Misplaced Pages

#519480

141-447: Fiction that falls into this category may be of any genre, such as historical fiction , science fiction , fantasy , horror , and romance . Lesbian literature includes works by lesbian authors, as well as lesbian-themed works by heterosexual authors. Even works by lesbian writers that do not deal with lesbian themes are still often considered lesbian literature. Works by heterosexual writers which treat lesbian themes only in passing, on

282-1104: A Stonewall Award and the Lambda Award . In the 21st century, lesbian literature has emerged as a genre in Arabic speaking countries, with some novels, like Ana Hiya Anti (I Am You) by Elham Mansour, achieving best-seller status. This century has also brought more attention to African literary works and authors, such as Cameroonian novelist Frieda Ekotto and Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aido . Meanwhile, English-language novels which include lesbian characters or relationships have continued to garner national awards and mainstream critical acclaim, like The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker , Bastard out of Carolina (1992) by Dorothy Allison , The Hours (1998) by Michael Cunningham , Fingersmith (2002) by Sarah Waters and Lost and Found (2006) by Carolyn Parkhurst . As literature including lesbian characters and relationships has become more accepted in mainstream Western society, some writers and literary critics have questioned why there needs to be

423-474: A book of poems for their dog, Whym Chow. Certain canonical male authors of the 19th century also incorporated lesbian themes into their work. At the beginning of the century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge published his unfinished narrative poem " Christabel ". Scholars have interpreted the interactions in this poem between the titular character and a stranger named Geraldine as having lesbian implications. Algernon Charles Swinburne became known for subject matter that

564-500: A century prior and its author asserted that her work could present a "fuller and therefore 'truer ' " version of history. One of the early examples of the historical novel in Europe is La Princesse de Clèves , a French novel published anonymously in March 1678. It is regarded by many as the beginning of the modern tradition of the psychological novel and as a great work. Its author generally

705-453: A close resemblance to our own world at various points in history. Historiographic metafiction combines historical fiction with metafiction . The term is closely associated with postmodern literature including writers such as Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon . Several novels by Nobel Prize laureate José Saramago are set in historical times including Baltasar and Blimunda , The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and The History of

846-472: A contemporary narrative, but rather as a distinct social and cultural setting. Scott's Scottish novels such as Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1817) focused upon a middling character who sits at the intersection of various social groups in order to explore the development of society through conflict. Ivanhoe (1820) gained credit for renewing interest in the Middle Ages . Many well-known writers from

987-612: A detective and spy. Although the story itself is fiction, many of the persona and events are not. The book is based on research by Monaldi and Sorti, who researched information from 17th-century manuscripts and published works concerning the siege of Vienna , the plague and papacy of Pope Innocent XI . The genre of the historical novel has also permitted some authors, such as the Polish novelist Bolesław Prus in his sole historical novel, Pharaoh , to distance themselves from their own time and place to gain perspective on society and on

1128-489: A distinct subgenre recognized by both publishers and libraries. Romantic themes have also been portrayed, such as Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell . One of the first popular historical romances appeared in 1921, when Georgette Heyer published The Black Moth , which is set in 1751. It was not until 1935 that she wrote the first of her signature Regency novels, set around

1269-862: A heterosexual man. Others wrote, but kept their writing secret. Beginning in 1806, English landowner and mountaineer Anne Lister kept extensive diaries for 34 years, which included details of her lesbian relationships and seductions, with the lesbian sections written in secret code . The diaries were not published until the 1980s. In 2010, they were the basis for a BBC television production, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister . Twenty-first century writer and editor Susan Koppelman compiled an anthology titled Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories: by American Women Writers , which includes stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson , Octave Thanet , Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman , Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewett that were originally published in periodicals of their time. Of these stories, which range "from

1410-636: A historical event or biography , to the degree that the available historical research will allow. Other historical dramas are fictionalized tales that are based on an actual person and their deeds, such as Braveheart , which is loosely based on the 13th-century knight William Wallace 's fight for Scotland 's independence. For films pertaining to the history of East Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia , there are historical drama films set in Asia , also known as Jidaigeki in Japan. Wuxia films like The Hidden Power of

1551-831: A historical work in the manner of Sir Walter Scott. This was subsequently incorporated into La Comédie Humaine . The bulk of La Comédie Humaine , however, takes place during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy , though there are several novels which take place during the French Revolution and others which take place of in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, including About Catherine de Medici and The Elixir of Long Life . Victor Hugo 's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) furnishes another 19th-century example of

SECTION 10

#1732876259520

1692-542: A lesbian audience, provided platforms for common lesbian women to express themselves in literature. Although the literary level was rarely high, the authors succeeded in presenting lesbian lifestyles as utopias, thus offering opportunities for identification and affirmation of one's own identity. Especially Selli Engler stands out among the dozens of authors who wrote for magazines. Separately, writers as Maximiliane Ackers , Ruth Margarete Roellig and Anna Elisabet Weirauch , whose lesbian trilogy Der Skorpion (The Scorpion)

1833-499: A long tradition in many cultures; both western traditions (as early as Ancient Greek and Latin literature ) as well as Eastern, in the form of oral and folk traditions (see mythology and folklore ), which produced epics , novels, plays and other fictional works describing history for contemporary audiences. Definitions differ as to what constitutes a historical novel. On the one hand the Historical Novel Society defines

1974-500: A more veiled manner. In Japan, there were several love suicides involving school girls in 1911 and it was in this context of greater awareness of female-female love that one of the most commercially successful female writers of the period Nobuko Yoshiya published Flower Tales (1916–1924) ( Japanese : 花物語 ) which were fifty-two stories of romantic friendship between young women within the Class S genre . In her later work “Two Virgins in

2115-538: A narrative of lesbianism, even though it attempts to paint itself as a narrative of sisterly love. Scholars have also seen lesbian potential in characters such as Marian Halcombe in Wilkie Collins 's 1859 novel The Woman in White . Marian is described as masculine and unattractive, and her motivation throughout the story is her love for her half-sister, Laura Fairlie. Additionally, scholars have engaged in queer readings of

2256-508: A separate category for lesbian literature at all. "I've never understood why straight fiction is supposed to be for everyone, but anything with a gay character or that includes gay experience is only for queers," said Jeanette Winterson , author of the best-selling 1985 novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit . Others have stressed the continuing need for LGBT-themed literature, especially for younger LGBT readers. In Ruby (1976) by Rosa Guy ,

2397-550: A sidekick or foil for the straight protagonist and at worst a victim who would face violence, injury, or death (fatal traffic accidents were commonplace). Young protagonists who worried that they might be gay would invariably conclude that their same-sex attraction was simply a temporary stage in the journey toward heterosexual adulthood. Judy Blume has been cited as a catalyst in the 1970s for an increase in inclusion of "taboo" topics in children's literature, which include homosexuality. Historical fiction Historical fiction

