Editing Historical fiction (section)

===19th century===
[[File:War and Peace book.JPG|thumb|[[War and Peace]] by Leo Tolstoy, published 1869 and set 60 years before]]
Historical fiction rose to prominence in Europe during the early 19th century as part of the [[Romanticism|Romantic]] reaction to the [[The Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], especially through the influence of the Scottish writer [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott]], whose works were immensely popular throughout Europe. Among his early European followers we can find [[Willibald Alexis]], [[Theodor Fontane]], [[Bernhard Severin Ingemann]], [[Miklós Jósika]], [[Mór Jókai]], [[Jacob van Lennep|Jakob van Lennep]], [[Carl Jonas Love Almqvist]], [[Viktor Rydberg|Victor Rydberg]], [[Andreas Munch]], [[Alessandro Manzoni]], [[Alfred de Vigny]], [[Honoré de Balzac]] or [[Prosper Mérimée]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Aust|first=Hugo|date=1994|title=Der historische Roman|pages=63–84|doi=10.1007/978-3-476-03977-4|isbn=978-3-476-10278-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Moretti, Franco.|title=Atlas of the European novel, 1800-1900|date=1999|pages=34–35|publisher=Verso|isbn=1-85984-224-0|oclc=778577173}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Geppert|first=Hans Vilmar|title=Der historisch Gegenwart|date=2009|publisher=Francke|isbn=978-3-7720-8325-9|pages=8–101|oclc=516135008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Granlid|first=Hans Olof|title=Då som nu: historiska romaner i översikt och analys|date=1964|publisher=Natur och Kultur|pages=46–65|oclc=247481387}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Kulturmøter i nordisk samtidslitteratur: festskrift til Per Thomas Andersen|last=Andersen|first=Per Thomas|editor1-last=Dingstad|editor1-first=Ståle|editor2-last=Norheim|editor2-first=Thorstein|editor3-last=Rees|editor3-first=Ellen|year=2014|isbn=978-82-7099-778-7|publisher=Novus|location=Oslo|oclc=897358174}}</ref> [[Jane Porter]]'s 1803 novel ''[[Thaddeus of Warsaw]]'' is one of the earliest examples of the historical novel in English and went through at least 84 editions,<ref name=loooser>Looser, Devoney. ''Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=g-XO9ktIN9YC&pg=PA157 pp. 157 ff.] JHU Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0022-8}}. Accessed 30 September 2013.</ref> including translation into French and German.<ref name=lasko>Laskowski, Maciej. "[https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/bitstream/10593/2424/1/rozprawa%20doktorska.pdf Jane Porter's ''Thaddeus of Warsaw'' as evidence of Polish&ndash;British relationships] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928045757/https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/bitstream/10593/2424/1/rozprawa%20doktorska.pdf |date=2013-09-28 }}". Instytucie Filologii Angielskiej (Poznan), 2012. Accessed 26 September 2013.</ref><ref>McLean, Thomas. "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/40339581 Nobody's Argument: Jane Porter and the Historical Novel] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507223649/http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339581 |date=2016-05-07 }}". ''Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies'', Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall&ndash;Winter, 2007), pp. 88&ndash;103. University of Pennsylvania Press. Accessed 26 September 2013.</ref><ref>Anessi, Thomas. "[https://www.academia.edu/346935/Englands_Future_Polands_Past_History_and_National_Identity_In_Thaddeus_of_Warsaw England's Future/Poland's Past: History and National Identity In ''Thaddeus of Warsaw''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171109203221/http://www.academia.edu/346935/Englands_Future_Polands_Past_History_and_National_Identity_In_Thaddeus_of_Warsaw |date=2017-11-09 }}". Accessed 26 September 2013.</ref> The first true historical novel in English was in fact [[Maria Edgeworth]]'s ''[[Castle Rackrent]]'' (1800).<ref>''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'' (1985), ed. [[Margaret Drabble]], Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p.310.</ref>

In the 20th century [[György Lukács]] argued that Scott was the first fiction writer who saw history not just as a convenient frame in which to stage a contemporary narrative, but rather as a distinct social and cultural setting.<ref name = Lukcas15-29>Lukacs 15-29</ref> Scott's [[History of Scotland|Scottish]] novels such as ''[[Waverley (novel)|Waverley]]'' (1814) and ''[[Rob Roy (novel)|Rob Roy]]'' (1817) focused upon a middling character who sits at the intersection of various social groups in order to explore the development of society through conflict.<ref name = Lukacs31-38>Lukacs 31-38</ref> ''[[Ivanhoe]]'' (1820) gained credit for renewing interest in the [[Middle Ages]].

