Editing Historical fiction (section)

===20th century===
====Germany====
A major 20th-century example of this genre is the German author [[Thomas Mann]]'s ''[[Buddenbrooks]]'' (1901). This chronicles the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the [[Hanseaten (class)|Hanseatic]] [[bourgeoisie]] in the years from 1835 to 1877. Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the [[Mann family]] of [[Lübeck]], and their milieu. This was Mann's first novel, and with the publication of the 2nd edition in 1903, ''Buddenbrooks'' became a major literary success. The work led to a [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] for Mann in 1929; although the Nobel award generally recognizes an author's body of work, the Swedish Academy's citation for Mann identified "his great novel ''Buddenbrooks''" as the principal reason for his prize.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1929|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1929/| publisher=Nobelprize.org| access-date=November 11, 2012}}</ref> Mann also wrote, between 1926 and 1943, a four-part novel ''[[Joseph and His Brothers]]''. In it Mann retells the familiar biblical stories of [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]], from [[Jacob]] to [[Joseph (Hebrew Bible)|Joseph]] (chapters 27&ndash;50), setting it in the historical context of the reign of [[Akhenaten]] (1353–1336 BC) in [[ancient Egypt]].

In the same era, [[Lion Feuchtwanger]] was one of the most popular and accomplished writers of historical novels, with publications between the 1920s and 1950s. His reputation began with the bestselling work, ''[[Jud Süß (Feuchtwanger novel)|Jud Süß]]'' (1925), set in the eighteenth century, as well as historical novels written primarily in exile in France and California, including most prominently the ''[[Josephus trilogy]]'' set in Ancient Rome (1932 / 1935 / 1942), ''[[Goya (novel)|Goya]]'' (1951), and his novel ''[[Die Jüdin von Toledo|Raquel: The Jewess of Toledo]]'' - set in Medieval Spain.

====Britain====
[[Robert Graves]] of Britain wrote several popular historical novels, including ''[[I, Claudius]]'', ''[[King Jesus (novel)|King Jesus]]'', ''The Golden Fleece'' and ''[[Count Belisarius]]''. [[John Cowper Powys]] wrote two historical novels set in Wales, ''[[Owen Glendower (novel)|Owen Glendower]]'' (1941)<ref>Issued 24 January 1941. Dante Thomas ''A Bibliography of the Principal Writings of John Cowper Powys''</ref> and ''[[Porius (A Romance of the Dark Ages)|Porius]]'' (1951). The first deals with the rebellion of the Welsh Prince [[Owain Glyndŵr]] (AD 1400–16), while ''Porius'' takes place during the Dark Ages, in AD 499, just before the [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain|Anglo-Saxon invasion]] of Britain. Powys suggests parallels with these historical periods and Britain in the late 1930s and during [[World War II]].<ref>"Argument" to ''Owen Glendower''. New York: Simon & Schuster, [1941], p.x; "Historic Background to the Year of Grace A.D. 499", ''Porius''. New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2007, p. 18.</ref>

Other significant British novelists include [[Georgette Heyer]], [[Naomi Mitchison]] and [[Mary Renault]]. Heyer essentially established the [[historical romance]] genre and its subgenre [[Regency romance]], which was inspired by [[Jane Austen]]. To ensure accuracy, Heyer collected reference works and kept detailed notes on all aspects of Regency life. While some critics thought the novels were too detailed, others considered the level of detail to be Heyer's greatest asset; Heyer even recreated [[William the Conqueror]]'s crossing into England for her novel ''[[The Conqueror (Heyer novel)|The Conqueror]]''. Naomi Mitchison's finest novel, ''The Corn King and the Spring Queen'' (1931), is regarded by some as the best historical novel of the 20th century.<ref name=elizabeth>{{cite news|last=Longford|first=Elizabeth|author-link = Elizabeth Longford |title=Obituary: Naomi Mitchison|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-naomi-mitchison-1046691.html| access-date=14 May 2014|newspaper=The Independent|date=13 January 1999}}</ref> Mary Renault is best known for her historical novels set in [[Ancient Greece]]. In addition to fictional portrayals of [[Theseus]], [[Socrates]], [[Plato]], [[Simonides of Ceos]] and [[Alexander the Great]], she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander. ''[[The Siege of Krishnapur]]'' (1973) by [[J. G. Farrell]] has been described as an "outstanding novel".<ref>''The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms'', p.384.</ref> Inspired by events such as the sieges of [[Siege of Cawnpore|Cawnpore]] and [[Siege of Lucknow|Lucknow]], the book details the siege of a fictional Indian town, Krishnapur, during the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]] from the perspective of the town's [[Anglo-Indians|British residents]]. The main characters find themselves subject to the increasing strictures and deprivation of the siege, and the absurdity of maintaining the British class system in a town no one can leave becomes a source of comic invention, though the text is serious in intent and tone.<ref name= "Prusse 2003">{{cite book |last=Prusse|first=Michael C.|title=British and Irish Novelists Since 1960|year=2003 |publisher=Gale|location=[[Detroit]], [[Michigan]] |isbn=978-0-7876-6015-4}}</ref>