2538-433: A story. An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the depicted period. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments. The historical romance usually seeks to romanticize eras of

2679-435: A substantial lesbian component is Beauty and Sadness (1961–63) by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata . The story is about a female painter, Otoko Ueno, and her relationship with her jealous lesbian lover, Keiko Sakami. The feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the development of a more politicized voice in lesbian literature and more mainstream acceptance of lesbian-themed literature that moved away from

2820-577: A trip to the upper Mississippi Valley. Following a three-month coach tour of Great Britain with industrialist Andrew Carnegie , she published A Day in an English Town and Through Great Britain in a Drag in Lippincott’s. The Alice French House in Arkansas (Thanford) was the center of the area's literary and artistic life, with frequent galas and dinner parties hosting the literati and prominent citizens. French also exercised other talents at Thanford; she had

2961-444: A veiled attack on Austria, which controlled the region at the time the novel was written. The critical and popular success of The Betrothed gave rise to a crowd of imitations and, in the age of unification , almost every Italian writer tried his hand at the genre; novels now almost forgotten, like Marco Visconti by Tommaso Grossi (Manzoni's best friend) or Ettore Fieramosca by Massimo D'Azeglio (Manzoni's son-in-law), were

SECTION 20

#1732876259520

3102-668: A widowed friend, Jane Allen Crawford (1851-1932), for close to a decade, dividing their year between their home in Davenport, Iowa, and their plantation in Arkansas. The two women shared their lives, except for Jane's four-year marriage and then her European tour. Their home in Iowa, the Alice French House , has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983. For fifteen years, the home they shared in Arkansas known as Thanford ,

3243-478: Is Christopher Meredith (b. 1954), whose Griffri (1991) is set in the 12th century and has the poet of a minor Welsh prince as narrator. Nobel Prize laureate William Golding wrote a number of historical novels. The Inheritors (1955) is set in prehistoric times, and shows "new people" (generally identified with Homo sapiens sapiens ) triumphing over a gentler race (generally identified with Neanderthals ) by deceit and violence. The Spire (1964) follows

3384-475: Is Peter I (1929–34) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy , and I, Claudius (1934) and King Jesus (1946) by Robert Graves . Other recent biographical novel series, include Conqueror and Emperor by Conn Iggulden and Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris. The gothic novel was popular in the late eighteenth century. Set in the historical past it has an interest in the mysterious, terrifying and haunting. Horace Walpole 's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto

3525-464: Is a genre of largely Italian-made historical or biblical epics (costume dramas) that dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965. Most pepla featured a superhumanly strong man as the protagonist, such as Hercules , Samson , Goliath , Ursus or Italy's own popular folk hero Maciste . These supermen often rescued captive princesses from tyrannical despots and fought mythological creatures. Not all

3666-459: Is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events . Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature , it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre , opera , cinema , and television , as well as video games and graphic novels . It often makes many use of symbolism in allegory using figurative and metaphorical elements to picture

3807-576: Is an epic retelling of the story of an Italian nobleman who lives through the Napoleonic period in Italian history. It includes a description of the Battle of Waterloo by the principal character. Stendhal fought with Napoleon and participated in the French invasion of Russia . The Betrothed (1827) by Alessandro Manzoni has been called the most famous and widely read novel of the Italian language. The Betrothed

3948-518: Is considered to be an influential work. Historical mysteries or "historical whodunits " are set by their authors in the distant past, with a plot that which involves the solving of a mystery or crime (usually murder). Though works combining these genres have existed since at least the early 1900s, many credit Ellis Peters 's Cadfael Chronicles (1977–1994) with popularizing them. These are set between 1137 and 1145 A.D. The increasing popularity of this type of fiction in subsequent decades has created

4089-560: Is credited with writing the first lesbian pulp novel, Women's Barracks , a fictionalized story about women in the Free French Forces during World War II. The 1950 book sold 2 million copies in its first five years of publication. One notable female author of lesbian pulp fiction, who came out later in life as a lesbian, was Ann Bannon , who created the Beebo Brinker series. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith , considered

4230-517: Is held to be Madame de La Fayette . The action takes place between October 1558 and November 1559 at the royal court of Henry II of France. The novel recreates that era with remarkable precision. Nearly every character – except the heroine – is a historical figure. Events and intrigues unfold with great faithfulness to documentary records. In the United Kingdom, the historical novel "appears to have developed" from La Princesse de Clèves , "and then via

4371-459: Is one of the earliest examples of the historical novel in English and went through at least 84 editions, including translation into French and German. The first true historical novel in English was in fact Maria Edgeworth 's Castle Rackrent (1800). In the 20th century György Lukács argued that Scott was the first fiction writer who saw history not just as a convenient frame in which to stage

Lesbian literature - Misplaced Pages Continue

4512-445: Is one of the most famous 19th-century American historical novels. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne , who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. In French literature, the most prominent inheritor of Scott's style of the historical novel was Balzac . In 1829 Balzac published Les Chouans ,

4653-511: Is set amid the Gordon Riots , and A Tale of Two Cities in the French Revolution . In some works, the accuracy of the historical elements has been questioned, as in Alexandre Dumas ' 1845 novel Queen Margot . Postmodern novelists such as John Barth and Thomas Pynchon operate with even more freedom, mixing historical characters and settings with invented history and fantasy, as in

4794-588: Is set in 16th century Småland and his widely read novel series The Emigrants tells the story of Småland emigrants to the United States in the 19th century. Per Anders Fogelström wrote a hugely popular series of five historical novels set in his native Stockholm beginning with City of My Dreams (1960). Other writers of historical fiction in Swedish literature include Sara Lidman , Birgitta Trotzig , Per Olov Enquist and Artur Lundkvist . The historical novel

4935-572: Is the German author Thomas Mann 's Buddenbrooks (1901). This chronicles the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877. Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family of Lübeck , and their milieu. This was Mann's first novel, and with

5076-597: Is the author of historical novels which were translated into 11 languages. Anton Donchev (1930–) is an old living author, whose first independent novel, Samuel's Testimony , was published in 1961. His second book, Time of Parting , which dealt with the Islamization of the population in the Rhodopes during the XVII century was written in 1964. The novel was adapted in the serial movie " Time of Violence ", divided into two parts with

5217-656: The Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War ), when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. Cooper's chief rival, John Neal , wrote Rachel Dyer (1828), the first bound novel about the 17th-century Salem witch trials . Rachel Dyer also influenced future American fiction set in this period, like The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne which

5358-427: The 1930s and 1940s . The following American authors have also written historical novels in the 20th century: Gore Vidal , John Barth , Norman Mailer , E. L. Doctorow and William Kennedy . Thomas Pynchon 's historical novel Mason & Dixon (1997) tells the story of the two English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were charged with marking the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland in

