One of the most popular subjects around which to build a private library is historical fiction:
The Historical Novel Society defines this genre as works of fiction written at least 50 years after the events they describe, by authors who were not alive during the time period that is the focus of such fiction. But, several additional criteria often also come into play, such as how historically accurate such fiction is (which impacts how believable the work is).
Included in this overarching definition are several subgenres, such as alternate histories; steam punk, (which technically is two different sub-subgenres, being both historical science fiction and alternate history that is focused on technology); pseudo-histories; time-slip novels (a sub-subgenre of historical science fiction); historical fantasies (which some critics define as a sub-subgenre of pseudo-histories); historical romances; historical mysteries; multiple-time novels (a sub-subgenre of historical science fiction) and the like.
Like many others genres popular with "the mass market," historical fiction has long been dismissed by literary critics. As Sarah Johnson points out in a recent essay on the subject, historical fiction has
the reputation of being either costume dramas, in which modern-day characters are dressed up and paraded around in period garb with a few “thees” and “thous” thrown in for good measure, or barely fictionalized textbooks, in which the author’s need to cram all of his prodigious research into a single novel overwhelms the plot.
Literary works (such as those depicted in the images above) generally are excepted from such criticism, which is aimed at the more formulaic titles which make up the bulk of the genre.
Over the next several days, we will examine this genre in more detail. We begin with the first known work of historical fiction, a work that was written in Egypt over 3000 years ago....
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