In Welsh literature, the major contributor to the genre in Welsh is [[William Owen Roberts]] (b. 1960). His historical novels include ''Y Pla'' (1987), set at the time of the Black Death; ''Paradwys'' (2001), 18th century, concerning the slave trade; and ''Petrograd'' (2008) and ''Paris'' (2013), concerning the Russian revolution and its aftermath. ''Y Pla'' has been much translated, appearing in English as ''Pestilence'', and ''Petrograd'' and ''Paris'' have also appeared in English. A contemporary of Roberts' working in English is [[Christopher Meredith]] (b. 1954), whose ''Griffri'' (1991) is set in the 12th century and has the poet of a minor Welsh prince as narrator.

Nobel Prize laureate [[William Golding]] wrote a number of historical novels. ''[[The Inheritors (William Golding)|The Inheritors]]'' (1955) is set in [[prehistoric]] times, and shows "new people" (generally identified with ''[[Homo sapiens sapiens]]'') triumphing over a gentler race (generally identified with [[Neanderthals]]) by deceit and violence. ''[[The Spire]]'' (1964) follows the building (and near collapse) of a huge spire onto a medieval cathedral (generally assumed to be [[Salisbury Cathedral]]); the spire symbolizing both spiritual aspiration and worldly vanity. ''[[The Scorpion God]]'' (1971) consists of three novellas, the first set in a prehistoric African hunter-gatherer band (''Clonk, Clonk''), the second in an ancient Egyptian court (''The Scorpion God'') and the third in the court of a Roman emperor (''Envoy Extraordinary''). The trilogy ''[[To the Ends of the Earth]]'', which includes the ''Rites of Passage'' (1980), ''Close Quarters'' (1987), and ''Fire Down Below'' (1989), describes sea voyages in the early 19th century. [[Anthony Burgess]] also wrote several historical novels; his last novel, ''[[A Dead Man in Deptford]]'', is about the murder of [[Christopher Marlowe]] in the 16th century.

Though the genre has evolved since its inception, the historical novel remains popular with authors and readers to this day and bestsellers include [[Patrick O'Brian]]'s ''[[Aubrey–Maturin series]]'', [[Ken Follett]]'s ''[[Pillars of the Earth]]'' and [[Dorothy Dunnett]]'s ''[[Lymond Chronicles]]''. A development in British and Irish writing in the past 25 years has been a renewed interest in the [[World War I|First World War]]. Works include [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]]'s ''[[An Ice-Cream War]]''; [[Sebastian Faulks]]' ''[[Birdsong (novel)|Birdsong]]'' and ''[[The Girl at the Lion d'Or]]'' (concerned with the War's consequences); [[Pat Barker]]'s ''[[Regeneration Trilogy]]'' and [[Sebastian Barry]]'s ''[[A Long Long Way]]''.

====United States====
[[File:FifthQueen-cvr archive-org (PD).jpg|thumb|[[The Fifth Queen]], 1906–1908 by [[Ford Madox Ford]], is written about the [[16th century]].]]
American Nobel laureate [[William Faulkner]]'s novel ''[[Absalom, Absalom!]]'' (1936) is set before, during and after the [[American Civil War]]. [[Kenneth Roberts (author)|Kenneth Roberts]] wrote several books set around the events of the American Revolution, of which ''Northwest Passage'' (1937), ''Oliver Wiswell'' (1940) and ''Lydia Bailey'' (1947) all became best-sellers in the [[Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1930s|1930s]] and [[Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1940s|1940s]]. The following American authors have also written historical novels in the 20th century: [[Gore Vidal]], [[John Barth]], [[Norman Mailer]], [[E. L. Doctorow]] and [[William Kennedy (author)|William Kennedy]].<ref>William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman ''A Handbook to Literature''. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996, p.251.</ref> [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s historical novel ''[[Mason & Dixon]]'' (1997) tells the story of the two English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were charged with marking the boundary between [[Pennsylvania]] and [[Maryland]] in the 18th century.<ref>Adam Mars-Jones [https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/jun/15/fiction.thomaspynchon How a Quaker gets his oats] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608170648/https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/jun/15/fiction.thomaspynchon |date=2020-06-08 }} The Guardian 15 June 1997</ref> More recently there have been works such as [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[Baroque Cycle]]'', and Grant Maierhofer's ''[https://www.erratumpress.com/traumnovelle Traumnovelle]'', which imagines the life of Anatoli Bugorski, around the incident wherein he unwittingly stuck his head inside of a particle accelerator in 1978.