5499-825: The American Girl novels and the Magic Tree House series . A prominent award within children's historical fiction is the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction . Historical narratives have also found their way in comics and graphic novels. There are Prehistorical elements in jungle comics like Akim and Rahan . Ancient Greece inspired graphic novels are 300 created by Frank Miller , centered around Battle of Thermopylae , and Age of Bronze series by Eric Shanower , that retells Trojan War . Historical subjects can also be found in manhua comics like Three Kingdoms and Sun Zi's Tactics by Lee Chi Ching , Weapons of

5640-507: The Bantam Books lesbian pulp fiction paperback in 1953. The paperback editions sold almost 1 million copies. In 1990, it was republished by Bloomsbury under Highmith's own name with the title changed to Carol (the novel was adapted as the 2015 film of same name). In the 1950s, parts of French author Violette leDuc 's novel Ravages were censored because they contained explicit lesbian passages. The deleted passages were published in

5781-564: The English Regency period (1811–1820), when the Prince Regent ruled England in place of his ill father, George III . Heyer's Regency novels were inspired by Jane Austen 's novels of the late 18th and early 19th century. Because Heyer's writing was set in the midst of events that had occurred over 100 years previously, she included authentic period detail in order for her readers to understand. Where Heyer referred to historical events, it

Lesbian literature - Misplaced Pages Continue

5922-1095: The Gothic novel ". Another early example is The Unfortunate Traveller by Thomas Nashe , published in 1594 and set during the reign of King Henry VIII . Historical fiction rose to prominence in Europe during the early 19th century as part of the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment , especially through the influence of the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott , whose works were immensely popular throughout Europe. Among his early European followers we can find Willibald Alexis , Theodor Fontane , Bernhard Severin Ingemann , Miklós Jósika , Mór Jókai , Jakob van Lennep , Demetrius Bikelos , Enrique Gil y Carrasco , Carl Jonas Love Almqvist , Victor Rydberg , Andreas Munch , Alessandro Manzoni , Alfred de Vigny , Honoré de Balzac or Prosper Mérimée . Jane Porter 's 1803 novel Thaddeus of Warsaw

6063-832: The Napoleonic Wars . There are also adventure novels with pirate characters like Robert Louis Stevenson 's Treasure Island (1883), Emilio Salgari 's Sandokan (1895–1913) and Captain Blood (1922) by Rafael Sabatini . Recent examples of historical novels about pirates are The Adventures of Hector Lynch by Tim Severin , The White Devil (Белият Дявол) by Hristo Kalchev and The Pirate Devlin novels by Mark Keating. A number of work take place in variants of known history, in which events had occurred differently. This can involve time travel . There are also works of historical fantasy , which add fantastical elements to known (or alternative) history or which take place in second worlds with

6204-566: The Virgin Mary or the hagiography of Ida Louvain , by Beguines , or the writings of female Christian mystics , including Hildegarde of Bingen , Hadewijch , Margery Kempe , Mechtild of Magdeburg , and Marguerite Porete . One of the oldest Japanese stories involving a romance and implied sexual relations between women appears to be the 6th volume of Waga mi ni tadoru himegimi| ( Japanese : わが身にたどる姫君 ) ( The Princess in Search of Herself ) which

6345-460: The early Christians and has been adapted several times for film, in 1913 , 1924 , 1951 , 2001 to only name the most prominent. Sigrid Undset 's Kristin Lavransdatter fulfilled a similar function for Norwegian history ; Undset later won a Nobel Prize for Literature (1928). Many early historical novels played an important role in the rise of European popular interest in the history of

6486-541: The historical romance genre and its subgenre Regency romance , which was inspired by Jane Austen . To ensure accuracy, Heyer collected reference works and kept detailed notes on all aspects of Regency life. While some critics thought the novels were too detailed, others considered the level of detail to be Heyer's greatest asset; Heyer even recreated William the Conqueror 's crossing into England for her novel The Conqueror . Naomi Mitchison's finest novel, The Corn King and

6627-504: The human condition , or to escape the depredations of the censor . In some historical novels, major historic events take place mostly off-stage, while the fictional characters inhabit the world where those events occur. Robert Louis Stevenson 's Kidnapped recounts mostly private adventures set against the backdrop of the Jacobite troubles in Scotland . Charles Dickens 's Barnaby Rudge

6768-428: The magnum opus by the 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk . A 20th-century variant of the historical novel is documentary fiction, which incorporates "not only historical characters and events, but also reports of everyday events" found in contemporary newspapers. Examples of this variant form of historical novel include U.S.A. (1938), and Ragtime (1975) by E.L. Doctorow . Memoirs of Hadrian by

6909-499: The 'tragic lesbian' theme that had dominated earlier works. A pioneering autobiographical novel of this era was the picaresque 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown , which became a national best-seller. Jill Johnston argued for lesbian separatism in her 1973 book Lesbian Nation . In the 1970s, the voices of American lesbians of color began to be heard, including works by Audre Lorde , Jewelle Gomez , Paula Gunn Allen , Cherrie Moraga , and Gloria Anzaldua . One of

7050-403: The 18th century. More recently there have been works such as Neal Stephenson 's Baroque Cycle . In Italy, the tradition of historical fiction has flourished in the modern age, the nineteenth century in particular having caught writers’ interests. Southern Italian novelists like Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa ( The Leopard ), Francesco Iovine ( Lady Ava ), Carlo Alianello ( The Heritage of

7191-450: The 1960s as Therese and Isabelle and made into the 1968 film of same title. Jane Rule 's Desert of the Heart was able to break out of the pulp fiction category when it was published as a hardback by Macmillan Canada in 1964. Several publishers turned it down beforehand however, with one telling Rule, "If this book isn't pornographic, what's the point of printing it?...if you can write in

SECTION 50

#1732876259520

7332-882: The 1960s, lesbian literature in Germany grew quickly again as a result of the new lesbian movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Important early renowned voices were Johanna Moosdorf , Marlene Stenten , and Christa Reinig , while the most influential works were Verena Stefans Häutungen (1975) and Luise F. Puschs Sonja (1980). In Asia, Singaporean playwright Eleanor Wong and Taiwanese writer Qiu Miaojin have written about lesbian relationships, as have Chinese writers Lin Bai and Chen Ran . Spinning Tropics by Aska Mochizuki, Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata , Quicksand (卍 Manji) by Junichiro Tanizaki and Real World by Natsuo Kirino are all novels that explore lesbian love in Japan. Indian novelist Abha Dawesar 's 2006 Babyji won

7473-634: The 1980s, with the advent of sex-positive feminism , a few lesbian literary magazines began to specialize in more explicitly erotic work, such as On Our Backs , a satirical reference to the feminist 1970s magazine, Off Our Backs . The 1988 founding of the Lambda Literary Award , with several lesbian categories, helped increase the visibility of LGBT literature. In the 1980s and 90s, lesbian literature diversified into genre literature, including fantasy, mystery, science fiction, romance, graphic novels, and young adult. In 1983, Anita Cornwell wrote