Many well-known writers from the United Kingdom published historical novels in the mid 19th century, the most notable include [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]]'s ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]'', [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'', [[George Eliot]]'s ''[[Romola]]'', and [[Charles Kingsley]]'s ''[[Westward Ho! (novel)|Westward Ho!]]'' and ''[[Hereward the Wake (novel)|Hereward the Wake]]''. ''[[The Trumpet-Major]]'' (1880) is [[Thomas Hardy]]'s only historical novel, and is set in [[Weymouth, Dorset|Weymouth]] during the [[Napoleonic wars]],<ref name="Taylor xx">Taylor xx</ref> when the town was then anxious about the possibility of invasion by Napoleon.<ref name=dorsetlife>{{cite web|title=Hardy and the Trumpet Major|url=http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2010/12/hardy-and-the-trumpet-major/|publisher=Dorset Life|access-date=1 December 2013|year=2010}}</ref>

In the United States, the first historical novelist was [[Samuel Woodworth]], who wrote ''The Champions of American Freedom'' in 1816.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Letter | first = Joseph J. | year = 2010 | title = Past Presentisms: Suffering Soldiers, Benjaminian Ruins, and the Discursive Foundations of Early U.S. Historical Novels | journal = American Literature | volume = 82 | issue = 1 | pages = 31–32 | doi = 10.1215/00029831-2009-068 | url = https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2009-068}}</ref> [[James Fenimore Cooper]] was better known for his historical novels and was influenced by Scott.<ref name = Lukacs69-72>Lukacs 69-72</ref> His most famous novel is ''[[The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757]]'' (1826), the second book of the ''[[Leatherstocking Tales]]'' pentalogy.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA661 ''Last of the Mohicans, The'']. In: ''Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature''. Merriam-Webster, 1995, {{ISBN|0877790426}}, p.661</ref> ''The Last of the Mohicans'' is set in 1757, during the [[French and Indian War]] (the [[Seven Years' War]]), when France and [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] battled for control of North America. Cooper's chief rival,<ref>{{Cite book | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn = 0-226-46969-7 | last = Lease | first = Benjamin | title = That Wild Fellow John Neal and the American Literary Revolution | location = Chicago, Illinois | year = 1972 | page = 39}}</ref> [[John Neal]], wrote ''[[Rachel Dyer]]'' (1828), the first bound novel about the 17th-century [[Salem witch trials]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Sears | first = Donald A. | title = John Neal | publisher = Twayne Publishers | location = Boston, Massachusetts | year = 1978 | isbn = 080-5-7723-08 | page = 82}}</ref> ''Rachel Dyer'' also influenced future American fiction set in this period, like ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]'' (1850) by [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]]<ref>{{cite book | last = Kayorie | first = James Stephen Merritt | editor1-last = Baumgartner | editor1-first = Jody C. | chapter = John Neal (1793-1876) | page = 90 | title = American Political Humor: Masters of Satire and Their Impact on U.S. Policy and Culture | publisher = ABC-CLIO | location = Santa Barbara, California | year = 2019 | isbn = 9781440854866}}</ref> which is one of the most famous 19th-century American historical novels.<ref>{{cite news |publisher=National Public Radio (NPR) |date=March 2, 2008|work=Weekend All Things Considered |title=Sinner, Victim, Object, Winner {{pipe}} ANCHORS: JACKI LYDEN |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87805369|quote="masterwork"}}</ref> Set in 17th-century [[Puritan]] Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of [[Hester Prynne]], who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of [[repentance]] and dignity.
In French literature, the most prominent inheritor of Scott's style of the historical novel was [[Balzac]].<ref>Lukacs 92-96</ref> In 1829 Balzac published ''[[Les Chouans]]'', a historical work in the manner of Sir Walter Scott.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/balzac.htm |title=Honoré de Balzac |work=Books and Writers|first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924072443/http://kirjasto.sci.fi/balzac.htm |archive-date=24 September 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> This was subsequently incorporated into ''[[La Comédie Humaine]]''. The bulk of ''La Comédie Humaine'', however, takes place during the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]] and the [[July Monarchy]], though there are several novels which take place during the [[French Revolution]] and others which take place of in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, including ''About Catherine de Medici'' and ''The Elixir of Long Life''.

