What is an Historical Novel, to you?

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Didn't want to hijack the other thread.

So, when someone says, "Historical Novel", what pops into your mind.

Louis L'Amour writes his cowboy stories in the 1880s, mostly. That's historical. Would that fit most folk's impressions?

How about Clan of the Cave Bear?

Does it have to be about some important historical thing? Andersonville. About a prison camp during the War Against Yankee Aggression. Certainly historical. But how about Little House on the Prairie? Just a story about a family, trying to survive.

A novel about the life of Jesus would probably fit. But how about one about some random Semite, from around 100BC to 100 AD? Certainly a novel about Pearl Harbor in 1941, but how about one taking place in Tahiti in 1937?

Does it have to be thick? L'Amour's books are normally less than 200 pages. But then Centennial is over a thousand.

Does it have to be written NOW, about BACK THEN, or could it be a novel taking place NOW, but written BACK THEN? P.G. Wodehouse jumps to mind. Written in "current day", but current day was the 19 teens and twenties.
 
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Well, I would consider it historical fiction if it was loosely based on real history and actual events, but that focused on characters and circumstances that were not necessarily themselves exact or real. For example, I really like Michener's books, which usually follow the development of an area and the people that inhabit the area, but using characters that are mostly fictional. My favorites of his books are "Chesapeake" and "Centennial." I also consider historical fiction such books as "Winds of War", "War and Remembrance", "The Sand Pebbles", and "From Here to Eternity", which deal with fictional American characters during actual wartime events.

I don't think the time/setting is really the issue, since by definition history is in the past...whether immediate past or distant past, or anything in-between. Anything set in the future isn't history...for example, Orwell's "1984" wasn't a historical novel when it was written. It was a work of fiction, and an imaging of how society might become in the future. Now, in 2013, the date of 1984 is in the past for us, but the setting is still considered the future. I wouldn't classify it as a historical novel, since the events are still fictional...for now. Unfortunately, it is becoming less and less a work of fiction every day, and more of an accurate prediction of what we are becoming.
 
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I don't think that it follows, that the novel has to encompass some "important" event or chronology.

The main characters, however, must fit seamlessly into the contextual history of the event or chronology. We understand that the Union was victorious during the War of 1861-1865. However, it wouldn't do for an unknown officer, e.g., to have overshadowed Generals Grant, Lee, Jackson, Sherman, etc.

I remember reading a novel in the early sixties titled, "If The South Had Won The Civil War", by MacKinlay Kantor. It's premise, Ulysses Grant dying after being thrown from his horse, follows the complete breakdown of the Union Army, allowing the Confederacy to rally and eventually win.

While "If The South..." was entertaining, I still have trouble accepting Kantor's line of thought.
 
+1 to GKC! I'm a big fan of Michener, & his books are prime examples to me of "historical fiction". I like the way he weaves his plots to interact with famous people in history. Another favorite of mine is Clavell. His intricate plots & subplots will keep you turning pages for hours!:cool:
 
Two that come to mind "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara and "Last Full Measure" by Jeff Shaara. Both closely follow actual battles and events of the civil war but the authors put dialogue into the mouths of the actual participants. I read one last year about Admiral Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar but I can't remember the title. It was one of the best descriptions of Naval warfare of that era I have ever read. But the author put an extra ship in Nelson's fleet.

I don't read many novels but some of them are very good.
 
timn8er said:
Another favorite of mine is Clavell. His intricate plots & subplots will keep you turning pages for hours!:cool:
Click to expand...

Oh, me too! While I've enjoyed all of his books in the Asian saga series, "Nobel House" is my favorite...and one of my favorite books of any kind.

One thing I really enjoy that Michener and Clavell both do is to refer back to previous characters and events, and to show how sometimes the actual events that become legends aren't really what happened. But, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." (from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.")
 
Well, if the setting is in the past, I guess that quaifies. See my very long post in the other thread for suggestions.