7614-508: The 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson might have been in love with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, a possibility that encourages queer readings of Dickinson's many love poems. Michael Field was the pseudonym used by two British women, Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who wrote poetry and verse-dramas together. Bradley was Cooper's aunt, and the two lived together as lovers from the 1870s to their deaths in 1913 and 1914. Their poetry often took their love as its subject, and they also wrote

7755-552: The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Scribner’s Magazine, and Century Magazine. These were often republished in book-length collections. She also published several novels and a work about photography. Her first works contained a social and economic bent, such as Schopenhauer on Lake Pepin: A Study , but she soon turned to short stories. Iowa and Arkansas gave her opportunities for exploiting regions hitherto little attempted in fiction . Her stories The Bishop's Vagabond , The Hay of

7896-486: The Attic” (1919) ( Japanese : 屋根裏の二處女 ), she describes a female-female love experience, which ended with their decision to live together as a couple. Tamura Toshiko published works with same-sex love between women: Resignation (1911) ( Japanese : あきらめ ) and The Fresh Heart (1916) ( Japanese : 若い心 ). Jun'ichirō Tanizaki included a lesbian love affair in the novel Manji , written in serial format between 1928 and 1930 for

8037-642: The Belgian-born French writer Marguerite Yourcenar is about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian . First published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d'Hadrien , the book was an immediate success, meeting with enormous critical acclaim. Margaret George has written fictional biographies about historical persons in The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997) and Mary, called Magdalene (2002). An earlier example

8178-545: The Cyclone , and Whitsun Harp, Regulator were popular. These initially appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and Scribner's Magazine . Later they appeared in her books. Her novel Expiation (1890), won high praise. She prided herself on accurately depicting the physical setting of her stories, and limning the customs and dialect of her characters. French also drew on her travel experiences. The “Schopenhauer” piece arose from

8319-691: The Dragon Sabre (1984) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), based on novels by Jin Yong and Wang Dulu , have also been produced. Zhang Yimou has directed several acclaimed wuxia films like Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). Although largely fictional some wuxia films are considered historical drama. Samurai films like Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub series also fall under historical drama umbrella. Peplum films also known as sword-and-sandal,

8460-671: The Eastern Zhou Kingdoms ), Chu Renhuo 's Sui Tang yanyi ( Romance of the Sui and Tang dynasties ), Xiong Damu 's Liang Song Nanbei Zhizhuan ( Records of the Two Songs, South and North ) and Quan han zhi zhuan , Yang Erzeng 's Dong Xi Jin yan yi ( Romance of the Eastern and Western Jin dynasties ), and Qian Cai's The General Yue Fei , etc. Classical Greek novelists were also "very fond of writing novels about people and places of

8601-592: The Gods by Wong Yuk Long as well as The Ravages of Time by Chan Mou . There are also straight Samurai manga series like Path of the Assassin , Vagabond , Rurouni Kenshin and Azumi . Several comics and graphic novels have been produced into anime series or a movie adaptations like Azumi and 300 . Historical drama film stories are based upon historical events and famous people. Some historical dramas are docudramas , which attempt an accurate portrayal of

SECTION 60

#1732876259520

8742-698: The Lion d'Or (concerned with the War's consequences); Pat Barker 's Regeneration Trilogy and Sebastian Barry 's A Long Long Way . American Nobel laureate William Faulkner 's novel Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is set before, during and after the American Civil War . Kenneth Roberts wrote several books set around the events of the American Revolution, of which Northwest Passage (1937), Oliver Wiswell (1940) and Lydia Bailey (1947) all became best-sellers in

8883-485: The Mermaids Singing, " she said, "to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor disgusting, without sentimentality ..." The first English contemporary novelist to come out as a lesbian was Maureen Duffy , whose 1966 book Microcosm explored the subcultures of lesbian bars. A Japanese novel with

9024-598: The Middle Ages . Victor Hugo 's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame often receives credit for fueling the movement to preserve the Gothic architecture of France , leading to the establishment of the Monuments historiques , the French governmental authority for historic preservation . Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti 's historical mystery saga Imprimateur Secretum Veritas Mysterium has increased interest in European history and features famous castrato opera singer Atto Melani as

9165-690: The Patriarch (1975) by Gabriel García Marquez . Other writers of historical fiction include Abel Posse , Antonio Benitez Rojo , João Ubaldo Ribeiro , Jorge Amado , Homero Aridjis . In the first decades of the 21st century, an increased interest for historical fiction has been noted. One of the most successful writers of historical novels is Hilary Mantel . Other writers of historical fiction include Philippa Gregory , Bernard Cornwell , Sarah Waters , Ken Follett , George Saunders , Shirley Hazzard and Julie Orringer . The historical novel The Books of Jacob set in 18th century Poland has been praised as

9306-722: The Po , a patchwork saga of a family of millers from the time of Napoleon to the First World War , one of the most epic novels of the last century. In 1980, Umberto Eco achieved international success with The Name of the Rose , a novel set in an Italian abbey in 1327 readable as a historical mystery, as an allegory of Italy during the Years of Lead , and as an erudite joke. Eco's work, like Manzoni's preceding it, relaunched Italian interest in historical fiction. Many novelists who till then had preferred

9447-701: The Prioress ) and more recently Andrea Camilleri ( The Preston Brewer ) retold the events of the Italian Unification , at times overturning its traditionally heroic and progressive image. The conservative Riccardo Bacchelli in The Devil at the Long Point and the communist Vasco Pratolini in Metello described, from ideologically opposite points of view, the birth of Italian Socialism . Bacchelli also wrote The Mill on

9588-418: The Siege of Lisbon . In a parallel plot set in the 12th and 20th century where history and fiction are constantly overlapping, the latter novel questions the reliability of historical sources and deals with the difference of writing history and fiction. A prominent subgenre within historical fiction is the children's historical novel. Often following a pedagogical bent, children's historical fiction may follow

9729-468: The Spring Queen (1931), is regarded by some as the best historical novel of the 20th century. Mary Renault is best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece . In addition to fictional portrayals of Theseus , Socrates , Plato , Simonides of Ceos and Alexander the Great , she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander. The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) by J. G. Farrell has been described as an "outstanding novel". Inspired by events such as

9870-409: The Taxi , Absence , In a Garden , Madonna of the Evening Flowers , Opal , and Aubade . Lowell admitted to John Livingston Lowes that Dwyer was the subject of her series of romantic poems titled "Two Speak Together". Lowell's poems about Dwyer have been called the most explicit and elegant lesbian love poetry during the time between the ancient Sappho and poets of the 1970s. Unfortunately, most of

