'History to the Defeated': Women Writers and the Historical Novel in the Thirties
2003; Berghahn Books; Volume: 15; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3167/001115703782351817
ISSN1752-2293
Autores Tópico(s)Short Stories in Global Literature
ResumoThe 1930s can be seen as a key turning point in the development of the historical novel: it is during this decade that the historical novel becomes a genre particularly associated with women writers. Women had, of course, written historical novels before. The gothic romances of Ann Radcliffe and her successors have ‘historical’ settings, while Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot both wrote historical novels. Baroness Orczy had been producing her Scarlet Pimpernel books since 1905 and Marjorie Bowen’s The Viper of Milan had been a bestseller in 1906. As the 1920s wore on a steady flow of women’s historical fiction gathered pace. Georgette Heyer’s career as a bestselling historical romance writer began with The Black Moth in 1921. Naomi Mitchison published her first historical novel in 1923, while Sheila Kaye-Smith and Mary Webb produced so-called ‘regional’ or ‘rural’ novels which are also set in the past.
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