====Italy====
In Italy, the tradition of historical fiction has flourished in the modern age, the nineteenth century in particular having caught writers’ interests. Southern Italian novelists like [[Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa]] ([[The Leopard]]), [[Francesco Iovine]] (''Lady Ava''), [[Carlo Alianello]] (''The Heritage of the Prioress'') and more recently [[Andrea Camilleri]] (''The Preston Brewer'') retold the events of the [[Italian Unification]], at times overturning its traditionally heroic and progressive image. The conservative [[Riccardo Bacchelli]] in ''The Devil at the Long Point'' and the communist [[Vasco Pratolini]] in ''[[Metello]]'' described, from ideologically opposite points of view, the birth of [[Socialism in Italy|Italian Socialism]]. Bacchelli also wrote ''[[The Mill on the Po]]'', a patchwork [[Family saga|saga of a family]] of millers from the time of [[Napoleon]] to the [[First World War]], one of the most epic novels of the last century.

In 1980, [[Umberto Eco]] achieved international success with ''[[The Name of the Rose]]'', a novel set in an Italian abbey in 1327 readable as a historical mystery, as an allegory of Italy during the [[Years of Lead (Italy)|Years of Lead]], and as an erudite joke. Eco's work, like Manzoni's preceding it, relaunched Italian interest in historical fiction. Many novelists who till then had preferred the contemporary novel tried their hand at stories set in previous centuries. Among them were [[Fulvio Tomizza]] (''The Evil Coming from North'', about the [[Reformation]]), [[Dacia Maraini]] (''The Silent Duchess'', about the female condition in the eighteenth century), [[Sebastiano Vassalli]] (''The Chimera'', about a [[witch hunt]]), [[Ernesto Ferrero]] (''[[Napoleon|N]]'') and [[Valerio Manfredi]] (''The Last Legion'').

====Bulgaria====
[[Fani Popova–Mutafova]] (1902–1977) was a Bulgarian author who is considered by many to have been the best-selling Bulgarian historical fiction author ever.<ref name="Chance2005">{{cite book|author=Jane Chance| title=Women Medievalists and the Academy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5QrnjT2NT5MC&pg=PA501|year=2005|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-20750-2|pages=501–}}</ref> Her books sold in record numbers in the 1930s and the early 1940s.<ref name="Chance2005"/> However, she was eventually sentenced to seven years of imprisonment by the Bulgarian communist regime because of some of her writings celebrating [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]], and though released after only eleven months for health reasons, was forbidden to publish anything between 1943 and 1972.<ref name="Segel2012">{{cite book|author=Harold B. Segel|title=The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945-1990|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WJ8rN0qlOa0C&pg=PA11|date=1 November 2012|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press| isbn=978-0-8229-7802-2|pages=11–}}</ref> [[Stoyan Zagorchinov]] (1889–1969) also a Bulgarian writer, author of "Last Day, God's Day" trilogy and "[[Ivaylo]]", continuing the tradition in the Bulgarian historical novel, led by [[Ivan Vazov]]. [[Yana Yazova]] (1912–1974) also has several novels that can be considered historical as "''Alexander of Macedon''", her only novel on non-Bulgarian thematic, as well as her trilogy "''Balkani''". [[Vera Mutafchieva]] (1929–2009) is the author of historical novels which were translated into 11 languages.<ref name="Official site of Vera Mutafchieva">{{cite news |url=http://veramutafchieva.net/ |title= Official site of Vera Mutafchieva }}</ref> [[Anton Donchev]] (1930–) is an old living author, whose first independent novel, ''Samuel's Testimony'', was published in 1961. His second book, ''[[Time of Parting]]'', which dealt with the Islamization of the population in the Rhodopes during the XVII century was written in 1964. The novel was adapted in the serial movie "[[Time of Violence]]", divided into two parts with the subtitles ("The Threat" and "The Violence") by 1987 by the director Lyudmil Staykov. In June 2015, "[[Time of Violence]]" was chosen as the most beloved film of Bulgarian viewers in "Laced Shoes of Bulgarian Cinema", a large-scale consultation with the audience of [[Bulgarian National Television]].<ref>[https://www.bnt.bg/bg/a/lachenite-obuvki-na-ba-lgarskoto-kino-35583 "Time of Parting" is the favorite film of Bulgarian viewers "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221021073812/https://bnt.bg/bg/a/lachenite-obuvki-na-ba-lgarskoto-kino-35583 |date=2022-10-21 }}, BNT, 7 June 2015</ref>