10011-415: The Three Kingdoms concerns 3rd-century wars which ended the Han dynasty ; Wu Cheng'en 's 16th-century Journey to the West concerns the 7th-century Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang . In addition to those, there was a wealth of historical novels that became popular in the literary circles during the Ming and Qing periods in Chinese history; they include Feng Menglong 's Dongzhou Lieguo Zhi ( Chronicles of

10152-553: The United Kingdom published historical novels in the mid 19th century, the most notable include Thackeray 's Vanity Fair , Charles Dickens 's A Tale of Two Cities , George Eliot 's Romola , and Charles Kingsley 's Westward Ho! and Hereward the Wake . The Trumpet-Major (1880) is Thomas Hardy 's only historical novel, and is set in Weymouth during the Napoleonic wars , when

10293-555: The United States, speaking for the conservative causes she embraced, adding to them her opposition to woman suffrage. She regularly attended the reunions of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C. Her point of view remained fixed in the era of her youth. After the first year of the twentieth century, she lost touch with literary and social developments in the United States. She developed diabetes , and complications from

10434-869: The United States, where she continued her literary output by publishing, in 1923, the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry to be produced in that country, titled On a Grey Thread . In the early 20th century, an increasingly visible lesbian community in Paris centered on literary salons hosted by French lesbians as well as expatriates like Nathalie Barney and Gertrude Stein , who produced lesbian-themed works in French and English, including Nightwood by Djuna Barnes , Idyll Saphique by Liane de Pougy , poetry by Renee Vivien , Barney's own epigrams , poetry, and several works by Stein. Radclyffe Hall also spent time in Paris at Barney's salon and modeled one of her characters in The Well of Loneliness after her. In Spain, there

10575-455: The archipelago which influenced many of the revolutionaries before the Philippine revolution. Though lesbian literature had not yet evolved as a distinct genre in English in the 19th century, lesbian writers like the essayist and supernatural fiction writer Vernon Lee sometimes hinted at lesbian subtexts in their work or, like Lee's lover Amy Levy , wrote love poems to women using the voice of

10716-436: The beauty of women and proclaimed her love for girls. Certain works have established historical or artistic importance, and the world of lesbian fiction continues to grow and change as time goes on. Until recently, contemporary lesbian literature has been centered around several small, exclusively lesbian presses, as well as online fandoms. However, since the new millennium began, many lesbian presses have branched out to include

10857-406: The best-sellers of their time. Many of these authors (like Niccolò Tommaseo , Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi and D'Azeglio himself) were patriots and politicians too, and in their novels, the veiled politic message of Manzoni became explicit (the hero of Ettore Fieramosca fights to defend the honor of the Italian soldiers, mocked by some arrogant Frenchmen). In them, the narrative talent not equaled

10998-403: The building (and near collapse) of a huge spire onto a medieval cathedral (generally assumed to be Salisbury Cathedral ); the spire symbolizing both spiritual aspiration and worldly vanity. The Scorpion God (1971) consists of three novellas, the first set in a prehistoric African hunter-gatherer band ( Clonk, Clonk ), the second in an ancient Egyptian court ( The Scorpion God ) and the third in

11139-482: The contemporary novel tried their hand at stories set in previous centuries. Among them were Fulvio Tomizza ( The Evil Coming from North , about the Reformation ), Dacia Maraini ( The Silent Duchess , about the female condition in the eighteenth century), Sebastiano Vassalli ( The Chimera , about a witch hunt ), Ernesto Ferrero ( N ) and Valerio Manfredi ( The Last Legion ). Fani Popova–Mutafova (1902–1977)

11280-746: The context of the similar censorship of Lady Chatterley's Lover , which also had a theme of transgressive female sexuality , albeit heterosexual. In the United States, The Well of Loneliness survived legal challenges in New York and the U.S. Customs Court . Elsa Gidlow , who was born in England and grew up in Quebec, Canada, co-edited, published, and contributed literary work to the first known North American lesbian/gay-themed periodical, Les Mouches fantastiques , published in Montreal from 1918 to 1920. She later moved to

11421-428: The conventions of many of the other subgenres of historical fiction. A number of such works include elements of historical fantasy or time travel to facilitate the transition between the contemporary world and the past in the tradition of children's portal fiction. Sometimes publishers will commission series of historical novels that explore different periods and times. Among the most popular contemporary series include

11562-613: The court of a Roman emperor ( Envoy Extraordinary ). The trilogy To the Ends of the Earth , which includes the Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989), describes sea voyages in the early 19th century. Anthony Burgess also wrote several historical novels; his last novel, A Dead Man in Deptford , is about the murder of Christopher Marlowe in the 16th century. Though

11703-430: The dirty parts we'll take it but otherwise no". The novel was loosely adapted into the 1985 film Desert Hearts . When publishing her novel Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in 1965, the novelist May Sarton feared that writing openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work. "The fear of homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write Mrs. Stevens Hears

11844-495: The disease caused the loss of one leg and most of her eyesight. She died on January 9, 1934, in Davenport. She is buried alongside Jane Allen Crawford in Davenport's Oakdale Memorial Gardens French began her literary career with a sentimental story, Hugo's Waiting , printed in the Davenport Gazette in 1871. She then worked on Communists and Capitalists, A Sketch from Life , inspired by a railroad workers' strike. The piece

11985-789: The eighteenth century, as well as historical novels written primarily in exile in France and California, including most prominently the Josephus trilogy set in Ancient Rome (1932 / 1935 / 1942), Goya (1951), and his novel Raquel: The Jewess of Toledo - set in Medieval Spain. Robert Graves of Britain wrote several popular historical novels, including I, Claudius , King Jesus , The Golden Fleece and Count Belisarius . John Cowper Powys wrote two historical novels set in Wales, Owen Glendower (1941) and Porius (1951). The first deals with

12126-529: The era. Patience and Sarah by Alma Routsong , published under the pen name "Isabel Miller" in 1971, examined the historical confines of a romance between two 19th century women in a Boston Marriage. There had existed a popularity within the science fiction & fantasy genres the idea of all-women utopias since the 19th century (such as “ Herland ” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1915, or “ Mizora ” by Mary Bradley Lane in 1880), though they lacked sexual elements and possibilities of lesbian sexuality until

12267-601: The explicit to inferentially lesbian", Koppelman said, "I recognize these stories as stories about women loving women in the variety of romantic ways that we wouldn't even have to struggle to define if we were talking about men and women loving each other." Since the 1970s, scholars of lesbian literature have analyzed as lesbian relationships that would not have been labeled as such in the 19th century due to different conceptions of intimacy and sexuality. For example, Christina Rossetti 's 1862 poem " Goblin Market " has been widely read as

