Historical Novels

[poliphilo]

How long ago does a novel have to be set for it to qualify as an historical novel?

I reckon the events it deals with need to be outside living memory (at the time of writing).

Thus a contemporary novel set in the trenches of WWI would be an historical novel and one set on the beaches of Dunkirk wouldn't.

I'm reading Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston,  He was writing it in the 1890s and it's set around the time of Waterloo. That's a gap of about 80 years- which puts it on the cusp. Is it an historical novel ? I can't decide. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think I'd want to argue that it can't be historical while there are still living witnesses walking around, but I wouldn't want to make it a heated argument...

I'll accept 1911 as historical. 1968 I find it hard to accept. Same goes for 1948 and 1938. I wasn't around for those last two, but I know people who were.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

See, I'd argue that, for instance, the movie MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS is historical fiction, and that takes place between 1937 and 1944. Poking around at various websites, I find some people whose classification agrees with that -- not everybody, but it appears to be within the universe of reasonable opinions.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's "within the universe of reasonable opinions". (Love that phrase!) I don't agree with it, but I give it respect. :)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I've just co-written a book (out next year, I hope!) on history in books for children, and when we came to look at the 20thC we had to consider this question. I'm not going to try to summarise our conclusions here, though I'd be happy to send you the relevant chapter if you felt like it. But I am interested in why you feel that it can't be history unless everyone who witnessed it is dead.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see that chapter....

Why do I feel what I feel? It's a gut thing, really.
Memory doesn't discriminate between recent and far-away. I remember my 50s childhood better than I remember many more recent things. Old people notoriously live in the past. When my father-in-law talks about his experiences as a military policeman in the 1940s he's bringing them into the present. The things we remember belong to an eternal "Now". Only when there are there no witnesses left do events drop out of that eternal "Now" into history.

Does that make any sense?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot of sense. Although, I think that what you're proposing as a distinction between history and memory, I'd prefer to see as the site of a complex relationship between them.

If you pm me your email address of choice, I'll send you the chapter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

pm dispatched.