The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction

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