Category Archives: Historical Fiction
The First Typewriter: Gift To A Blind Woman
Carey Wallace, author of The Blind Contessa’s New Machine: A Novel
(Pamela Dorman Books), was raised in small towns in Michigan. Her work has appeared in Oasis, SPSM&H, Detroit’s MetroTimes and quarrtsiluni, which she guest-edited in 2008. To read more about the author and the book 
A Bright Spot for YA Historical Fiction
By Melissa Luttmann
Sometimes the future of YA historical fiction looks pretty grim, but this blog post gave me a lot of hope for the genre.
The author, a YA novelist/teacher, asked her students what sorts of books they do and don’t like, and what they’d like to see more of. Based on what’s currently selling in the YA market, and on the books I see the teens I know reading, I expected these students to endorse fantasy (especially vampires, given the current Twilight craze) and chick lit. I definitely didn’t expect so many of them to say they liked historical fiction.
I understand that this is a small sample of teens to begin with, and that the number of responses the teacher chose to include on her blog is even smaller. Still, out of eleven teens this author quoted, five of them said they like historical books. That number goes up to six if you include the student who enjoys nonfiction. Even if these responses don’t likely represent teens as a whole, they’re still much, much higher than I would have expected.
Furthermore, the things teens said they’d like to see more of can easily be included in any book, including a historical one. Realistic plots and characters, humor, romance…all of those elements transcend genres. And most importantly, it appears that teens want books that don’t talk down to them. Seems to me that they’ll be more than happy to pick up your historical novel—or any novel—as long as it speaks to them, not at them.
DISCUSSION:
What do you think about the views these teens hold on YA literature?
Is there anything about this blog post—particularly in regards to historical fiction—that surprised you?
Melissa Luttmann is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
Using Museums for Historical Research
By Melissa Luttmann
Every reader loves juicy historical details, and kids are no exception. Descriptions of unfamiliar foods, interesting objects, or everyday activities are a great way to establish your setting and to interest young readers.
But how do you discover these specific historical tidbits? You can uncover them in books, of course, but I’ve found that an even better way is to head to a museum.
I’m not talking about the Smithsonian here, although you could certainly find some great information there. Instead, your best bets are likely to be small museums with very specific focuses. I’ve been road tripping in New England this past week, and I’m amazed by the wealth of information you can find if you know where to look.
If you’re searching for in-depth coverage of early American furniture, Russian icons, or African-Americans in World War II, you might want to consider heading up this way. These museums aren’t known on a national scale, but they’re some of the best resources for the areas they cover.
Museums are filled with objects you can examine all you like (though you generally can’t touch them), which is incredibly helpful when you want to write a description of one. In addition, they feature knowledgeable staff who are more than happy to answer your questions.
I’ve found that these people tend to be very passionate about their area of expertise and will often give you much more information than you asked for. But that’s okay, because you can never do too much research…right?
DISCUSSION:
What do you think about using museums to research historical fiction?
Are there any that you’ve found to be especially amazing?
Melissa Luttmann is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
Turning Historical Characters into Modern Citizens
By Melissa Luttmann
I recently came across a discussion on this old article from The Horn Book (a magazine which discusses literature for children and young adults).
The author, Anne Scott MacLeod, is quite critical of historical fiction authors who project modern sensibilities onto their characters—which raises a good question. Obviously anything we write is going to reflect our own times, at least to an extent. But is it possible to take this reflection too far in historical fiction? And if so, what is the breaking point?
MacLeod makes a good point when she points out that many authors give their characters modern, politically correct views rather than infusing them with the social norms of their time. For example, most people in seventeenth-century Massachusetts believed in witchcraft, but I’ve noticed that novels about the Salem witch trials almost invariably feature a main character who doesn’t.
While this phenomenon doesn’t necessarily bother me that much, it does perturb me that in many books, no one else cares about the main character’s unorthodox viewpoint. People may well have defied social norms at many points in the past, but more often than not, there would have been severe consequences for doing so—consequences that characters in historical novels seem to escape.
There are plenty of reasons why writers might want to give their characters these modern views: to make a story more interesting, to avoid subjecting much-loved character to beliefs that now seem woefully ignorant, to avoid alienating readers. But is it right to do so? MacLeod would definitely say no, and after reading her article, I’m beginning to wonder myself.
Melissa Luttmann is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
Selling Historical Fiction to Teens
By Melissa Luttmann
Historical fiction author Ann Rinaldi puts a warning label on each of her books—literally. On the back covers of her novels, you’ll find a block of text that reads, “WARNING: This is a historical novel. Read at your own risk. The writer feels it necessary to alert you to the fact that you might enjoy it.”
