Top 71 Quotes About Historical Novels
#1. After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones.
Lion Feuchtwanger
#2. Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of established non-fiction writers - Giles Milton, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Harry Sidebottom, Patrick Bishop, Ian Mortimer and myself included - have written historical novels.
Saul David
#3. In my opinion the best writer of historical novels. He makes you feel, smell, see every thing he describes in all his books. He doesn't only write, he makes you linked images in your mind with his words.
Edward Rutherfurd
#4. That was the wonderful thing about historical novels, one met so many famous people. It was like reading a very old copy of Hello! magazine.
Edward St. Aubyn
#5. When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr.
Tim Pratt
#6. Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the present.
Laila Lalami
#7. Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.
Lion Feuchtwanger
#8. I really enjoy mysteries, well-written fiction novels, historical novels, and the occasional vampire, wolf, human triangle as long as it's real
Michael Connelly
#9. Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.
Chang-rae Lee
#10. There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.
Peter Straub
#11. I don't separate my books into historical novels and the rest. To me, they're all made-up worlds, and both kinds are borne out of curiosity, some investigation into the past.
Peter Carey
#12. I don't write fantasy; I write historical novels about an imaginary place.
Raymond E. Feist
#13. There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
Vladimir Nabokov
#14. Some critics said, 'Hey, why are you writing historical novels?' I say they're not historical, they're contemporary, because people walking around who lived through this, even a little bit, they carry it inside. The contemporary isn't just what you can see now.
Per Petterson
#15. Historical fiction isn't history in the conventional sense and shouldn't be judged as such. The best historical novels are loyal to history, but it is a history absorbed and set to music
Daniel Aaron
#16. You'll notice that my books offer great variety. Some are for adults, some for children and some for teens. There are mysteries, historical novels, picture books, love stories and stories of crisis and courage.
Sonia Levitin
#17. History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie.
Sara Sheridan
#18. Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.
Hilary Mantel
#19. I feel like it's hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well.
Matthew Tobin Anderson
#20. If you write a book set in the past about something that happened east of the Mississippi, it's a 'historical novel.' If you write about something that took place west of the Mississippi, it's a 'Western'- and somehow regarded as a lesser work. I write historical novels about the frontier.
Louis L'Amour
#21. Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.
Louis L'Amour
#22. As far as benefits to reading historical novels, there are several! For one thing, you learn about life in another era. Secondly, these novels help us to develop a deeper understanding of the legacy of women who came before us and the strides made by our ancestors.
Mary Pope Osborne
#23. I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.
Jami Attenberg
#24. I feel very strongly that where the facts exist, a historical novelist should use them if they're writing about a person who really lived, because a lot of people come to history through historical novels. I did. And a lot of people want their history that way.
Alison Weir
#25. Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.
Sara Sheridan
#26. A publisher saw one of my historical novels and thought I would write an admirable detective story, so she offered me a two-book contract, and I grabbed it.
Kerry Greenwood
#27. Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.
Caroline B. Cooney
#29. Some people become passionate readers and fans of science fiction during childhood or adolescence. I picked up on SF somewhat later than that; my escape reading of choice during my youth was historical novels, and one of my favorite writers was Mary Renault.
Pamela Sargent
#30. She loved historical novels in which women dressed as men and outgrew their limited opportunities. And
Nina George
#31. Writing historical novels can be dangerous. We need to be as accurate and as fair about the historical record as we can be, at the same time as creating our fictional characters and, hopefully, telling a good story. The challenge is weaving the fiction into the history.
Edward Rutherfurd
#32. Yet, the quest for knowledge will overcome us and we must know. And, at last, we must see where the road ends, even if it be the cliff.
Nancy B. Brewer
#34. Call it what you like, my lady, but it is still spying.
Jessie Clever
#35. To those of you who have lost your way, may my story serve as a reminder that life is a journey. The lessons we learn along the way are not for our sake alone. We are obligated to share them
Nancy B. Brewer
#36. I sometimes joke that I am the first writer of historical fiction who can look out his window and point to the objects in his novels. I have a view of the entrance to the Bosporus, the old city, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque.
Orhan Pamuk
#37. LIPID (Last Idiot Person I Dated) syndrome: a largely undiagnosed but pervasive disease that afflicts single women.
Lauren Willig
#38. Who can stop influenza and tuberculosis? The wealth of high society cannot buy off this evil, for their bored children die alongside everyone else.