12408-428: The familiar biblical stories of Genesis , from Jacob to Joseph (chapters 27–50), setting it in the historical context of the reign of Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC) in ancient Egypt . In the same era, Lion Feuchtwanger was one of the most popular and accomplished writers of historical novels, with publications between the 1920s and 1950s. His reputation began with the bestselling work, Jud Süß (1925), set in

12549-505: The films were fantasy-based, however. Many featured actual historical personalities such as Julius Caesar , Cleopatra , and Hannibal , although great liberties were taken with the storylines. Gladiators, pirates, knights, Vikings, and slaves rebelling against tyrannical kings were also popular subjects. There are also films based on Medieval narratives like Ridley Scott 's historical epics Robin Hood (2010) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and

12690-472: The first explicitly lesbian autobiography in which two women end up happily together, titled Diana: A Strange Autobiography . This autobiography was published with a note saying, "The publishers wish it expressly understood that this is a true story, the first of its kind ever offered to the general reading public". However, literary critics have since called the autobiography 'fictional'. Jane Bowles ' only novel, Two Serious Ladies , published in 1943, told

12831-426: The first lesbian novel with a happy ending, was groundbreaking for being the first where neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. The manuscript was rejected by Highsmith's publisher Harper & Brothers and published in hardcover by Coward-McCann in 1952 under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan", followed by

12972-631: The first published collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, Black Lesbian in White America , published by Naiad Press. The influence of late 20th century feminism and greater acceptance of LGBT work was felt in Mexico, with the emergence of lesbian poets Nancy Cardenas , Magaly Alabau, Mercedes Roffe, and others. In Argentina and Uruguay, Alejandra Pizarnik and Cristina Peri Rossi combined lesbian eroticism with artistic and sociopolitical concerns in their work. After an almost complete silence in

13113-617: The foundational texts of black lesbian literature is Ann Allen Shockley ’s novel, Loving Her . Published in 1974, Loving Her is widely considered to be one of the first, if not the first, published pieces of black lesbian literature. Joanna Russ 's 1975 novel The Female Man contains an alternative universe inhabited solely by lesbians. The 1970s also saw the advent of feminist and LGBTQ publishing houses, such as Naiad Press , and literary magazines like Sinister Wisdom , and Conditions which published lesbian works. Adrienne Rich and Judy Grahn were important poets and essayists of

13254-482: The genre as works "written at least fifty years after the events described", while critic Sarah Johnson delineates such novels as "set before the middle of the last [20th] century ... in which the author is writing from research rather than personal experience." Then again Lynda Adamson, in her preface to the bibliographic reference work World Historical Fiction , states that while a "generally accepted definition" for

13395-655: The genre for its other thematic and critical interests. Historical fiction as a contemporary Western literary genre has its foundations in the early-19th-century works of Sir Walter Scott and his contemporaries in other national literatures such as the Frenchman Honoré de Balzac , the American James Fenimore Cooper , and later the Russian Leo Tolstoy . However, the melding of historical and fictional elements in individual works of literature has

13536-547: The genre has evolved since its inception, the historical novel remains popular with authors and readers to this day and bestsellers include Patrick O'Brian 's Aubrey–Maturin series , Ken Follett 's Pillars of the Earth and Dorothy Dunnett 's Lymond Chronicles . A development in British and Irish writing in the past 25 years has been a renewed interest in the First World War . Works include William Boyd 's An Ice-Cream War ; Sebastian Faulks ' Birdsong and The Girl at

13677-517: The historical novel is a novel "about a time period at least 25 years before it was written", she also suggests that some people read novels written in the past, like those of Jane Austen (1775–1817), as if they were historical novels. Historical fiction sometimes encouraged movements of romantic nationalism . Walter Scott's Waverley novels created interest in Scottish history and still illuminate it. A series of novels by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski on

13818-524: The history of Poland popularized the country's history after it had lost its independence in the Partitions of Poland . Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote several immensely popular novels set in conflicts between the Poles and predatory Teutonic Knights , rebelling Cossacks and invading Swedes . He won the 1905 Nobel Prize in literature . He also wrote the popular novel Quo Vadis , which was about Nero 's Rome and

13959-417: The late 1960s, 70s, and 80s. It was then that more erotic and lesbian instances emerged in science fiction stories, alongside women being outside of, or at war with, the patriarchy and heteronormativity. An example of this growth in the women-utopia subgenre is French feminist writer Monique Wittig’s “ Les Guérillères ,” published in 1969, which portrayed an experimental and erotic world where “women outside of

14100-421: The line between fiction and history, in order to get closer to the truth. The novel is set 60 years before it was composed, and alongside researching the war through primary and secondary sources, he spoke with people who had lived through war during the French invasion of Russia in 1812; thus, the book is also, in part, ethnography fictionalized. The Charterhouse of Parma by Marie-Henri Beyle (Stendhal)

14241-427: The literature obscene. This would generally be achieved by placing the death or conversion in the last chapter or even paragraph. For example, The Stone Wall , a lesbian autobiography with an unhappy ending, was published in 1930 under the pseudonym Mary Casal . It was one of the first lesbian autobiographies. Yet as early as 1939, Frances V. Rummell , an educator and a teacher of French at Stephens College , published

14382-626: The magazine Kaizō . Virginia Woolf 's 1928 novel of a high-spirited gender-bending poet who lives for centuries, Orlando , which was said to be based on her lover, Vita Sackville-West , was re-examined in the 1970s as a 'subversive' lesbian text. During the Weimar Republic , not only did lesbian social life flourish in Germany, especially in Berlin, but lesbian literature also emerged. Pioneering magazines such as Die Freundin , Die BIF , and Frauenliebe , which were founded specifically for

14523-467: The main character is a girl from the West Indies. The novel tells the story of her relationship with another girl. Other young adult novels with lesbian characters and themes that were published during this time include Happy Endings Are All Alike (1978) by Sandra Scoppettone . According to the author, it "barely got reviewed and when it did it wasn't good", unlike Scoppettone's novel about gay boys, which

14664-494: The matrix of heterosexuality would have the potential to become something entirely different than women defined in relationship to men.” After the birth of an explicitly gay and lesbian literature in the 1970s, the following decades saw a tremendous rise in its production. While gay male novels had more crossover appeal and often became mid-list sellers in mainstream publishing houses; lesbian literature, depending on smaller presses, developed smaller but 'respectable' audiences. In

14805-491: The more explicitly lesbian works of the 19th century is the Gothic novella Carmilla , by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu , first published in serial form in 1871-72. Considered a precursor to and an inspiration for Bram Stoker 's Dracula , Carmilla tells the story of the relationship between the innocent Laura and the vampire Carmilla, whose sucking of Laura's blood is clearly linked to an erotic attraction to Laura. This story has inspired many other works that take advantage of

