'Romance Flamboyant and Youthful'

This is an eminently unliterary age, incapable of thought, and therefore seeking to be amused. Whereas the the writing of books was once a painful act, it has of late become a trick very easy of accomplishment, requiring no regard for probability, and little thought, so long as it is packed sufficiently full of impossible incidents through which a ridiculous heroine and a more absurd hero duly sigh their appointed way to the last chapter. 

Whereas books were once a power, they are, of late, degenerated into things of amusement with which to kill an idle hour and be promptly forgotten.... Who troubles their head over Homer or Virgil these days - who cares to open Steele's 'Tatler' or Addison's 'Spectator', while there is the latest novel to be had, or 'Bell's Life' to be found on any coffee-house table?

Few writers in any age would be likely to agree that the writing of books has 'become a trick very easy of accomplishment.' Critics in any age however are likely to compare their literature unfavourably with that of the past.  The lines above were spoken by the hero of The Broad Highway, by Jeffery Farnol, published in 1910, and set in the Regency period.

Jeffery Farnol was a prolific writer of romantic and swashbuckling historical fiction. His titles include My Lady Caprice, Black Bartlemy's Treasure, Adam Penfeather, Buccaneer, and The Geste of Duke Jocelyn. He, or his publishers, described his works as 'a romance of the Regency', 'a stirring pirate story', 'a mystery story of merry England'.

Farnol was a bestseller in his day, but one could ask 'who troubles their head over Jeffery Farnol these days'? I remember shelves of his books in my local library in the 1960s and 1970s, but his popularity was already declining in his lifetime. At his death in 1952, his obituarist in the Times wrote:

For the moment the taste for the romance flamboyant seems to have been superseded - and not necessarily by a taste for anything better.  Even those who sniff patronizingly at his novels admit that he achieved something more than the costume and prose style of Wardour Street. Whatever else his books lack... they flow with untroubled zest and assurance.

Farnol's flowery prose style, the relatively slow pace of some of his work, his romanticised view of English rural life in the past, would be assumed not to appeal to modern readers, who are supposed to have shorter attention spans and to require more realism in their fiction (although there is nothing wrong with a little romanticism, and fiction need not always be realistic).

Farnol has a niche following today, but as a bestseller he is largely forgotten. Which of today's prolific and successful writers of historical fiction will be remembered? Will people still be reading Bernard Cornwell or Philippa Gregory in fifty or a hundred years' time? Or will they come to be regarded as out of date as readers move on to the next fashion in historical fiction?

"Disconnected, poor and plain"

The governess often appeared in works of fiction. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, fictional governesses was Mrs Teachum in The Governess, Or, The Little Female Academy (1749) by Sarah Fielding, sister of  Henry and John Fielding. Mrs Teachum is not typical of later fictional governesses; she is a widow who runs her own school. The book is aimed at school-age girls, not adults. There is no plot; the book is intended to improve the characters of its readers.

The most famous fictional governess appeared nearly a hundred years later. Jane Eyre was published in 1847. Jane has many of the characteristics typical of the governess in fiction; she is an orphan, poor and friendless, having to make her own way in the world.

Jane did not allow herself to be oppressed, but the oppressed, isolated figure, neither servant nor family member, is the most usual image of the governess. The governess novel is said to have been a popular genre in Victorian fiction. Various reasons are put forward for the popularity of this type of novel.  The simplest is probably that many readers were girls or young women who themselves were, or expected to be, governesses. The character was one they could identify with. Similarly, heroines of romantic fiction in the mid twentieth century were often secretaries.

No doubt in real life many governesses came from happy families and were valued by their employers. But where is the potential for conflict and drama in such a setting? If the fictional governess is presented as poor and friendless, her tribulations can be that much greater, and her eventual happy ending that much more satisfying.

Time travelling

Revisiting the books one loved as a child can be a mistake.

One book I had from the library often was A Child's Day Through the Ages by Dorothy Margaret Stuart, first published in 1941. As the title indicates, each chapter describes a typical day in the life of a child from a different period of history, from the Bronze Age to Edwardian England.