But when, "King Solomon's Mines" was written, it was set in present time, about 1883. The author fought in the Second Zulu War! Today, it's a historical novel, set in that period. BTW, the 1950 movie was the best of several based on that book. You can see trailers and clips on YouTube. Stewart Granger played Alan Quartermain, the hero/narrator. For reasons that I don't know, the tribe to which Umbopa belonged was the Watutsi in the movie. In the book, it is quite similar to the Zulu. I wrote a college paper on the Zulu, and it was easy to spot the similarities.

Those by Wilbur Smith set in the 1960's and later were then current. But his ancient Egyptian and other novels, set in the 1600's through the early 20th Century were meant as historical from the outset. I think it's clear that an author who just turned 80 this January is writing a historical novel when he sets it in about 2800 B.C.! :D

BTW, Jean Auel's novels about the lovely Ayla technically aren't historical, because they're, uh, PREhistorica!. I like the movie of, "Clan of the Cave Bear", starring Nicole Eggert as young Ayla and Darryl Hannah as the older (about 20) Ayla. As the credits rolled, I thought of the books I've read about that era. i've seen some of the actual artifacts discovered in prehistoric caves at Lascaux and Altimira. It's an eerie feeling to glance that far back into our past. It was even more intriguing in a way to hear Dr. Donald Johanson lecture and show his slides about the australopithicines his expeditions have discovered, inc, the celebrated "Lucy." He was kind enough to autograph my copies of his books, despite having received death threats from creationists.
 
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Interesting question, and I'm the one who started the other thread.

I hadn't thought it through, but I guess I'd define it as a novel based on or around known historical events. Gets really blurry, though--what about a book like Shogun?

Really good question, which I'll have to give some thought.
 
Thread drift, sorry. If you haven't read every Stephen Hunter book with Earl and Bobby Lee Swagger do it now. GREAT BOOKS! Also Unintended Consequences by John Ross (cult classic)

Sorry for the hijack
 
They've all got to be set "sometime", and poetic license is acceptable to the reader. You know, some like a style, some don't. Now, "Skeletons on the Zahara" is a modern work, taken from a recount of an individual back last(last)century. There's no plot like you'd see in Clavell or Micheners very readable works(which I consider no more "historical" than Hemingways "For Whom the Bell Tolls")
Too much story ruins a book for me, unless it's really fiction set in the past, like L'amour.
I guess I just read history books, instruction manuals and fiction.
 
Probably something on the Banned List...

Uncle Remus, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, etc.
 
Not a novel, a movie.

Titanic with Decaprio and Winslet. Seriously. As a boy I discovered a copy of A Night to Remember by Walter Lord (still have it too) and I swear I knew that book line by line, I read it so many times. And, everything at the local library. Later I found 1912 newspapers on microfilm and read them, some stuff I copied. It was my first experience with microfilm.
Anyway the screenplay was written following pretty much to a T the actual events of that night. Its probably legend that the first officer really shot himself, it was more a rumor I think without a lot of fact behind it. A few survivors said so, but most had no knowledge of it. But otherwise, it was pretty much right on, the real people depicted in the movie really did those things that night just as they were portrayed.
I am not sure I've read any historical novels that covered the true events like this movie did.

Joan of Arc I find really interesting, but being over 500 years ago, who knows what are the real facts versus the myths. I think there is too much going on there for it to be mostly legend, I am inclined to believe most of what we are told really happened. Nobody even knows what she really looked like, as there are no known portraits of her that survived.
 
shouldazagged said:
what about a book like Shogun?
Click to expand...

I think "Shogun" is an excellent example of historical fiction. It is set in a period that actually occurred, with types of people and circumstances that were realistically portrayed. Most of the characters were based on real people; read the attached link to a Wikipedia article:

Sh?gun (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is why I find this type of fiction so interesting: it is close enough to real history to be informative, yet also entertaining to read.
 
Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West
Great historical fiction by Cormack McCarthy about how the West was really won (violence, savagery, and terror).
 
I am really suprised by you guys. In my mind most anything by Steinbeck, Hemingway, and others of the like fits the like of historical even if fiction. I have been to "Cannery Row" and some of the other places in their books and it awes me to have been there.
 
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