Are These Settings Too Popular?

By Melissa Luttmann

I recently came across this quote from well-known editor Harold Underdown: “There isn’t enough HF [historical fiction] published that’s set outside the US.” My first instinct was to agree wholeheartedly with him, but then I decided to try a little experiment. I looked at all of the titles I’ve collected to review for Wonders and Marvels over the past year, as well as some soon-to-be released books that I’ve requested for this season, and noted their settings.

Around 60% of the books I analyzed were set in the United States. Although that percentage is probably higher than some of us (myself included) would like it to be, I don’t find it completely outrageous. But then, out of curiosity, I decided to examine which non-US settings were the most popular. And even though I was expecting the results I got, they still shocked me a little.

The only non-Western settings in the books I looked at were Russia and North Africa – and depending on how you look at it, you could probably argue that even those areas are on the periphery of Western civilization. Other than that, western Europe – particularly England – predominated. Of course I was aware of this fact before I performed this experiment, but actually tallying up the books made it much more graphic. This is where I have to disagree, at least to an extent, with Mr. Underdown. It’s not the abundance of historical fiction set in the United States specifically that’s a problem – it’s the amount of historical fiction set in the West in general.

Do you agree with Mr. Underdown’s assessment that too much historical fiction is set in the United States? What about too much historical fiction set in western Europe?

Melissa Luttman is Associate Editor for Young Adult History/Historical Fiction at Wonders & Marvels.

Of Bloodletting and Birthdays

Giveaway: There Once Lived a Woman...Scary Fairy Tales

Nose Lost, Celebrity Gained

http://readingadventures.blogspot.com Marg

Just recently we had a guest post from an author talking about why people should read some HF set in the US, because it seems that it is difficult to sell HF titles set in the US, so it is interesting to see this viewpoint.

Looking at my own reading, I have read 10 HF books this year that were either totally or partially set in the US – that equates to around 30% of my HF read. Western European (particularly UK) history dominates for me as well.
http://unabridged-expression.blogspot.com/ Audra

Interesting — I can’t remember the last historical novel I read set in the US! I would have said most historical fiction was set in the UK, maybe France. Russia, too, from the handful of HF books on my TBR.
http://www.underdown.org/ Harold Underdown

Melissa,

Interesting post! I have to ask you, though, when and where I made that comment. It may no longer be a statement I would stand behind, and I wonder about the context too.

But it sounds like a fairly off-the-cuff remark, and I would be happy to be proven wrong!

In order for you to do that, though, you need to look at a couple of places where there may be holes in your arguments. I’m hoping you can patch those holes. The first is that you say “I looked at all of the titles I’ve collected to review for Wonders and Marvels over the past year”–there’s a problem with that sample! If you were/are more interested in HF set outside the US, you may consciously or unconsciously have chosen to review proportionally MORE of those titles than of the HF set in the US. For all we know, you reviewed virtually all of the non-US HF fiction and only a small fraction of the US HF.

Your sample is biased, therefore, and all of the conclusions that follow say more about your interests than they do about what publishers have published–unless you can show that your sample is representative. Can you? If you randomly select 100 HF titles from US publisher’s catalogs, do you find a similar breakdown?

The second hole is smaller and I believe will be easier to patch. You remark that many of the non-US books are set in Western Europe, particularly England. That makes me wonder if a good many of them were originated by UK publishers, and have been bought in by their American publisher. If you eliminate US editions of books originally published elsewhere, what happens to your analysis?

Thanks for raising this, and I look forward to seeing your new numbers.
http://www.underdown.org/ Harold Underdown

Oh, I’m sorry. You did link to the discussion board in which that comment was made, but the link was faint and I didn’t follow it. Now that I see it, I see that I made it after a comment on the winners of the Scott O’Dell Award–none of which are set outside the US.

That was just an opinion, not based on any analysis or research. I hope you’ll be able to provide more information on this.
http://www.historicalnovels.info/historical-novels-blog.html Margaret Donsbach

Interesting. I haven’t done a precise study of this, but my impression is that most historical fiction written in English is set in either the U.S. or the British Isles. People tend to be more curious to explore and learn more about times and places they already know something about. And since the huge, literate population of the U.S. probably buys most of the books in the world, it’s no surprise so many novels about our own history (and that of our mother-country) are published.

That said, I do think the number of historical novels published in the U.S. with settings in other places has been increasing along with the increased popularity of historical fiction in general and the trend toward genealogical research. (This is just my impression, not a formal survey, but I do try to follow as many historical novels published in English as possible for my website – many more than I could ever read and review.) Even if England is the mother-country of the U.S., many Americans are descended from other nationalities – French, German, African, Asian, etc., and we are growing more curious about our ancestors from non-English-speaking parts of the world. Plus, as our population grows more diverse, we become more interested in learning about the history of our friends and neighbors.

Even more striking to me, is the vast number of historical novels set in the 20th century, many, many more than those set in earlier centuries. To me, novels set in the 20th century seem only quasi-historical, as many of us either personally remember much of that century and/or have a strong sense of what it was like from hearing our parents and grandparents talk about their lives. Of course, the time period seems more familiar to us just as the English-speaking countries do. Also, it’s a lot harder to write a really solid and satisfying historical novel set in earlier centuries.
http://www.danahuff.net/ Dana Huff

Hmm. Harold Underdown might have a valid point about where the sample came from, but even setting that aside, if I could play devil’s advocate, could it be the writers are either a) writing what they know about, or b) writing about what their audience is most likely to want to read about? If the authors are aiming for American or even Western European audiences, it makes sense the books are set in those places.
http://mymiddlenameispatience.typepad.com Carrie#K

There’s historical fiction set outside of England? I see I read a very narrow genre. I admit I scoffed at the idea of historical fiction set in the US until I realized that yes indeed, I do read it all the time, I just don’t identify it as such. It’s just “here”, “then”, so to speak. Type.
http://www.dmmcgowan.blogspot.com Dave McGowan

I have no idea how many HF stories I’ve read that were located in the US.
I have read (guessing) two dozen sited in Western Europe and a half dozen in Africa. Perhaps one or two in Russia and another half dozen in the far east. Take all the other sites, add them together and double them and they wouldn’t add up to the US sited.
I’ve also read a half dozen located in Canada, not counting the three I wrote myself.
The published one, that is.
The lack of Canadian sited ones is why I insist on locating them there despite the constant up hill battle to find a publisher.
Dave
http://www.dmmcgowan.blogspot.com
http://historywithatwist.blogspot.com Vicky Alvear Shecter

Very interesting. I’m guessing the reason is simple–publishers probably think tying to the curriculum is a safer bet than taking a risk on a non-high-interest area. Hate to be so cynical about it…