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

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it has to be that far back - I mean a novel about the miners' strike would still be a historical novel if it were written now, wouldn't it?

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

In my humble opinion hsitorical novels are ones written before the 20th century or written now in the genre of an historical novel. So, for example, Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" is not histotrical whereas Peter Ackroyd's "Chatterton" is.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

From my experience (right up to my neck in it) I would say the historical-ness of a novel is proportional to the amount of times you have to Stop What You're Doing In the Middle Of Your Narrative and Hit Google...

...in my case, "very often".

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

As to the Weir of Hermiston and when it was wrote i would say that the gap of 80 years between the author writing it and the period of Waterloo does not make it an historucal novel.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 and I would consider THAT a historical novel. The dictionary defines it as

A novel that re-creates a period or event in history and often uses historical figures as some of its characters.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think that a historical novel is one which is set before the author was born, and which involves actual people and events. Yes, I believe that a novel about Woodstock (1968), written today by an author of my generation, would be a historical novel, even though my mother was there. If my mother wrote it, though, it wouldn't be.

Certainly, recent novels about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911), are considered historical fiction.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I agree with you here. If there is still extent witnesses to the past than the novelisation could not technically be called historical.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I'd say a novel can be "historic" if its time setting is intrinsically vital to the plot. For instance, Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty is steeped in the 1980's and as such displays all the characteristics of an historic novel.

And "History"? Does that need to be something that happened long ago? Of course there needs to be enough temporal difference to allow reflection on the social and cultural setting, but I think that can be possible even if it's well within living memory.