Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction
by Bruce Holsinger
Readings (by week)
This page provides links to all of the recommended reading for this class, including novels, archival
sources, modern critical writings, and other works discussed in the video lectures. For the lectures in
Units 1 and 3, most of the novels are available in full, and I have tried to link to easily accessible editions
in all cases (from Project Gutenberg, Google Books, etc.). For the visiting author seminars in Units 2, 4, 5,
6, and 7, students have two options: (1) Purchase the books, as recommended by the instructor (links to
Amazon.com are provided for each title, though students may wish to use another source); or (2) Follow
the links to excerpts of the novels currently available on Google Books. Be aware that option (2) will give
you just a few portions of these novels, which are under copyright and cannot be reproduced and
distributed freely. Our visiting writers have recommended certain supplemental readings to accompany
their novels, and I have provided links to these as well (they will give you a nice glimpse at the kinds of
primary sources novelists turn to in writing historical fiction). Note that not all links will work in all parts
of the world. We apologize for the frustration this may cause, but it's simply impossible to provide hard
copies of reading materials from this many copyright-protected works. Let us know in the discussion
forums if a link isn't working for you and we'll try to come up with an alternative, but no promises!
Beneath each lecture title you will find the Core reading given in boldface, then a sentence or two
pointing you to links, supplemental readings, and additional materials discussed in relation to the fiction
on the syllabus. Please keep in mind that this class is a short introduction to a very large body of
literature written over several centuries. The lectures in Units 1 and 3 alone cover nearly two dozen
novels in more or less detail, so unless you're a champion speed reader you won't be able to read all of
the recommended works in full (or anything close to it). You might think of this course as a living
textbook or guidebook of sorts to historical fiction: it will suggest particular places to visit and linger for
a little while, examining certain aspects of each of them from a few intriguing angles, all in hopes that
you'll come back when you have time to experience them in more depth.
Unit 1: What Is Historical Fiction?
1.1 Defining the Genre
Core readings: Ian Mortimer, "Why Historians Should Write Fiction"; Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Dead
Are Real" .
Definitions of historical fiction can be found in many places and take many forms. Perry
Anderson's "From Progress to Catastrophe" is a sophisticated overview of the historical novel since the
early nineteenth century (it appeared in the London Review of Books). You might also visit the extensive
website of the Historical Novel Society, "the home of historical fiction online." Aristotle's most extensive
remarks on the concept of mimesis (imitation) can be found in the Poetics.
1.2 The Pre-History of Historical Fiction
Core reading: Matthew Phillpott, "A Brief History of Historical Fiction"
Supplemental reading: George Saintsbury's The Historical Novel (1895) is available on Google Books, and
Xenophon's Cyropaedia is available through Project Gutenberg (if you want a taste of Xenophon's style
take a look at Cyrus's quite moving interactions with his father in Book I chapter 3). There is a good
translation of Chaucer's Knight's Tale available through Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Page; The History of
Thomas of Reading is hosted on the California Digital Library; Cicely, or The Rose of Raby is on Google
Books (the link takes you to Volume 1; the subsequent volumes can be found through a search on the
same title).
1.3 From Archive to Novel
Core reading: Louise Craven, "From the Archivist's Cardigan to the Very Dead Sheep: What Are
Archives? What Are Archivists? What Do They Do?"
Louise Craven's essay "From the Archivist's Cardigan to the Very Dead Sheep" appears in the
collection What Are Archives?, available on Google Books. Mary Mallon's letter of 1909 (to be discussed
in more depth during Unit 6) is transcribed in part on pbs.org. The interview with Mary Beth
Keane appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A full text of James Fenimore Cooper's The
Deerslayer is available through Project Gutenberg (the scene on Otsego Lake is in chapter III). The Anne
Boleyn scene appears in Part II of Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies.
1.4 The Question of Origins
Core readings: Lee, The Recess, "Advertisement" and "To Adelaide..." (first @40 pages);
Scott, Waverley, vol. 1, Preface and Chapters 1, 5, and 14.
Sophia Lee's The Recess and Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, are available in full on
Google Books and elsewhere. Professor Michael McKeon, the scholar referenced at the beginning of the
lecture, discusses the relationship between history and fiction in the eighteenth century in his book The
Origins of the English Novel; I hope everyone views the Author Conversation with Professor McKeon at
some point during the eight weeks (we discuss, among other topics, György Lukács's The Historical
Novel, a very influential theoretical work on the nature and origins of historical fiction).
1.5 Historical Fiction: A Global Genre
Core readings: Mofolo, Chaka, chapters 1 and 6; Zaydan, The Conquest of Andalusia, chapter 16
This lecture touches on three historical novels: Thomas Mofolo's Chaka, Jurji Zaydan's The Conquest of
Andalusia, and the anonymous Jicoténcal. Portions of the first two are available online. Students might
also want to take a look at some of the essays posted on Reviews in History as part of a Special Issue on
Historical Fiction in 2011, particularly the pieces by Lovell (on the Cultural Revolution in China) and
Martin (on Russia).
Unit 2: Poetry and Exile in Ancient Rome: Jane Alison
Core Reading: Jane Alison, The Love-Artist
The Love-Artist may be purchased at Amazon; a fair amount of the text is available through Google
Books. Excerpts from Alison's own translations of Ovid--two from the Amores, his stories of Echo and
Narcissus, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, Arethusa, and Glaucus and Scylla--are available here (all these
myths are mentioned in the opening three or four chapters of The Love Artist, so they make for good
supplemental reading to accompany the seminar). See also the UVA e-text translation of Ovid's version
of the Medea story in Metamorphoses (although better translations are to be found in print editions like
those by Humphries, Lombardo, and Martin).