Seeing that warning on the back of Ms. Rinaldi’s latest release made me think about the way teens perceive historical fiction. I know many teens who refuse to so much as look at historical novels because they find their history classes at school boring. They see history as a bunch of dry facts to be crammed into their brains for the next test, and never stop to consider that history is actually about stories—many of which are very interesting.
Because so many teens have an aversion to historical fiction, those of us who write it are, in a way, aiming for a slightly different market than other YA authors. Of course it would be wonderful if a teen who never liked history picked up your book and fell in love with it. But if your novel is going to stay in print, people have to buy it, and the people who are going to buy a YA historical novel are mostly members of that specific group of teens who like history.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—I’ve found that many historical fiction lovers are voracious readers who buy tons of books and are loyal to authors they like—but it does mean the average teen consumer is less likely to pick up your novel.
DISCUSSION:
Do you think historical fiction can be a hard sell to the average teenager?
Does it bother you that many teens don’t like history, or are you just happy for the ones that do?
Does it bother you that many teens don’t like history, or are you just happy for the ones that do?
Melissa Luttmann is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
Joe Kennedy…bootlegger?
By Daniel Okrent
During the nearly five years I spent researching and writing Last Call, the question I was asked most often was, “Do you have good stuff on Joe Kennedy?” I had always planned to write about Kennedy, but the incessant questioning almost made his inclusion in the book a matter of urgency.
So I jumped into it. After months of effort, I finally got permission to examine Kennedy’s papers in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. I found other Joe-related documents in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park; in the files of the 1927 Canadian Royal Commission on Customs; and in the archives of two British distilling companies.
I conducted full-text searches of six newspapers covering the years 1920-1940, and availed myself of a piece-by-piece, hard-copy examination of the Boston Globe conducted by a generous librarian on the paper’s staff. Through the office of the Senate historian, I also reviewed all the documents relating to Kennedy’s three different presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation.
One can’t prove a negative, of course, but in the end I believe I came as close as possible to establishing that Kennedy was not a bootlegger, that he had entered the liquor business legally at the end of Prohibition. I was also able to construct what I believe to be a convincing narrative of why and how the world came to accept the bootlegging myth, beginning with an innocuous Chicago Tribune article in 1954.
But old ideas die hard. When I speak about my book and Kennedy’s name comes up, I present my argument carefully and in some detail, and refer listeners to my documentation. But, inevitably, someone will rise to demonstrate why the practice of history can be so frustrating. “You say he wasn’t a bootlegger,” the comment usually begins, “but my cousin’s next-door neighbor’s grandfather’s roommate used to buy from him!” And how can you argue with that?
Daniel Okrent is author most recently of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
. His Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history. He was the first public editor of the New York Times, and was also managing editor of Life; editor-at-large of Time Inc.; and editor-in-chief of Harcourt Brace. He lives in New York and on Cape Cod with his wife, poet Rebecca Okrent. To read more about the author and the book, please click here.
IMAGE: “Medicinal” liquor price list from the S. S. Pierce Co. in Boston, MA, circa 1932
Congratulations to the W & M winners of this book:
Lindsey, librarypat, and Sheri
Trapped…for your enjoyment of course Sir!
By Deborah Noyes
One of the three story strands in Captivity is set in the old menagerie in the Tower of London — where young Clara Gill, a zoological artist, meets the beast keeper Will Cross — on the eve of the zoo’s demise.
Like many royal menageries, the one in the Tower began as a private collection, a display of power and wealth. It evolved over 600 years and at various times displayed a rhinoceros, a giraffe, zebras, kangaroos, llamas, ostriches, alligators, and a hardy spaniel that one of the Tower lions adopted as a pet. During the realm of Henry III, a polar bear swam from a leash each day, fishing for its supper in the Thames.
By the eighteenth century, the menagerie was open to the public. To get in, you paid three half-pence, or you parted with a dog or a cat (i.e., lion food).
John Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist Church, once brought a flutist in to play for the lions. Do animals respond to music, he wondered; do they have souls? William Blake also visited the Tower menagerie to paint one of two resident tigers, which may have inspired his poem, “Tyger, Tyger.”
In England, animals had been displayed at carnivals and fairs since medieval times. Exhibits were often pits or boxes with metal bars, and by the nineteenth century — an age of imperial conquest when nature and the wild, like faraway nations, were there to be subdued —conditions had hardly improved.
After a beloved Indian elephant named Chunee was brutally killed during a bout of musth in London’s crowded Exeter Change menagerie, news stories, poems, plays, and engravings about the giant’s grim death (and life) finally got a newly scientific public talking about animal welfare.
By 1835, the year Clara and Will meet in the menagerie, the animals of the Tower were already being relocated to the new Zoological Society of London’s scientifically enlightened enterprise in Regent’s Park.
Deborah Noyes, author of Captivity
, writes for adults and children, and is also an editor and photographer. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She has taught writing and literature at Emerson College and Western New England College, and was a Visiting Writer in Lesley University’s MFA in Writing for Young People program. To Read more about the author and the book, please click here.
