The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction: Histories and heroines: the female figure in contemporary historical fiction

   1. Introduction: Histories and heroines: the female figure in contemporary historical fiction

      • Katherine Cooper, Emma Short

      Pages 1-20

3. Historical Women: Revisioning Real Lives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. The virtuosa and the ventriloquists: Janice Galloway’s Clara

      • Theresa Jamieson

      Pages 23-40

   3. Making up, or making over: Reconstructing the modern female author

      • Emma Short

      Pages 41-59

   4. A deviant device: Diary dissembling in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

      • Kym Brindle

      Pages 60-75

   5. Whoso list to hunt’: The literary fortunes of Anne Boleyn

      • Julie Crane

      Pages 76-91

4. Imagined Histories: Romancing Fictional Heroines

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. Do knights still rescue damsels in distress?: Reimagining the medieval in Mills & Boon historical romance

      • Amy Burge

      Pages 95-114

   3. Sexual f(r)ictions: Pornography in neo-Victorian women’s fiction

      • Nadine Muller

      Pages 115-133

   4. Re-claiming Anne Damer/re-covering Sapphic history: Emma Donoghue’s Life Mask

      • Claire O’Callaghan

      Pages 134-152

   5. Things slipping between past and present: Feminism and the gothic in Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre

      • Katherine Cooper

      Pages 153-168

5. Imagined Histories: Romancing Fictional Heroines

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 169-169

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   2. Imagine. Investigate. Intervene?: A consideration of feminist intent and metafictive invention in the historical fictions of A. S. Byatt and Marina Warner

      • Siân Harris

      Pages 171-188

   3. In defence of fiction: History and imagination in Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and The Lieutenant

      • Anna Gething

      Pages 189-205

   4. Difficulties, discontinuities and differences: Reading women’s historical fiction

      • Diana Wallace

      Pages 206-221

   5. Writing historical fiction: Thoughts from two practitioners

      • Alice Thompson, Susan Sellers

      Pages 222-236

6. Back Matter

   Pages 237-241

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From The Other Boleyn Girl to Fingersmith , this collection explores the popularity of female-centred historical novels in recent years. It asks how these representations are influenced by contemporary gender politics, and whether they can be seen as part of a wider feminist project to recover women's history.

• fiction
• gender
• Middle Ages
• novel
• Research in English and American Literature
• women
• British and Irish Literature

• Newcastle University, UK

  Katherine Cooper, Emma Short

KYM BRINDLE Associate Lecturer, Lancaster University, UK AMY BURGE Postdoctoral candidate, University of York, UK JULIE CRANE Teaching Fellow, Durham University, UK ANNA GETHING Part-time Lecturer, Bath Spa University, UK SIAN HARRIS Teaching Fellow in Writing and Research, University of Exeter, UK THERESA JAMIESON Lecturer, Coventry University, UK NADINE MULLER Part-Time Lecturer, University of Brunel, UK CLAIRE O'CALLAGHAN Postdoctoral candidate, University of Leicester, UK SUSAN SELLERS Professor of English and Related Literature, University of St Andrews, UK ALICE THOMPSON Independent scholar, UK DIANA WALLACE Professor of English Literature, University of Glamorgan, UK

Policies and ethics