Unit 3: Two Centuries of Historical Fiction
3.1 Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales: Fiction on the Frontier
Core Readings: Cooper, The Deerslayer chapter 1; The Last of the Mohicans, chapters 11, 12, and 17
Project Gutenberg has made available full texts of the five novels in the Leatherstocking series: The
Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie (listed here in order
of story chronology rather than order of publication). For those who like their historical fiction delivered
by ear, there is also a fascinating series of old radio adaptations of The Deerslayer and The Last of the
Mohicans (recorded in 1932). D.H. Lawrence's discussion of Cooper occurs in volume 2 chapter 5
of Studies in Classic American Literature, while Mark Twain's wonderfully acerbic critique of Cooper and
the Leatherstocking series appears in an essay titled "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses."
3.2 Brown’s Clotel: Slavery, Fiction, and a Founding Father
Core Reading: Brown, Clotel, chapters 1, 2, and 23
William Wells Brown's novel--the full title is Clotel, or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life
in the United States--is available in an illustrated hypertext at UNC's Documenting the American South
project as well as at Google Books and elsewhere. Also referenced in the lecture are Barbara ChaseRiboud’s Sally Hemings: A Novel (1979) and Annette Gordon-Reed’s Thomas Jefferson and Sally
Hemings: An American Controversy (1997).
3.3 Dickens and the French Revolution: A Tale of Two Cities
Core Reading: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, book 1 chapters 1 and 2; book 2 chapters 9 and
16
Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: A Story of the French Revolution is available in multiple formats at
Project Gutenberg. Also discussed in the lecture is one of the author's most important sources for the
novel, Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History (1837), available on Internet Archive.
3.4 Anna Katharine Green and the Invention of the Historical Mystery
Core Reading: Anna Katharine Green, The Forsaken Inn (specific chapters to be announced soon)
Green's novel The Forsaken Inn, often described as the first bona fide historical mystery, is available on
Project Gutenberg. There's also a cool illustrated Kindle edition at Amazon. The standard biography of
this remarkable and little-known writer is Patricia Maida's Mother of Detective Fiction: The Life and
Works of Anna Katharine Green (1989).
3.5 Modernism, Metafiction, and the Mass Market, 1920-1980
Core Reading: Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!; Woolf, Orlando; Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (specific
chapters to be announced soon)
William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Virginia Woolf's Orlando are available on Google Books. Linda
Hutcheon's influential discussion of "historiographic metafiction" appears in the seventh chapter of her
book A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction.
3.6 The New Historical Novel in Latin America
Core Reading: Mariano Azuela, The Underdogs, Translator's Note and pages 1-26
This lecture will be a conversation with University of Virginia Spanish Professor Gustavo Pellón. Portions
of his translation of Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs: Pictures and Scenes from the Present
Revolution (orig. Los de abajo) are available on Google Books.
Unit 4: Witchcraft and the Early Americas: Katherine Howe
Core Reading: Katherine Howe, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane may be purchased at Amazon; excerpts are
available on Google Books. Several primary sources from the Salem trials inspired particular scenes in
the historical sections. The Interlude in which Deliverance is in prison awaiting her witchcraft trial (p.
294 of the paperback edition) has her in a cell with Sarah Good and her daughter; see the
actual document filed with the state by William Good, Dorcas's father, many years after the trials asking
for support because Dorcas lost her mind in prison. In that same Interlude, Deliverance's body is
searched for signs that she has the "witches' teat." Another document from Salem describes that real
search on the real bodies of Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, Alice Parker, Susannah Martin, and Sarah
Good. The Interlude that begins on page 309 is Deliverance's examination in court; one model Howe
used for this scene was the examination of Bridget Bishop, the first woman executed during the Salem
panic. These and other documents are available through the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive
and Transcription Project.
Unit 5: A Plague Year in Renaissance England: Geraldine Brooks
Core Reading: Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders
may be purchased at Amazon; excerpts are available on Google
Books. Many primary sources relating to the great plague year in Eyam are brought together in William
Wood's The History and Antiquities of Eyam; With a Minute Account of the Great Plague Which
Desolated That Village in the Year 1666, published in 1842. See pp. 71-73 for a wrenching letter from
William Mompesson to his children on the death of their mother. A list of Eyam plague deaths is
available on the Eyam Museum website, which is well worth a visit.
Unit 6: Disease and the Written City: Mary Beth Keane
Core Reading: Mary Beth Keane, Fever
Mary Beth Keane's Fever is available from Amazon; excerpts are available on Google Books. Numerous
sources relevant to the case of Mary Mallon ("Typhoid Mary") may be found on the website
accompanying the NOVA program "The Most Dangerous Woman in the World," including a letter that is
part of her habeas corpus file and describes her life on North Brother Island.
Unit 7: Ghosts and Marriage in Colonial Malaysia: Yangsze Choo
Core Reading: Yangsze Choo, The Ghost Bride
Yangsze Choo's The Ghost Bride is available from Amazon; excerpts are available on Google Books. For a
description of the Chinese population in Malacca during the years in which the novel is set, see Isabella
Bird's The Golden Chersonese: Travels in Malaya (1879), particularly Letter IX, "A Tropic Dream" (pp.
130-34). Choo has also recommended a recent article on ghost marriage and grave-robbing for our class
discussion.
Additional supplemental readings will be posted as the course proceeds.