A Guide to Historical Fiction #250591

Tales, has written an able defence of the reading of this kind of romance, to which I have little to add except by the way of emphasis. Historical fiction is not history, but it is often better than history. A fine historical painting, a pageant, or a play, may easily teach more and carry a deeper impression than whole Chapters of description and analysis. Esmond and Tom fones are indispensable adjuncts to Lecky. Scott and Dumas will always have a larger history class than any two regular historians you could name. Even a second-rate historical novel may have ample excuse for existence. But a good one — good, that is, merely as a story — though chronology may be at fault and facts inaccurately stated, will probably succeed in making a period live in the imagination when text-books merely give us dry bones.