14946-450: The name 'Monte Cristo' into their titles." Tolstoy's War and Peace offers an example of 19th-century historical fiction used to critique contemporary history. Tolstoy read the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars , and used the novel to challenge those historical approaches. At the start of the novel's third volume, he describes his work as blurring

15087-552: The novels The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) and Mason & Dixon (1997) respectively. A few writers create historical fiction without fictional characters. One example is the series Masters of Rome by Colleen McCullough . Historical prose fiction has a long tradition in world literature. Three of the Four Classics of Chinese novels were set in the distant past: Shi Nai'an 's 14th-century Water Margin concerns 12th-century outlaws; Luo Guanzhong 's 14th-century Romance of

15228-413: The novels of Charlotte Brontë , particularly Shirley and Villette , in which the female main characters engage in close or even obsessive relationships with other women. Some have even speculated that Brontë herself may have been in love with her friend Ellen Nussey; Vita Sackville-West called the letters between the two "love letters pure and simple." Scholars have similarly speculated on whether

15369-521: The other hand, are not often regarded as lesbian literature. The fundamental work of lesbian literature is the poetry of Sappho of Lesbos . From various ancient writings, historians have gathered that a group of young women were left in Sappho's charge for their instruction or cultural edification. Not much of Sappho's poetry remains, but that which does demonstrates the topics she wrote about: women's daily lives, their relationships, and rituals. She focused on

15510-440: The past". The Iliad has been described as historic fiction, since it treats historic events, although its genre is generally considered epic poetry . Pierre Vidal-Naquet has suggested that Plato laid the foundations for the historical novel through the myth of Atlantis contained in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias . The Tale of Genji (written before 1021) is a fictionalized account of Japanese court life about

15651-529: The past. Some subgenres such as alternate history and historical fantasy insert intentionally ahistorical or speculative elements into a novel. Works of historical fiction are sometimes criticized for lack of authenticity because of readerly criticism or genre expectations for accurate period details. This tension between historical authenticity and fiction frequently becomes a point of comment for readers and popular critics, while scholarly criticism frequently goes beyond this commentary, investigating

15792-545: The patriotic passion, and their novels, full of rhetoric and melodramatic excesses, are today barely readable as historical documents. A significant exception is The Confessions of an Italian by Ippolito Nievo , an epic about the Venetian republic 's fall and the Napoleonic age , told with satiric irony and youthful brio (Nievo wrote it when he was 26 years old). In Arabic literature, the Lebanese writer Jurji Zaydan (1861–1914)

15933-425: The primary document romantic letters of communication between the two were destroyed by Dwyer at Lowell's request, leaving much unknown about the details of their life together. Most American literature of the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s presented lesbian life as tragedy, ending with either the suicide of the lesbian character or her conversion to heterosexuality. This was required so that the authorities did not declare

16074-616: The publication of the 2nd edition in 1903, Buddenbrooks became a major literary success. The work led to a Nobel Prize in Literature for Mann in 1929; although the Nobel award generally recognizes an author's body of work, the Swedish Academy's citation for Mann identified "his great novel Buddenbrooks " as the principal reason for his prize. Mann also wrote, between 1926 and 1943, a four-part novel Joseph and His Brothers . In it Mann retells

16215-639: The rebellion of the Welsh Prince Owain Glyndŵr (AD 1400–16), while Porius takes place during the Dark Ages, in AD 499, just before the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Powys suggests parallels with these historical periods and Britain in the late 1930s and during World War II . Other significant British novelists include Georgette Heyer , Naomi Mitchison and Mary Renault . Heyer essentially established

16356-487: The romantic-historical novel. Victor Hugo began writing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in 1829, largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of the Gothic architecture , which was neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings, or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style. The action takes place in 1482 and the title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which

16497-490: The sieges of Cawnpore and Lucknow , the book details the siege of a fictional Indian town, Krishnapur, during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 from the perspective of the town's British residents . The main characters find themselves subject to the increasing strictures and deprivation of the siege, and the absurdity of maintaining the British class system in a town no one can leave becomes a source of comic invention, though

16638-629: The story is centered. Alexandre Dumas also wrote several popular historical fiction novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers . George Saintsbury stated: " Monte Cristo is said to have been at its first appearance, and for some time subsequently, the most popular book in Europe." This popularity has extended into modern times as well. The book was "translated into virtually all modern languages and has never been out of print in most of them. There have been at least twenty-nine motion pictures based on it ... as well as several television series, and many movies [have] worked

16779-436: The story of a romance between an upper class woman and a prostitute in a run-down Panamanian port town. Lesbian fiction in English saw a huge explosion in interest with the advent of the dime-store or pulp fiction novel. Lesbian pulp fiction became its own distinct category of fiction in the 1950s and 60s, although a significant number of authors of this genre were men using either a male or female pen name . Tereska Torrès

16920-721: The strength of it. The Finnish writer Mika Waltari is known for the historical novel The Egyptian (1945). Faroes–Danish writer William Heinesen wrote several historical novels, most notably Det gode håb (1964, "Fair Hope") set in the Faroe Islands in 17th century. Historical fiction has long been a popular genre in Sweden, especially since the 1960s a huge number of historical novels has been written. Nobel laureates Eyvind Johnson and Pär Lagerkvist wrote acclaimed historical novels such as Return to Ithaca (1946) and Barabbas (1950). Vilhelm Moberg 's Ride This Night (1941)

17061-514: The subgenred films based on the Arthurian legend such as Pendragon: Sword of His Father (2008) and King Arthur (2004). Octave Thanet Alice French (March 19, 1850 – January 9, 1934), better known as Octave Thanet , was an American novelist and short fiction writer. Alice French was born at Andover, Massachusetts , a daughter of George Henry French, a successful leather merchant, and his wife Frances Morton. Frances Morton French

17202-462: The subtitles ("The Threat" and "The Violence") by 1987 by the director Lyudmil Staykov. In June 2015, " Time of Violence " was chosen as the most beloved film of Bulgarian viewers in "Laced Shoes of Bulgarian Cinema", a large-scale consultation with the audience of Bulgarian National Television . One of the best known Scandinavian historical novels is Sigrid Undset 's Kristin Lavransdatter (1920–1922) set in medieval Norway. For this trilogy Undset

17343-662: The text is serious in intent and tone. In Welsh literature, the major contributor to the genre in Welsh is William Owen Roberts (b. 1960). His historical novels include Y Pla (1987), set at the time of the Black Death; Paradwys (2001), 18th century, concerning the slave trade; and Petrograd (2008) and Paris (2013), concerning the Russian revolution and its aftermath. Y Pla has been much translated, appearing in English as Pestilence , and Petrograd and Paris have also appeared in English. A contemporary of Roberts' working in English

17484-457: The town was then anxious about the possibility of invasion by Napoleon. In the United States, the first historical novelist was Samuel Woodworth , who wrote The Champions of American Freedom in 1816. James Fenimore Cooper was better known for his historical novels and was influenced by Scott. His most famous novel is The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826), the second book of

