Looking back on Solander: The Magazine of the Historical Novel Society
Solander was a print magazine containing interviews with historical novelists, retrospectives on the great names of historical fiction, other feature articles, commentary, and original short fiction. It was published by the society twice yearly from 1997-2011. Many complete back issues as well as articles from the magazine have been added to this site.
About the history of Solander:
The following description was adapted from a farewell piece written by the magazine’s final editor, Lucinda Byatt, for her blog.
Solander had a great publishing life: from Spring 1997 to November 2011, 15 years and a total of 30 issues. It’s also had an excellent series of highly committed editors: Richard Lee (who founded the HNS), Sarah Cuthbertson, James Hawking, Claire Morris and Sarah Kelly. However, over the final year of its publication, it became clear that the rationale for having two magazines – Solander, and its sister publication the Historical Novels Review – was being undermined by a growing degree of overlap. Effective with the February 2012 issue, the two were merged under the title of the better-known half, the Historical Novels Review.
About the name “Solander”:
Daniel Solander was an eminent scientist and natural historian. He was born in Sweden, but came to live in England in 1760 and was employed at the British Museum. Solander is best known as a botanist/librarian who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. He was responsible for recording all new types of flora and fauna that were encountered, and for bringing samples back to England. The boxes that he used to keep his precious drawings in were shaped like books, and have become known as Solander boxes. It was because of Daniel Solander’s enthusiasm for its unique vegetation specimens that Botany Bay in Australia received its name. Botany Bay would later become famous as the destination for convicts arriving from England.
Daniel Solander is thought to be one of the inspirations for Patrick O’Brian’s character Maturin, in his Aubrey/Maturin series of novels. The magazine Solander was not named after the man, but after Solander boxes, whose precious contents changed a generation’s attitude to their subject.