Some years ago I found a second hand copy of the book. On reading it again, I couldn't see why I had liked it so much. The characters were flat. There was little plot or conflict or drama. Both the text and the illustrations seemed designed to educate rather than entertain.

"The merchant, still wearing the high crowned beaver hat without which he was seldom seen during his waking hours, said a rather long grace and seated himself at one end of the square table, with his wife opposite him, and his son between them. On either side of the fireplace stood a broad and high arm-chair finely carved ut of glossy brown oak, but at table the family sat on wooden stools. A linen cloth was spread, and on it were pewter cups and plates, and spoons of a kind of brass-ware called 'latten'. There were knives with wooden handles, but forks with wooden handles had not yet appeared in the homes of the merchant class." 

There are copies of the book available on Amazon for anyone who would like to read it, but for me the magic is gone.

Another book I loved was The House of Arden by E. Nesbit, forst published in 1908. It's not one of her best books, nor her best known. It's a time travel story, and even as a child I could see flaws in the way the time travel worked. But I like time travel stories and Elfrida was one of my favourite fictional characters.

The story was first published as a magazine serial, and that's evident on reading it now. But the characters are alive. There's adventure and danger as well as every day life. E. Nesbit's descriptive passages are scene setting rather than educational.

"They found the George half-way up Arden village, a stately, great house  shaped like a E, with many windows and a great porch with a balcony over it. They gave their letter to a lady in a round cap who sat sewing in a pleasant room, where there were many bottles and kegs, and rows of bright pewter ale-pots, and little fat mugs to measure other things with, and pewter plates on a brown dresser. There were greyhounds, too, all sprawling, legs and shoulders and tails entangled together like a bunch of dead eels, before the widest hearth the children had ever seen. They hurried away the moment they had given the letter. A coach, top-heavy with luggage, had drawn up in front of the porch, and as they went out they saw the ostlers leading away the six smoking horses."

This one I come back to often.

How not to be a short story writer

I rarely write short fiction. Short story writing, which requires set up, development and resolution in two thousand words or fewer, is a skill that I don't have. The novel, with a plot that takes time to work out, and a large cast of characters, is my natural medium.

However, a while ago I was inspired to write Bess, her story, linked to under 'Pages' above. It's not a story, more a slice of life or character piece. It's not at all my usual style, and I don't think it would work in a longer piece, but it demanded to be written that way.

(The next paragraph discusses the piece, so you might want to read it before reading further here.)

And even in this short (just over two thousand words) piece I have nine named characters, two who are individually described but not named, and others who are mentioned but not individually described.

What is totally lacking, however,  is a plot. The characters don't drive the action. They don't make any decisions that change the course of events. They only observe and react.

It doesn't mean that!

‘People died young there, and any man living on it who reached the age of forty could consider himself fortunate indeed’ is how one novelist described a bad street in the East End of London in 1898.

She has made a mistake common to writers and television historians. She is referring to statistics on average life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth in England was indeed around forty for most of the nineteenth century. However, average life expectancy is not the same as age at death.

Average life expectancy was reduced by the very high levels of infant mortality.  In 1899 (by which time levels of infant mortality had begun to fall), sixteen or seventeen out of every hundred babies born died before their first birthdays.

It is true that there were fewer elderly people in the population in the nineteenth century than there are now. Between 1821 and 1901 the proportion of the population of England and Wales aged 65 or over was between five and seven per cent. In the early 21st century it is nearly twenty per cent.

But it is not the case that no, or very few, people lived beyond their thirties and forties.

In Stepney Workhouse in the East End of London in 1881, out of 736 inmates, about 450 were aged 65 or over. Some were over eighty, such as Daniel McCarthy, an 87 year old dock labourer from Cork, and Elizabeth Hennigan, an 86 year old blind washerwoman, born in Bury St Edmunds.