IMAGE: The Menagerie at the Tower of London, circa 1820.
Congratulations to the following W & M winners of this book:
Linda, Recca, and librarypat
Beethoven, the activist
By Harvey Sachs
A historical oddity was one of the reasons why I wanted to write a book on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the year 1824 – the year in which this masterpiece was completed and premiered. This was the first symphony to include singing, and the words that the composer drew from, Friedrich von Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” are, among other things, a proclamation of universal brotherhood.
But Beethoven wrote the Ninth in Vienna, the same city in which Austria’s foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich, was perfecting the first modern police state at the very same time. The Enlightenment, French Revolution, and Napoleonic wars had all come and gone; the old dynastic rulers – Romanovs, Hapsburgs, Bourbons, and others – had either held onto their shaky thrones or had been reseated on thrones they had lost, and they were determined to shore up and enforce, at any cost, the time-worn concept of Divine Right.
Beethoven’s negative views on absolute rulers were well known. He had even written to his patron and pupil Archduke Rudolph, brother of the Austrian emperor, that “benefactors of humanity have not been found… in the present world of monarchs.”
But he was considered too famous and too eccentric to be turned over to the regime for the sort of treatment – a long jail sentence or banishment – reserved for run-of-the-mill offenders. The Ninth Symphony was performed and acclaimed, and its message was ignored. Beethoven would be pleased to know that his creation is still performed and acclaimed today, and he would not be surprised to learn that its message is still ignored.
IMAGE: Facsimile from the author’s own collection
Harvey Sachs, author of The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824
(released today, Random House), is also a music historian and the author or co-author of eight previous books, of which there have been more than fifty editions in fifteen languages. He has written for The New Yorker and many other publications, has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and is currently on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He lives in New York City.
A Woman Scorned
By Arliss Ryan
Virtually nothing is known about Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare, yet plenty of unkind words have been written about her. Shakespeare scholars in particular have not hesitated to portray her as a coarse, illiterate, country wench who seduced an innocent boy and made him miserable thereafter.
With my blood boiling, I set out to prove otherwise, and so began The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare
. On one hand, since we don’t have even a portrait of Anne, I could give my imagination free rein. I proceeded to make her not only a smart, funny, sensual woman but the true author of the most famous plays.
But I also wanted my story to be both historically accurate and plausible, and since some experts protest that even a man from Stratford could not have written the plays, therein lay the challenge. For example, How could Anne have learned to read and write when girls were barred from the grammar schools? Aha, she might have gone to a “petty school” for children aged 5-7, which both girls and boys could attend.
How could she have become adept at playwriting when women were excluded even from acting? Why, she was tutored by her budding playwright husband when she joined him in London and learned still more from her literary lovers, the utterly delicious Christopher Marlowe and the troublesome Ben Jonson.
At every step I had to weave together major historical events like the Spanish Armada and the complicated literary history of the composition of the plays. But gifted with natural intelligence and a vivid imagination and trained in the rough-and-tumble world of Elizabethan theater, why couldn’t a woman have done it?
Why couldn’t Anne?
Arliss Ryan is the author of The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare (NAL, June 2010) and two previous novels. A native of Michigan, she now lives in Florida with her husband. To learn more about the author and her books, please visit her website by clicking here.
IMAGE: The graves of Anne (left) and William (right) Shakespeare, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
Congratulations to the following W & M winners of this book:
Kelcie, Cheryl and Sherri
Historical Fiction Isn’t Just Historical Fiction Anymore
By Melissa L.
If someone asked you to define “historical fiction,” you would probably say that it’s fiction set sometime in the past. And if you gave that answer, you would be fundamentally correct. But historical fiction isn’t just historical fiction anymore. More and more, it’s being crossed with other genres to produce books that toe the line between historical and something else.
Historical romances. Historical mysteries. Historical fantasy. These are all examples of the types of books I like to call “historical hybrids”: books that can be called historical fiction, since they do have a historical setting, but are also strongly tied to another genre. In the YA market, these books often seem to sell better than straight historical fiction because they can appeal to a wider audience. Many teens, who otherwise find history boring, will pick up a book that’s fundamentally a romance.
The question with such books, though, is the extent to which they can actually be called historical fiction. For example, many historical fantasy novels are meticulously researched, and their authors certainly deserve credit for including as much historical accuracy as possible—but they’re still fantasy. Part of the point of historical fiction is that the events described in it could have happened, and we all know that people didn’t really work magic in historical times. Is there any way you can ascribe the label “historical fiction” to such a novel? Or is it solely fantasy?
Discussion:
What do you think about the so-called historical hybrids? Can you call them historical fiction, or do they really belong more to their other genres?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
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Discussion about the fascinating stories of our scientific and medical past
