The Woman's Historical Novel

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 1-24

3. Entering into History: The Woman Citizen and the Historical Novel, 1900–1929

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 25-52

4. Histories of the Defeated: Writers Taking Sides in the 1930s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 53-77

5. Writing the War and After: Wicked Ladies and Wayward Women in the 1940s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 78-100

6. Hollow Men and Homosexual Heroes: Exploring Masculinity in the 1950s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 101-124

7. The Return of the Repressed: Maternal Histories in the 1960s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 125-149

8. Selling Women’s History: Popular Historical Fiction in the 1970s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 150-175

9. ‘Herstory’ to Postmodern Histories: History as Dissent in the 1980s

   • Diana Wallace

   Pages 176-201

10. Dialogues with the Dead: History and the ‘Sense of an Ending’, 1990–2000

    • Diana Wallace

    Pages 202-226

11. Postscript

    • Diana Wallace

    Pages 227-228

12. Back Matter

    Pages 229-269

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The historical novel has been one of the most important forms of women's reading and writing in the twentieth century, yet it has been consistently under-rated and critically neglected. In the first major study of British women writers' use of the genre, Diana Wallace tracks its development across the century. She combines a comprehensive survey with detailed readings of key writers, including Naomi Mitchison, Georgette Heyer, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Margaret Irwin, Jean Plaidy, Mary Renault, Philippa Gregory and Pat Barker.

• fiction
• novel
• women
• British and Irish Literature

'Aware that many readers are likely to encounter several faces for the first time, Wallace adopts a style that remains conceptually dexterous yet approachable in its capacious exposition of material between periods an exposition in which countless women writers hitherto marginalized by neglect are retrieved as we shift nimbly between survey and textual analysis.' David James, Modernism/Modernity

'Wallace's nearly encyclopedic study contribute[s] to important feminist revisions of literary history.' Loretta Stec, Clio

'Diana Wallace's extremely useful and interesting new survey of twentieth-century historical fiction by women writers summarizes the relevant critical arguments and has broadened the picture considerably.' Maroula Joannou, Women: A Cultural Review

'[A] fascinating overview of the development of women's historical fiction in the twentieth century up to the present day... The lively but jargon-free tone of this book, coupled with an admirable ability to explain theoretical concepts clearly and concisely, will make this book attractive to students studying popular or contemporary fiction, but the focus on lesser-known writers and a forgotten genre also makes this an important work for researchers and scholars.' - Emma Liggins, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

'Diana Wallace's extremely useful and interesting new survey of twentieth-century historical fiction by women writers summarizes the relevant critical arguments and has broadened the picture considerably.' - Women: A Cultural Review

'This timely, perceptive analysis gives a much-maligned genre its proper significance in the canon of English literature.' - Sarah Cuthbertson, Historical Novels Review

DIANA WALLACE is Reader in English and Head of Division of English at the University of Glamorgan, UK. Her publications include Sisters and Rivals in British Women's Fiction, 1914-39 (Macmillan, 2000) and articles in Gothic Studies, Critical Survey and Studies in the Literary Imagination.

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