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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Historical_novel
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1992-09-02
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A fictional prose narrative set in the past.
Literature set in the historic rather than
the immediate past has always abounded, but
in the West Walter Scott began the modern
tradition by setting imaginative romances of
love, impersonation, and betrayal in a past
based on known fact; his use of historical
detail, and subsequent imitations of this
technique by European writers such as
Manzoni, gave rise to the genre. Some
historical novels of the 19th century were
overtly nationalistic, but most were merely
novels set in the past to heighten melodrama
while providing an informative framework; the
genre was used by Victor Hugo, Charles
Dickens, and James Fenimore Cooper, among
many others. In the 20th century the
historical novel also became concerned with
exploring psychological states and the
question of differences in outlook and
mentality in past periods. Examples of this
are Robert Graves' novels about the Roman
emperor I, Claudius and Claudius the God, and
Margaret Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. The
less serious possibilities of the historical
novel were exploited by writers in the early
20th century in the form of the historical
romance, which was revived with some success
in the late 1960s. The historical novel
acquired sub-genres - the stylized Regency
novel of Georgette Heyer (1902-74) and her
imitators, and the Napoleonic War sea story
of C S Forester. These forms have developed
their own conventions, particularly when
imitating a hugely popular predecessor - this
has happened in large degree to the western,
many of which use gestures from Owen Wister's
classic The Virginian, and to the novel of
the US South in the period of the Civil War,
in the wake of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With
the Wind. In the late 20th century sequences
of novels about families, often
industrialists of the early 19th century,
have been popular. and the novels of the
South in the period of the Civil War, notably
Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. In
the late 20th century sequences of novels
about families, often industrialists of the
early 19th century, have been popular.