Historical accuracy in historical fiction

The subject of accuracy in historical fiction has recently come up in several forums I read. Susan Higginbotham has posted about it, it was mentioned in the discussion here about factors that attract and repel readers of historical fiction, Ian Hocking touched on the responsibility he feels towards the passengers and crew on the crashed aeroplane whose story he is telling in a new novel, and over on the Historical Novel Society message board several people have leapt to the defence of an Elizabeth Chadwick novel where a reviewer on Amazon.co.uk objected to the lack of ‘romance’ and commented “...this is fact but again this was a novel and not a research document.”

I value historical accuracy in a historical novel. Yes, it is fiction, and the noun trumps the adjective, as observed in a recent essay. But the adjective is there for a reason, to indicate that this is a particular type of fiction, and I feel it should not be ignored.

It seems to me there are different kinds of (in)accuracy in historical fiction:
- material culture (clothes, weapons, buildings, food, pottery, etc.)
- non-material culture (religion, folklore/myth, social structure, law, social roles and expectations, attitudes, values, trade links, language, politics, tactics, etc.)
- events (battles fought, won or lost; deaths; marriages; births; major natural disasters such as plague, storm or famine; lands/kingdoms changing hands; structures built or destroyed, etc.)
- character (the novelist usually has to create the character, but this should be consistent with what is known about the person and their actions (if anything), and consistent with the society and culture in which the character lived)

For what it’s worth, my personal view can be summed up as ‘evidence is sacred but interpretation is free’. Even in well-documented periods, there are usually many unknowns surrounding a historical person or event. In particular, character and motivation - those key cornerstones of story - are rarely known beyond any doubt. For example, it is known that Henry VIII broke with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon, married Anne Boleyn and then divorced and executed her. Those facts are not in doubt (and any novel that diverged from them would get very short shrift from me). But it seems to me there is plenty of scope for the novelist’s imagination in interpreting these facts. Henry can be portrayed as a selfish monster driven by lust; as a man who will sacrifice anything for a son, perhaps out of a sense of duty to secure the succession and avoid a repeat of the Wars of the Roses; as a man with an inferiority complex and a chip on his shoulder over having been born the second son and now determined to get his own way against everyone, including the Pope. And those are just the ones I thought of whilst typing this post; there must be many, many others. Similarly, Catherine can be portrayed as a saintly martyr, a loyal wife, a woman passionately in love with her husband, or a clinging shrew. Anne can be ambitious but naive, dazzled by the prospect of the crown and not understanding the dangers, insufferably arrogant, passionately in love with Henry and blind to all else, or a scheming heartless bitch.

Where some key facts are unknown, there is even more scope. Take the famous example of Richard III - it is known that Richard was crowned king in his nephews’ lifetime, that he was married to Anne Neville, that the boys disappeared during his reign and that he was defeated and killed by Henry VII in battle. But one can create Richard as evil incarnate (Shakespeare), as a sensitive hero traduced by history (Sharon Penman and many others), or as something in between; his marriage to Anne Neville can be presented as a romantic love match or a political alliance; and there are almost as many theories about what happened to the princes as there are theories about the Real King Arthur.

Given the infinite variety of stories that can be spun to connect the recorded facts and make imaginative sense of them, I’m at something of a loss as to why one would need to make up a better plot. Truth is so often stranger than fiction. A King of England who hired a pirate to abduct a noble maiden on her way to her marriage and carry her off to his castle? Absurd! Straight from an overheated romance! But Edward I did it, and according to Sharon Penman (Author's Note in The Reckoning) the bill for the pirate's services is still extant, worded in suitably diplomatic language.

I feel the writer has an ethical responsibility to represent real people, events and societies fairly. Even if the characters in the story are all fictional, the societies used as the background were real and should be treated with respect. Warts and all, but not just the warts. I also feel this applies to narrative non-fiction as much as it does to fiction. I’m probably more exasperated by a non-fiction writer who propounds a theory using a mixture of selectively presented evidence and speculative assertion than I am by a novel that doesn’t know what a claymore is.

The degree of historical (in)accuracy acceptable in a historical novel is clearly going to be a matter of personal preference, both for the reader and the writer. Like Susan, I would not advocate rules or anything that resembles censorship (not that anyone would listen to me if I did, of course). Diversity is all. But for diversity to be effective you also need accurate information, so that people can find what they want.

What I would like is to have some idea of the writer’s approach to historical accuracy before I start reading, to help me pick out books I want to read. Sometimes a book’s packaging provides the answer - it’s a fair guess that novels with covers like these are perhaps unlikely to have historical accuracy very high on their list of priorities (Thanks to Gabriele for the link). In most cases, though, it is not so obvious, and here I find the Author’s Note invaluable. The author can outline what is known, what is imaginative interpolation, and what has been altered from the known history. This allows prospective readers to make their own judgement on whether the approach to historical accuracy is likely to be right for them.

Such an Author’s Note also allows readers to judge whether they can learn some real history from the novel (as many people like to do with historical fiction), or whether the book is an entertaining story loosely based on history. In my view there’s room for both kinds and everything in between, but it seems only fair to tell the reader what they’re getting and how much trust they can place in the history.

In the UK, a company called Ronseal sells DIY wood treatment products with the advertising slogan ‘It does exactly what it says on the tin’, and the expression has made its way into popular culture. It seems to me that applying this approach to books, especially historical fiction, has considerable merit. Say clearly what it is, don’t pretend it’s something it’s not, and let the reader make an informed choice.

What do you think?