Truth And Fiction

Perhaps Thomas Macaulay in 1824 gave us the definitive word on the value of the historical novel. In his essay “On Mitford’s History of Greece” he comments on the inability of writers of history, even one as celebrated as Plutarch, to convey the full essence of an era: “Historians have, almost without exception, confined themselves to the public transactions of states, and have left to the negligent administration of writers of fiction a province at least equally extensive and valuable.”