The author of the Census report for 1901 believed that there was a tendency for people, especially the very elderly, to overstate their ages, so that the number of men and women in their eighties recorded in the Census was greater than it should have been. However, a man or woman claiming to be 85 was presumably older than 65, so this overstatement does not distort the proportion of older people in the population.

Some people might have added a few years to their ages when they were young. Many family historians will have encountered ancestors who claimed to be 21 when they were married, who were in fact younger. They might have kept those few extra years throughout their lives.

No-one born in England before the middle of 1837 would have proof of date of birth. He or she might have proof of baptism, but that isn’t the same thing. For most people, the ten yearly Census was the only time they were required to state their age for official purposes. (For marriage, it was only necessary to say that one was ’of full age’.)

Quite possibly, many people genuinely did not know how old they were.
　

You can’t write history from one source only

- was the well known saying of a historian who once taught me.

All historical sources are biased or inaccurate in some way. The historian who relies on only one will inevitably have a one-sided view of events, people and places.

W. Whellan & Co.’s Directory of Manchester and Salford, published in 1853, said of Manchester:

‘Perhaps no part of England ... presents such remarkable and attractive features … as Manchester and its manufacturing district; its vast population - its colossal mills, works and warehouses - its vast extent and variety of manufactures - its commercial grandeur and magnificence - its boundless resources - its scene of untiring bustle and energy - as the “workshop of the world“ altogether presents a picture … to which neither this nor any other country can yield a parallel….

Though we cannot claim for Manchester any degree of picturesque beauty, which characterise some towns in our island, yet this deficiency is in a great measure redeemed by the noble streets, imposing buildings, and busy scenes which strike the eye.’


Brief mentions of polluted rivers and inadequate housing are well hidden among accounts of Manchester’s history, cotton manufactures, public buildings, churches, schools and parks.

Friedrich Engels, in The Condition of the Working Class in England, published in 1844, wrote:
 ‘He who turns to the left from … Long Millgate, is lost; he wanders from one court to another, turns countless corners, passes nothing but narrow, filthy nooks and alleys…. Everywhere half or wholly ruined buildings …rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors, and a state of filth! Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district….

Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants.’

Dr James Kay (later Kay-Shuttleworth) wrote of Manchester in 1832:

We discover in those districts which contain a large portion of poor … that among 579 streets inspected, 243 were altogether unpaved, 46 partially paved, 93 ill ventilated, and 307 contained heaps of refuse, deep ruts, stagnant pools, ordure, &c; and in the districts which are almost exclusively inhabited by the poor … among 438 streets inspected, 214 were altogether unpaved, 32 partially paved, 63 ill ventilated, and 259 contained heaps of refuse, deep ruts, stagnant pools, ordure, &c.

All of these were written for different and specific purposes, which the researcher must be aware of.

The same is true of historical research for fictional purposes. The writer needs to gather information from a wide  range of sources. It is possible to use these differing accounts to good effect in fiction, of course. Having characters representing the different points of view discovered in research can provide conflict.

Although there must be more to the characters than their opinions on the burning social or political issues of the day. They must talk, discuss, argue, share experiences, find common interests, and one, or, ideally, both, must learn and change over the course of the book. Otherwise they will be two-dimensional and there will be no character development or plot progression - and thus no story!　

Music and Murder in Newcastle

The latest in Roz Southey's Charles Patterson series is now out. The books, set in and around Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1730s, are historical crime fiction with a supernatural twist. Roz says she didn’t set out to write a paranormal crime series - the idea just came to her as she was writing the first one. Now with each book Roz has to think of a mystery that will challenge her hero, and the reader, within the rules of the universe she has created.

Charles Patterson is an impoverished musician who also has a talent for investigating murder. The character is based on Charles Avison, a Newcastle man who was one of England’s most important composers in the eighteenth century. The flourishing music scene scene of north east England in that period plays a major role in the books, as does Newcastle itself, with its quayside, narrow alleys and elegant squares.


Newcastle was a fast growing town in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its prosperity was based first on the coal mining in the region, and the export of coal to London and elsewhere. A hundred years after Charles Patterson’s time, around a million and a half tons of coal a year were being shipped out of Newcastle.

