Guides
Defining the Genre
There are problems with defining historical novels, as with defining any genre. When does ‘contemporary’ end, and ‘historical’ begin? What…
Forthcoming Historical Novels
The Historical Novel Society has been tracking forthcoming historical novels for many years. These lists of historical fiction titles are…
Alternate History
As a big alternate history fan, I get asked often to recommend a good alternate history books, but that is…
The English Civil Wars
The English Civil Wars is a period rich in opportunities for the author. There is the breakdown of political society…
Christian Historical Fiction
Christian fiction is a publishing genre with its own distinct publishers, and Historical Christian fiction is a subset within that.…
The Philosophical Historical Novel
Philosophers of the past so aroused the societies they lived in that they were often persecuted, executed, or hired to…
1066
Supposedly the last date when the English were conquered, 1066 has long been iconic, long a favoured subject for historical…
The Knights Templar
Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, villain of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, early established the role of the Templar in historical fiction –…
Ancient Rome
This is way too big a subject for one guide, and will no doubt get divided into many subsections in…
King Arthur
I once spoke with the senior fiction editor at a New York publishing house who held the opinion that every…
About our Guides
One of our projects is to create guides to specific periods and settings in historical fiction. Each guide will have a brief introduction to the way that the subject is treated in historical fiction, written by our staff to begin with, but easily changed if you write in with improvements.
The key to this section is interactivity. If you want a guide and don’t see one here, suggest it. If you have stuff to add to one of our guides, write in. We will also run reading clubs and film clubs here, so if you want to read books and exchange views with other enthusiasts, sign up and join in!
For those who want a ready-made guide to the genre, you cannot do better than Sarah Johnson’s Historical Fiction II – A Guide to the Genre.