====Scandinavia====
One of the best known Scandinavian historical novels is [[Sigrid Undset]]'s ''[[Kristin Lavransdatter]]'' (1920–1922) set in medieval Norway. For this trilogy Undset was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1928.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kristin-Lavransdatter Kristin Lavransdatter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200611053637/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kristin-Lavransdatter |date=2020-06-11 }} Encyclopedia Britannica</ref> [[Johannes V. Jensen]]'s trilogy ''Kongens fald'' (1900–1901, "The Fall of the King"), set in 16th century Denmark, has been called "the finest historical novel in Danish literature".<ref>Sven Hakon Rossel, ''A History of Danish Literature'', University of Nebraska press 1992, p.305 ff.</ref> The epic historical novel series ''Den lange rejse'' (1908–1921, "The Long Journey") is generally regarded as Jensen's masterpiece and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944 partly on the strength of it.<ref>Paul Schellinger ''Encyclopedia of the Novel'', Routledge 2014</ref> The Finnish writer [[Mika Waltari]] is known for the historical novel ''[[The Egyptian]]'' (1945).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://authorscalendar.info/mwaltari.htm|title=Mika Waltari |website=Authors Calendar |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen  |location=Finland }}</ref> Faroes–Danish writer [[William Heinesen]] wrote several historical novels, most notably ''Det gode håb'' (1964, "Fair Hope") set in the [[Faroe Islands]] in 17th century.<ref>Sven Hakon Rossel, ''A History of Danish Literature'', University of Nebraska press 1992, p.565</ref>

Historical fiction has long been a popular genre in Sweden, especially since the 1960s a huge number of historical novels has been written. Nobel laureates [[Eyvind Johnson]] and [[Pär Lagerkvist]] wrote acclaimed historical novels such as ''[[Return to Ithaca (novel)|Return to Ithaca]]'' (1946) and ''[[Barabbas (novel)|Barabbas]]'' (1950). [[Vilhelm Moberg]]'s ''[[Ride This Night]]'' (1941) is set in 16th century [[Småland]] and his widely read novel series ''[[The Emigrants (novel series)|The Emigrants]]'' tells the story of Småland emigrants to the United States in the 19th century. [[Per Anders Fogelström]] wrote a hugely popular series of five historical novels set in his native Stockholm beginning with ''[[City of My Dreams]]'' (1960). Other writers of historical fiction in Swedish literature include [[Sara Lidman]], [[Birgitta Trotzig]], [[Per Olov Enquist]] and [[Artur Lundkvist]].<ref>Susan Brantly ''The Historical Novel, Transnationalism, and the Postmodern Era: Presenting the Past'', Routledge 2017</ref>

====Latin America====
The historical novel was quite popular in 20th century [[Latin American literature]], including works such as ''[[The Kingdom of This World]]'' (1949) by [[Alejo Carpentier]], ''[[I, the Supreme]]'' (1974) by [[Augusto Roa Bastos]], ''[[Terra Nostra (novel)|Terra Nostra]]'' (1975) by [[Carlos Fuentes]], ''News from the Empire'' (1987) by [[Fernando del Paso]], ''[[The Lightning of August]]'' (1964) by [[Jorge Ibargüengoitia]], ''[[The War of the End of the World]]'' (1981) by [[Mario Vargas Llosa]] and ''[[The Autumn of the Patriarch]]'' (1975) by [[Gabriel García Marquez]]. Other writers of historical fiction include [[Abel Posse]], [[Antonio Benitez Rojo]], [[João Ubaldo Ribeiro]], [[Jorge Amado]], [[Homero Aridjis]].<ref>Seymour Menton ''Latin America's New Historical Novel'', University of Texas Press 2010</ref>