[[Victor Hugo]]'s ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' (1831) furnishes another 19th-century example of the romantic-historical novel. Victor Hugo began writing ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' in 1829, largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of the [[Gothic architecture]], which was neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings, or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.reims-cathedral.culture.fr/restoration-in-france.html |title=Notre-Dame Cathedral of Reims |access-date=2014-12-27 |archive-date=2014-12-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227152601/http://www.reims-cathedral.culture.fr/restoration-in-france.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The action takes place in 1482 and the title refers to the [[Notre Dame de Paris|Notre Dame Cathedral]] in Paris, on which the story is centered. [[Alexandre Dumas]] also wrote several popular historical fiction novels, including ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'' and ''[[The Three Musketeers]]''. [[George Saintsbury]] stated: "''Monte Cristo'' is said to have been at its first appearance, and for some time subsequently, the most popular book in Europe."<ref>Alexandre Dumas, ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' 2004, Barnes & Noble Books, New York. {{ISBN|978-1-59308-151-5}},  p. 601</ref> This popularity has extended into modern times as well. The book was "translated into virtually all modern languages and has never been out of print in most of them. There have been at least twenty-nine motion pictures based on it&nbsp;... <!-- the omitted phrase is "(many in the silent era, but one as recently as 2002)" -->as well as several television series, and many movies [have] worked the name 'Monte Cristo' into their titles."<ref>Alexandre Dumas, ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', p. xxiv.</ref>

Tolstoy's ''[[War and Peace]]'' offers an example of 19th-century historical fiction used to critique contemporary history. Tolstoy read the standard histories available in Russian and French about the [[Napoleonic Wars]], and used the novel to challenge those historical approaches. At the start of the novel's third volume, he describes his work as blurring the line between fiction and history, in order to get closer to the truth.<ref name = Pevear>Pevear, Richard. "Introduction". War and Peace. Trans. Pevear; Volokhonsky, Larissa. New York City, New York: Vintage Books, 2008.</ref> The novel is set 60 years before it was composed, and alongside researching the war through primary and secondary sources, he spoke with people who had lived through war during the [[French invasion of Russia]] in 1812; thus, the book is also, in part, [[ethnography]] fictionalized.<ref name = Pevear/>

''[[The Charterhouse of Parma]]'' by [[Stendhal|Marie-Henri Beyle (Stendhal)]] is an epic retelling of the story of an Italian nobleman who lives through the Napoleonic period in Italian history. It includes a description of the [[Battle of Waterloo]] by the principal character. Stendhal fought with Napoleon and participated in the [[French invasion of Russia]].

''[[The Betrothed (Manzoni novel)|The Betrothed]]'' (1827) by [[Alessandro Manzoni]] has been called the most famous and widely read novel of the Italian language.<ref name=" Archibald Colquhoun 1954">Archibald Colquhoun. ''Manzoni and his Times.'' J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1954.</ref> ''The Betrothed'' was inspired by Walter Scott's ''Ivanhoe'' but, compared to its model, shows some innovations (two members of the lower class as principal characters, the past described without romantic idealization, an explicitly Christian message), somehow forerunning the realistic novel of the following decades.<ref>From Georg Lukàcs, "The Historical Novel" (1969).</ref> Set in northern Italy in 1628, during the oppressive years under Spanish rule, it is sometimes seen as a veiled attack on Austria, which controlled the region at the time the novel was written.

The critical and popular success of ''The Betrothed'' gave rise to a crowd of imitations and, in the age of [[Italian unification|unification]], almost every Italian writer tried his hand at the genre; novels now almost forgotten, like ''[[Marco Visconti (novel)|Marco Visconti]]'' by [[Tommaso Grossi]] (Manzoni's best friend) or ''[[Ettore Fieramosca (novel)|Ettore Fieramosca]]'' by [[Massimo D'Azeglio]] (Manzoni's son-in-law), were the best-sellers of their time. Many of these authors, such as [[Niccolò Tommaseo]], [[Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi]] and D'Azeglio himself, were patriots and politicians too, and in their novels, the veiled politic message of Manzoni became explicit (the hero of ''Ettore Fieramosca'' fights to defend the honor of the Italian soldiers, mocked by some arrogant Frenchmen). In them, the narrative talent not equaled the patriotic passion, and their novels, full of rhetoric and melodramatic excesses, are today barely readable as historical documents. A significant exception is ''The Confessions of an Italian'' by [[Ippolito Nievo]], an epic about the [[Republic of Venice|Venetian republic]]'s fall and the [[Napoleonic Wars|Napoleonic age]], told with satiric irony and youthful brio (Nievo wrote it when he was 26 years old).

In Arabic literature, the Lebanese writer [[Jurji Zaydan]] (1861–1914) was the most prolific novelist of this genre. He wrote 23 historical novels between 1889 and 1914. His novels played an important in shaping the collective consciousness of modern Arabs during the [[Nahda|Nahda period]] and educated them about their history. ''The Fleeing Mamluk'' (1891), ''The Captive of the Mahdi Pretender'' (1892), and ''Virgin of Quraish'' (1899) are some of his nineteenth-century historical novels.