Historical Fictions

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    Abstract

    This chapter offers a survey of historical fictions by women between 1945 and 1974. Despite critical neglect of this genre, Wallace argues that these years are extremely rich in historical fictions ranging from ‘serious’ historical novels by writers like Naomi Mitchison and H.F.M Prescott to ‘popular’ fiction by Jean Plaidy and Norah Lofts. The chapter focuses on five exemplary types of fiction: the biographical historical novel, often centralising royal Tudor women such as Elizabeth I, associated with Margaret Irwin; the regency romance as established by Georgette Heyer; the Marxist-realist novels of Sylvia Townsend Warner; Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea as a Modernist version of the Gothic romance; and Mary Renault’s radical rewriting of classical history to foreground a notion of gender as performative and fluid.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Palgrave History of British Women’s Writing
    Subtitle of host publication 1945-1975
    EditorsClare Hanson, Susan Watkins
    Place of PublicationBasingstoke
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
    Pages242-258
    Number of pages16
    VolumeIX
    Edition1st
    ISBN (Electronic)978-1-137-47736-1
    ISBN (Print)978-1137477354
    Publication statusPublished - 29 Jul 2017

    Publication series

    NamePalgrave History of Women's Writing
    PublisherPalgrave
    VolumeIX

    Keywords

    • Twentieth-century literature
    • women's writing
    • historical fiction
    • historical novel
    • biographical historical novel
    • the regency romance
    • Marxist-realist novels
    • Modernist version of the Gothic romance
    • radical rewriting of classical history

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