As the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, a wide range of goods was manufactured in and around Newcastle. ‘Every description of goods in cast and wrought iron, and brass; steel goods; sheet and pipe lead; patent-shot; white, orange, and red lead; paint; crown, flint, and bottle glass; earthenware and pottery; alkali and other chemical preparations; copperas, soap, salt, and various other articles…. There are other foundries and forges for the manufacture of steam-engines, machinery of all descriptions, and agricultural implements; and extensive works for building railway and other carriages.’ Shipbuilding too was a major industry on the Tyne.

In 1827, the author of a history of Newcastle declared ‘The richer classes in Newcastle consist of the descendants of ancient and distinguished mercantile families, or of those who have accumulated a fortune by a long exercise of superior knowledge and industry. They are therefore well-informed, polite, and unostentatious; and to the influence of their manners may the respectful demeanour of the other classes be mainly attributed…. The insolent, vulgar, purse-proud upstarts, that swarm in some places, are almost unknown here.'

Charles Patterson would probably have disagreed.
　

Real people in fiction - again

When, if ever, is it acceptable to change known facts about the lives of real people for the purposes of fiction?

Some people’s lives are so well documented that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a novelist to change aspects of them.

What about the less well known?

I recently read a historical novel in which the central character was fictional but many of the background, secondary characters were real people. Some were prominent - members of the royal family, members of the government of the time. As far as I could tell, the roles they played in the novel didn’t conflict with any known facts about their actions or beliefs.

One was obscure. Probably few people would know that he really existed. I only know because I happen to have come across him when reading the history of my own county. It was clear that the author was indeed referring to this man and hadn’t just happened to pick the same name for her fictional character.

The author changed the date, place and manner of his death. In fact, she made him the victim of the murder that the central character had to solve.

Does it matter? Does it matter more or less because this man was relatively unknown? The author did retain the man’s quite extreme political and religious opinions, which is perhaps more important than the bare facts about his death.

However, I don’t see why the author could not simply have invented a character with similar beliefs and history to the man she used, whom she could have killed in any way she pleased.

It’s not always possible to replace a real person with a fictional character. Some people’s contribution to history is unique - one could not invent a character to fill the role of Drake, or Cromwell (either of them!) or Wellington or Churchill.

But where lesser people are concerned I think it would be preferable to create a fictional captain and ship to play a part in the Armada campaign rather than trying to make a real captain and ship fit the purposes of the plot. Better to have a fictional Member of Parliament, or a fictional army officer.

The author is then free to develop character and plot as he or she pleases, rather than having to fit the plot to the known facts about the person's life and personality. Or, as in the case above, ignore the known facts.

Development of character and plot is what fiction writing is about, after all.

Otherwise bald and unconvincing?

In the latest issue of the Historical Novels Review, former lecturer in history Tristram Hunt is quoted as saying ‘there is a dangerous tendency among historians to slide into historical fiction, which must be avoided at all costs.’

He is said to be 'bored and appalled' by 'the relentless focus on detail which provides the authenticity.'

As a historian who also writes historical fiction, obviously I don’t agree with Dr Hunt’s proposed blanket ban on historians becoming novelists. But I do think he might have a point about the ‘relentless focus on detail.'

Long factual descriptions of what people wore, what they ate, how they furnished their rooms, do not on their own create a sense of time and place. Yes, the writer needs to know enough about these things to avoid glaring anachronisms, but most of them have no place in the novel.

In a contemporary novel, a writer would not devote paragraphs to describing how a character prepared breakfast, got dressed, travelled to work. So why do it in historical fiction?

If the hero, on his way to work, steps into the path of a hansom cab because he’s preoccupied by whatever predicament the author has placed him in, the reader wants to know how he reacts to the cabbie shouting and swearing at him, whether he feels shaken by his narrow escape as he continues his journey. The reader does not need a precise description of the cab that nearly ran our hero down. 