17625-500: The trope of the lesbian vampire. It was also adapted into a YouTube webseries of the same name beginning in 2014. The first novel in the English language recognised as having a lesbian theme is The Well of Loneliness (1928) by Radclyffe Hall , which a British court found obscene because it defended "unnatural practices between women". The book was banned in Britain for decades; this is in

17766-553: The works of trans men and women, gay and bisexual voices, and other queer works not represented by the mainstream press. Additionally, novels with lesbian themes and characters have become more accepted in mainstream publishing. The European Middle Ages lacked a specific term for lesbians, but medieval French texts, under the influence of the Arabic literature of the period, featured literary depictions of love and sexual desire between women. Such expressions are found in devotional texts to

17907-463: Was a Bulgarian author who is considered by many to have been the best-selling Bulgarian historical fiction author ever. Her books sold in record numbers in the 1930s and the early 1940s. However, she was eventually sentenced to seven years of imprisonment by the Bulgarian communist regime because of some of her writings celebrating Hitler , and though released after only eleven months for health reasons,

18048-491: Was also a timid awakening of lesbian literature in the early 20th century. The first work to deal with the subject was Zezé (1909) by Ángeles Vicente . The first theatrical work dealing with the subject, Un sueño de la razón by Cipriano Rivas Cherif , premiered in 1929. The only one who dared to publish homoerotic verses was Lucía Sánchez Saornil , although under the male pen name Luciano de San Saor. Other authors, such as Carmen de Burgos , made references to lesbianism in

18189-502: Was also on the National Register (until its destruction by fire). Critics and editors acclaimed Octave Thanet. She was financially successful as a writer, though her investments in banks and railroads provided most of her income. In the 1890s, French published ten books. Between 1896 and 1900, fifty of her stories were published, and four different publishers collected five volumes for reprinting. In 1909, French and Crawford gave up their Thanford house, after which French traveled widely in

18330-541: Was as background detail to set the period, and did not usually play a key role in the narrative. Heyer's characters often contained more modern-day sensibilities, and more conventional characters in the novels would point out the heroine's eccentricities, such as wanting to marry for love. Some historical novels explore life at sea, including C. S. Forester 's Hornblower series , Patrick O'Brian 's Aubrey–Maturin series , Alexander Kent 's The Bolitho novels , Dudley Pope 's Lord Ramage 's series, all of which all deal with

18471-633: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Johannes V. Jensen 's trilogy Kongens fald (1900–1901, "The Fall of the King"), set in 16th century Denmark, has been called "the finest historical novel in Danish literature". The epic historical novel series Den lange rejse (1908–1921, "The Long Journey") is generally regarded as Jensen's masterpiece and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944 partly on

18612-459: Was better received. Frequent themes in books published during the 1970s are that homosexuality is a "phase", or that there are no "happy endings" for gay people, and that they generally lead a difficult life. The School Library Journal reported: Throughout the 1970s, there was, on average, a single young adult title per year dealing with gay issues. Although many of these early books were well written—and well reviewed—gay characters were at best

18753-460: Was considered scandalous, including lesbianism and sadomasochism . In 1866, he published Poems and Ballads , which contained the poems " Anactoria " and "Sapphics" concerning Sappho of Lesbos and dealing explicitly with lesbian content. Finally, Henry James portrayed a Boston marriage , considered an early form of lesbian relationship, between the feminist characters Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant in his 1886 novel The Bostonians . One of

18894-576: Was created between 1259 and 1278 (author unknown). In the early 19th century, Chinese poet Wu Tsao gained popularity for her lesbian love poems. Her songs, according to poet Kenneth Rexroth , were "sung all over China". In 1849, Leona Florentino was born in the Philippines during the brutal patriarchal Spanish colonial regime. Known as the mother of Philippine women's literature and a pioneer in Philippine lesbian literature, her poems, both written and oral, during her 35-year life brought about feminism in

19035-464: Was even translated into English, achieved some fame as lesbian voices. Other examples of 1920s lesbian literature include poems by Amy Lowell about her partner of over a decade Ada Dwyer Russell . Lowell wanted to dedicate her books to Dwyer who refused as they had to hide the nature of their relationship except for one time in a non-poetry book in which Lowell wrote, "To A.D.R., This, and all my books. A.L." Examples of these love poems to Dwyer include

19176-474: Was forbidden to publish anything between 1943 and 1972. Stoyan Zagorchinov (1889–1969) also a Bulgarian writer, author of "Last Day, God's Day" trilogy and " Ivaylo ", continuing the tradition in the Bulgarian historical novel, led by Ivan Vazov . Yana Yazova (1912–1974) also has several novels that can be considered historical as " Alexander of Macedon ", her only novel on non-Bulgarian thematic, as well as her trilogy " Balkani ". Vera Mutafchieva (1929–2009)

19317-402: Was inspired by Walter Scott's Ivanhoe but, compared to its model, shows some innovations (two members of the lower class as principal characters, the past described without romantic idealization, an explicitly Christian message), somehow forerunning the realistic novel of the following decades. Set in northern Italy in 1628, during the oppressive years under Spanish rule, it is sometimes seen as

19458-527: Was published in October 1878 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine , which paid her forty-two dollars, the first money she earned from writing. At that point, French took the pseudonym “Octave Thanet.” She later claimed that she chose “Octave” because it was gender-neutral, and that she had seen the word “Thanet” written on a freight car in the Davenport yards. She published stories and essays in such national periodicals as

19599-689: Was quite popular in 20th century Latin American literature , including works such as The Kingdom of This World (1949) by Alejo Carpentier , I, the Supreme (1974) by Augusto Roa Bastos , Terra Nostra (1975) by Carlos Fuentes , News from the Empire (1987) by Fernando del Paso , The Lightning of August (1964) by Jorge Ibargüengoitia , The War of the End of the World (1981) by Mario Vargas Llosa and The Autumn of

19740-644: Was the daughter of Massachusetts Governor Marcus Morton . Alice had four brothers: George, Morton, Nathaniel, and Robert. In 1856 the French family moved to Davenport, Iowa, where the father engaged in manufacturing agricultural implements. Alice progressed through the public schools, then studied at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She later transferred to Abbot Academy in Andover, graduating in 1868, and returning to Davenport. By 1890, she had been settled in her comfortable lifelong lesbian partnership with

19881-559: Was the most prolific novelist of this genre. He wrote 23 historical novels between 1889 and 1914. His novels played an important in shaping the collective consciousness of modern Arabs during the Nahda period and educated them about their history. The Fleeing Mamluk (1891), The Captive of the Mahdi Pretender (1892), and Virgin of Quraish (1899) are some of his nineteenth-century historical novels. A major 20th-century example of this genre

#519480