Margie Bayer
#39. The historical novel gives us perspective on our modern lives and helps us connect with the story, which we are continuing ourselves.
Mary Pope Osborne
#41. You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career.
Hilary Mantel
#42. If it's only a kiss you want, I can kiss you with my clothes on." Katie O'Reilly to Captain Lord Blackthorn in "Titanic Rhasody.
Jina Bacarr
#43. Durand smiles. There is nothing behind the smile except perhaps another smile, repeating ad infinitum into the distance.
'Of course,' he says.
Beatrice Hitchman
#44. When your child comes home to talk about life, what could be more important?
Destin Bays
#45. For novelists, the imagination is everything. The trick is to guide one's imagination using research. I love using old maps. When I wrote my novels on London and New York, I found wonderful historical atlases. Paris has the most lavish maps of all.
Edward Rutherfurd
#46. It's the kind of storm that only happens on the highveld, the thunder loud and rapid. Zanele doesn't speak. I need her to. Maybe she is counting the people who have died since we first met.
Arushi Raina
#47. My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer fiction, if the material events which mark and ballast my career had not their public dates and characters scientifically discoverable.
George Santayana
#48. I've never kissed an art forger before" Lord Huntington to Eliza Somerton in "An Artful Seduction
Tina Gabrielle
#49. I will not stand by and let any man believe his death is an act of one of the gods. They don't deserve the credit. This is just nature, a side effect of mortality - H
Katie Hamstead
#50. We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.
Saul David
#51. I mean, every novel's a historical novel anyway. But calling something a historical novel seems to put mittens on it, right? It puts manners on it. And you don't want your novels to be mannered.
Colum McCann
#52. Low and behold what comes of reading too many romance novels.
Kellyn Roth
#53. Our lover is the sun, and we the stars forever floating in their glow. We push and push, yearning for our sun's rays to reach out and touch us for just a moment in time ... one second-glance to warm our spirits and soothe our aching hearts.
Katlyn Charlesworth
#54. Intricately plotted, beautifully paced, The Music of the Spheres is an elegant historical novel rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London. Elizabeth Redfern has made an exciting debut.
Martha Grimes
#55. Helena had been standing by her window looking out to sea, breathing in the fresh air and admiring the picturesque scene of a small ship sailing into the harbor.
She had not been able to think of anything other than Mikolas for days.
From LONGING the 3rd chapter of TRUE LOVE
Destin Bays
#56. Muse, time has taught me that all metaphysical systems, even historical facts given as truths, are hardly that, so I amuse myself with more agreeable lies; I no longer read anything but novels.
Mary Wortley Montagu
#57. I write novels, mostly historical ones, and I try hard to keep them accurate as to historical facts, milieu and flavor.
Gary Jennings
#58. Thinking back on the outing to the theatre, she added, 'I want a man, not a preening peacock!
Katherine Givens
#59. Juliet is one of those rare novels that has it all: lush prose, tightly intertwined parallel narratives, intrigue, and historical detail all set against a backdrop of looming danger. Anne Fortier casts a new light on one of history's greatest stories of passion. I was swept away.
Sara Gruen
#60. I really love to make sweeping historical gestures that are like little illustrations of novels.
Kara Walker
#61. I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture.
Jonathan Dee
#62. She strove for poised composure, despite feeling like a powerless pawn in a despicable game of human chess, played for the amusement of those who enjoyed tragic endings at the expense of someone else's happiness - no - their very existence.
Collette Cameron
#63. I'm still waiting for something, searching for something I cannot describe."
"It's called true love. Most people never find it.
Destin Bays
#64. My mom wasn't, like, she was reading all these historical romance novels the majority of the time. She read a feminist book and then my dad would sit down and explain it to her like she was an idiot.
Kathleen Hanna
#65. I wondered what he would have thought if he'd known that I'd gleaned most of my information from reading historical romance novels.
Nicole Luiken
#66. Literature - novels, plays, and poems - can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical, and this is often how they are taught in school.
Jane Smiley
#67. My mother was a reader; my father was a reader. Not anything particularly sophisticated. My mother read fat historical or romantic novels; my father liked to read Westerns, Zane Grey, that kind of stuff. Whatever they brought in, I read.
John Edgar Wideman
#68. I want to be your lover. Burn your list, Jane. Let me be the one.
Tina Gabrielle
#69. I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word.
Susan Wiggs
#71. I'm a man of words, yet you rob me of them every single time.
Joanna Shupe
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