Don’t describe in minute detail the home of a well to do tradesman. Show the girl whose job it is to clean the hearth and polish the pewter.

Don’t give a stitch by stitch description of the ball gown. Describe the seventeen year old girl who is dressing for her first ball.

Don’t write at length about how crowded, noisy and dirty London was in whatever era the story takes place. Show the reactions of the young woman from a provincial town who is experiencing it for the first time.

Fiction, of whatever genre, is, or should be, about the characters, the challenges they face, and how they deal with those challenges, not about the setting - unless, of course, the setting is the challenge.

Some historians overlook the people in their non-fiction work. They provide tables of population growth, of economic growth, of imports and exports. They write about great religious or political movements. They seem to forget that driving all these events are individuals, all with their own fears, secrets, ambitions and achievements.

They are the historians who should not be writing fiction.

I already know the ending.

Various people have asked me if I’ve read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the 2009 winner of the Man Booker Prize. Several have offered to lend me their copies.

I’ve always declined.

I’ve never read Dorothy Dunnett’s King Hereafter, which many fans consider to be her best work, for the same reason.

I already know the ending.

Wolf Hall is about Thomas Cromwell, the man who had the job of sorting out Henry VIII’s marital problems. King Hereafter is about Macbeth.

This is just my personal preference, of course. Historical fiction focusing on the lives of real people is read by many people. It can be an enjoyable way of learning about past times. Jean Plaidy was the queen of the genre in the 1960s and 1970s, and some of her books have recently been re-published.

I first encountered Henri of Navarre, the future Henri IV of France, in historical fiction. The novel only focused on one part of his life, and at the time I read the book, in my early teens, I didn't know how his story ended.

For me, knowing in advance how the story will end takes away much of the pleasure of reading a novel for the first time. And I particularly don't want to read someting that I know in advance will not have a happy ending.

When I’ve mentioned this, people have said the books are still worth reading, for the quality of the writing or the research. But if I wanted to read a well-researched book about a real person, I’d look for a biography.

I think including a real person as a secondary character can add depth to the story. It helps to set the scene and tie the fictional events of the novel into the real world. If it’s a well known historical figure, the reader will already be familiar with him or her and be able to anticipate, to some extent, how he or she will interact with the main characters.

A writer of Regency romances, for example, doesn’t need to devote paragraphs to introducing the Duke of Wellington, or the Prince Regent, and therefore the story can move along more quickly.

But I prefer to get to know the central characters in a novel for the first time over the course of the story, and experience the twists and turns of events along with them.

When does history end?

When does a novel cease to be historical, and become contemporary? The Historical Novel Society defines historical fiction as novels 'written at least fifty years after the events described, or written by someone who was not alive at the time of those events.'

In 1930, Sellar and Yeatman said that history ended in 1918 when America became Top Nation and history came to a.

More recently, Francis Fukuyama suggested that history ended with the fall of Communism in Europe in 1989.

My personal definition is that history is events that are not within the  memory of the person who is reading or writing about them, or studying them. But as a lecturer in adult education, I sometimes find myself teaching subjects that are history to me, but that some of my students lived through.

Conversely, the Cold War is part of the history curriculum in English schools. No-one now of school age was alive at the time of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. But for many who teach the subject,  the Cold War was central to their view of world affairs in their childhood and early adulthood. Few, if any, of the post-war generation expected the Wall to come down in their lifetimes. 

Yet the Berlin Wall existed for just 28 years. It is barely a blip in the whole history of Europe. It will probably hardly rate a mention in the history books of the future.

There’s an important point here for historians, and especially for writers of historical fiction. We lump together several centuries and call them ‘the Anglo Saxon period’ or ‘the Middle Ages.’ But these are not homogeneous periods, any more than the twentieth century was. Change was slower in the past, but it happened. A seventy year old, in any century, will not have the same life experiences, or the same perceptions of his or her world, as a twenty year old. And events which may have had a major impact on the lives of people in the past may barely be mentioned in the history books.