How much history do you have to have in your fiction? There are plenty of novelists in the genre who write terrific books in which historical accuracy is secondary consideration. Murder mysteries and romances that are set in the past, for example, need only enough historical background to make the setting believable; the drama is provided by plot and character development rather than the history itself.
But there are also many novels in which the author has worked hard to incorporate real history, things that actually happened and people who really existed, as the backbone of their work. This requires painstaking research, of course, but the bigger challenge is finding the story within the facts and telling it in a way that is dramatically satisfying. It’s a form of historical fiction that I very much admire and try in my modest way to emulate.
So who has written books that are both historically accurate and a bloody good read? Here’s my list:
Lincoln, by Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal wrote a whole series of novels that document the political history of the United States, each volume focusing on a significant figure from that history. They are all brilliant reads, but the masterpiece is his portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s time in office, from his arrival in Washington until his assassination. It’s an astonishing exercise in storytelling, and pretty accurate to boot.
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
William Shakespeare’s wife, Anne (here renamed as Agnes – evidently both forms were used in her time) is at the centre of this powerful character study of a woman dealing with the illness and eventual death of her son. O’Farrell creates an extraordinarily believable picture of life in 16th Century Stratford-Upon-Avon.
King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
If you thought you knew the story of Macbeth, think again. That he was a real king of Scotland is well known, but Dunnett takes what little we know about him and creates a unique character, half-Scot and half-Dane, a man uneasy in both worlds, who is driven towards a throne by events and then struggles to hold onto it. The story itself is fascinating, but even more impressive is the author’s grasp of the byzantine politics of that shadowy time between the dark ages and the beginnings of the medieval period.
Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell
Any book featuring Shakespeare was bound to get my attention. In this one, Cornwell imagines the bard’s younger brother Richard coming to London hoping to join his brother’s acting company. What follows is a romp through the world of Elizabethan theatre involving a stolen manuscript copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Brilliantly imagined and full of real history.
The Medici Boy by John L’Heureux
We are transported to 15th century Florence under the rule of Cosimo de’Medici, as the Renaissance is getting under way. The boy of the title is Agnolo, the youth who is the model for Donatello’s famous bronze statue of David and Goliath. The story revolves around the creation of the statue and the jealousies and rivalries among the master’s apprentices.
Imperial Governor by George Shipway
It is 60 AD and an uneasy peace lies over the Roman province of Britain. A new governor, Gaius Paulinus Suetonius arrives with instructions to subdue the tribes of Ordovicia (modern north Wales) and secure the iron mines there. But his campaign is thrown into disarray when a rebellion seems to come from nowhere, led by a fierce woman warrior named Boudicca. Shipway – himself a former colonial administrator – has a fine grasp of what it must have been like for the beleagured Roman general as he faced disaster before eventually defeating his nemesis.
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
The story of the Dreyfus affair is well known in France, but perhaps much less so elsewhere in the world. Harris (who deserves multiple entries in this list) takes the perspective of Georges Piquart, an army colonel who struggles to uncover the evidence that falsely convicted Dreyfus of spying and sent him to Devil’s Island. An absorbing novel that weaves its facts into a compelling drama.
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The battle of Gettysburg is one of the most significant turning points in the American Civil War. In this brilliant novel, Michael Shaara puts us into the minds of Lee and Meade, the opposing commanders, as well as a host of their subordinates, while telling the story of the battle. There’s a lot of history in this book, but it doesn’t ever feel like it is a history lesson.
Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
The subject of King Arthur has been tackled many times by many writers, but for me this is the version that feels utterly believable. Of course in this case there are scant actual facts to work from, but if Arthur did actually exist it is quite likely he was something like Artos, or Artorius, the cavalry leader who dashes from one end of Britain to the other trying to stave off the Saxons.
Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem
Another book set in the twilight of the Roman Empire. Maximus is a general who must defend the entire 820 mile frontier with the German tribes with a single legion. The story is fictional, but the detail of his struggles both military and political in a time when the empire was steadily rotting from within is very believable.
Winston’s War by Michael Dobbs
Taking on such a gigantic figure as Winston Churchill and trying to get inside his head must have been a daunting task for Michael Dobbs, but he achieves it in spades. This book, the first of what became a series of four covering most of Churchill’s wartime career, charts the years in the wilderness leading up to his elevation to the premiership in brilliant form. Adding intrigue to the story is Churchill’s shadowy relationship with one Guy Burgess, who famously became a spy and defected to the Soviet Union in the years after the war.
The Emperor’s General by James Webb
You might expect that a book with this title would be all about war. But in fact this story is about war’s aftermath, and in particular the aftermath of World War II in the Pacific, when the allied powers occupied Japan. There are in fact two generals, Imperial General Yamashita, on trial for war crimes, and Douglas Macarthur, the ‘American Shogun’ who leads the occupation administration. Told through the eyes of the fictional Jay Marsh, a young Captain assigned to Macarthur’s staff, what unfolds is a tale of intrigue and deceit that asks troubling questions about the nature of war crimes.
Anthony R Wildman 