In the last year or two there has been
an almost alarming influx in this department of Fiction, and
teachers in schools, besides readers in general, may be glad to be
saved a somewhat tedious investigation.
* "A Descriptive Catalogue of Historical Novels and Tales, for the
use of School Libraries and Teachers of History," compiled and
described by H. Courthope Bowen, M. A. (Edward Stanford, 1882.)
Having thus attempted to justify the existence of my little
"Guide," I pass on to deal with the subject of Historical Fiction
itself. Most of us, I suppose, at one time or another have
experienced a thrill of interest when some prominent personage,
whom we knew well by repute, came before us in the flesh. We
watched his manner, and noted all those shades of expression which
in another's countenance we should have passed by unheeded. Well,
it seems to me that, parallel with this experience, is that which
we gain, when, reading some first-rank romance, we encounter in its
pages a figure with which History has made us more or less
familiar. And I would remark that the great masters do not, as a
rule, make that mistake which less skilful writers fall into--the
mistake of introducing well-known historical figures too
frequently.
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