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Tag Archives: Historical fiction

Sometimes it is the small things

28 Thursday Jan 2021

Posted by la Clarina in History, Scribbling, Stories

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Historical fiction, murder mystery, Sapere Books, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Henry Cobham, writing

 

They stopped Walsingham and Paulo, my Italian, whom they seemed resolved to rob [… and] another Englishman in his company, called Skeggs, as I remember.

On the twelfth of November 1581 Elizabeth’s Ambassador in Paris, Sir Henry Cobham, wrote to the all-powerful Secretary of State – and spymaster – Sir Francis Walsingham . It was almost in passing that the ambassador slipped in this bit of information about the misadventure of Sir Francis’s much younger cousin, nineteen-year-old Thomas, riding as a diplomatic courier between London and Paris. Continue reading →

The Raven’s Seal, by Andrei Baltakmens

16 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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Andrei Baltakmens, Historical fiction, The Raven's Seal

The 18th century is lazily going by in the fictional English town of Airenchester, when we meet hour hero, Thaddeus Grainger, the type of young gentleman of means and taste. A bright, clever, careless boy in the words of his doting housekeeper, Thaddeus is in equal parts bored and disillusioned when it comes to the fine society he confidently belongs to, but that is the way of things, and what is a fellow to do – except navigate the currents, and keep apart from the worst of it? In fact, Thaddeus’s only rebellion is to cultivate the close friendship of reasonably genteel but penniless William Quilby, a vicar’s son and journalist… Continue reading →

Longlisted!

08 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

≈ 5 Comments

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Dorothy Dunnett Award, Historical fiction, Historical Writers Association, Jennifer Falkner, Longlist, Short Stories

In the middle of it all – and by “it all” I mean tech week for my own translation and adaptation of A Christmas Carol, opening this Saturday – I’ve had a lovely surprise: my story was longlisted for the HWA‘s Dorothy Dunnett Award for unpublished short stories… Continue reading →

All the Way to the Theatre – or, the Historical Novelist’s Dilemma

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by la Clarina in History, Scribbling, Stories, Theatre

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Before Shakespeare, Historical fiction, James Burbage, National Archives Blog, research, The Theatre, writing dilemmas

As I was busy completing the la(te)st revision of my novel before pitching it at the HNS Conference in Scotland, I came across this lovely article at the National Archives Blog.

And so I learned that, while I’d always assumed that people walked to the Theatre via Bishopsgate, Bishopsgate Street and Shoreditch, this was not the case. Not that the Burbages wouldn’t have liked such a straightforward route to their playhouse – but there was opposition from the local landowners – particularly from the Earl of Rutland, who effectively blocked the easy access… Continue reading →

Underfictionalised

19 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by la Clarina in History, Stories

≈ 5 Comments

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Caravaggio, Historical characters, Historical fiction, historical novels, historical plays, Manfred von Hohenstaufen

Some historical characters seem so very, very perfect for fictional treatments, don’t they? Whether they have lived enormously interesting lives, full of drama and colour, or we know tantalizingly little about them – just enough to make us want to fill the gaps – they practically beg to be written. Continue reading →

Blocked?

05 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Scribbling

≈ 2 Comments

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competition, deadlines, Historical fiction, Short Stories, writer's block

There is this competition, you see – short stories, historical setting… I really, really want to submit. I’ve known about it for quite some time – and, in fact, for some reason, at first I thought the deadline was in late April. So I began brainstorming ideas back in March, and went through old notebooks, mining for those little Could This Be A Story notes, or hastily sketched half-page notions, and wrote down lists of promising ideas… and then hit on something I liked. Something that was tied to my work in progress. Something promising.  Continue reading →

Of History, Oil, and Serendipity

19 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by la Clarina in History, Scribbling, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1453, carey mysteries, Diana Gabaldon, Historical fiction, historical serendipity, p. f. chisholm, Siege of Constantinople

Says Diana Gabaldon, in her introduction to P.F. Chisholm’s brilliant A Plague of Angels*:

One historical author of my acquaintance describes something she calls “historical serendipity.” This is the condition of knowing one’s period so well and so intimately that when one reaches a point in the story where it’s necessary to… (gasp) make something up, one’s fictional choices are not only historically plausible – but very often turn out to be the ex post facto honest-to-goodness truth, as well.

Did it ever happen to you? Continue reading →

A Cautionary Tale

23 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by la Clarina in Books, History, Stories

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anachronism, Historical fiction, Rose Theatre

Once upon a time I came across an interview or an article – I wish I could remember – in which a historical novelist gleefully told about placing in his latest novel’s prologue a handful of elements that could easily pass for anachronisms. He gleefully anticipated the mails, weblogs and reviews pointing out his “blunders”, and the joys of answering back that, in fact, a lack of written record for some thing before a certain date could not be taken as proof that the same thing did not exist… Continue reading →

A Deeply Bogus Genre

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by la Clarina in History, Stories

≈ 3 Comments

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Historical fiction, HNS Conference, Melvyn Bragg, Michael Caines, Oxford, Times Literary Supplement, Toby Litt

tlsSo the Times Literary Supplement was in Oxford for the HNS Conference, in the person of Michael Caines, who covered “us” with a nice set of musings about what goes on behind the curtain of historical fiction.

He quotes from an essay of Toby Litt’s, affectionately calling HF a “deeply bogus” oxymoron of genre, in that its trick is done by conjoining “what was with what might have been”.  Continue reading →

The Fun of the Game

16 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by la Clarina in Books, History

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Bryher, Historical fiction, History, research

BryherHerselfI told you about Bryher’s The Player’s Boy, didn’t I?

Well, to this lovely, melancholy novel my Paris Press edition adds a wonderful afterword, consisting of a letter that Bryher wrote to a friend to explain her fascination with Elizabethan literature and history. It’s a charming little piece about growing up, reading, cultivating one’s imagination, finding strength in literature and history, and being slightly eccentric… It’s well worth reading in its entirety.

My favourite part, though, has to be the final musing on the historian’s perspective: Continue reading →

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