted European interest in the Middle Ages. Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is credited with inspiring the preservation of Gothic architecture in France, leading to the creation of the Monuments historiques. Some authors, like Bolesław Prus in Pharaoh, used the genre to gain perspective on their own society or evade censorship. In other works, major historical events occur off-stage, with fictional characters living through them—as in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (set against the Jacobite troubles) or Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge (the Gordon Riots) and A Tale of Two Cities (the French Revolution).

The accuracy of historical elements has sometimes been questioned, as with Alexandre Dumas’s Queen Margot. Postmodern writers like John Barth and Thomas Pynchon blend historical figures and settings with invented history and fantasy, as in The Sot-Weed Factor and Mason & Dixon. A few authors, such as Colleen McCullough in her Masters of Rome series, write historical fiction without any fictional characters.

History up to 17th century

Historical prose fiction has a long global tradition. Three of China’s Four Classic Novels are set in the distant past: Shi Nai’an’s Water Margin (12th-century outlaws), Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms (3rd-century wars), and Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West (7th-century pilgrim Xuanzang). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many historical novels, like Feng Menglong’s Dongzhou Lieguo Zhi, gained popularity.

As a contemporary Western genre, historical fiction traces its roots to early-19th-century works by Sir Walter Scott and contemporaries such as Honoré de Balzac, James Fenimore Cooper, and Leo Tolstoy. Yet blending history and fiction in literature has a much longer tradition, appearing in both Western cultures (as early as Ancient Greek and Latin texts) and Eastern ones, through oral and folk traditions like mythology and folklore, which produced epics, plays, and novels that depicted history for contemporary audiences.

Works of historical fiction are sometimes criticized for lacking authenticity, as readers and popular critics expect accurate period details. This tension between historical truth and fiction often sparks commentary, while scholarly criticism goes further, exploring the genre’s broader thematic and critical interests.