From The Other Boleyn Girl to Fingersmith , this collection explores the popularity of female-centred historical novels in recent years. It asks how these representations are influenced by contemporary gender politics, and whether they can be seen as part of a wider feminist project to recover women's history.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Histories and Heroines: The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction; K.Cooper & E.Short PART I: HISTORICAL WOMEN - REVISIONING REAL LIVES The Virtuosa and the Ventriloquists: Janice Galloway's Clara; T.Jamieson Making Up, or Making Over: Reconstructing the Modern Female Author; E.Short A Deviant Device: Diary Dissembling in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace ; K.Brindle Whoso List to Hunt: The Literary Fortunes of Anne Boleyn; J.Crane PART II: IMAGINED HISTORIES - ROMANCING FICTIONAL HEROINES Do Knights Still Rescue Damsels in Distress?: Reimagining the Medieval in the Mills and Boon Historical Romance; A.Burge Sexual F(r)ictions: Pornography in Neo-Victorian Women's Fiction; N.Muller Re-Claiming Anne Damer/Re-Covering Sapphic History: Emma Donoghue's Life Mask ; C.O'Callaghan Things Slipping between Past and Present: Feminism and the Gothic in Kate Mosse's Sepulchre ; K.Cooper PART III: REWRITING HISTORY - REASSERTING THE FEMALE Imagine. Investigate. Intervene? A Consideration of Feminist Intent and Metafictive Invention in the Historical Fictions of A.S. Byatt and Marina Warner; S.Harris In Defence of Fiction: History and Imagination in Kate Grenville's The Secret River and The Lieutenant ; A.Gething Difficulties, Differences and Discontinuities: Reading Women's Historical Fiction; D.Wallace Writing Historical Fiction: Thoughts from Two Practitioners; S.Sellers & A.Thompson Selected Bibliography Index
