The historical novel is an enduringly popular genre that raises crucial questions about key literary concepts, fact and fiction, identity, history, reading, and writing. In this comprehensive, focused guide, Jerome de Groot offers an accessible introduction to the genre and critical debates that surround it, including:the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fictiondiffere...

This Element, about historical practice and genetics, seeks to understand what is at stake in presenting, preserving, and articulating the past in the present. Historical practice is both conceptual and material, a consonance of approach which is reflected in the innovative and non-traditional format of the Element itself – not simply in its length, but its constitution. The Element was created collaboratively with contributions from a range of disciplines, backgrounds, and areas of profes...

In the second edition of The Historical Novel, Jerome de Groot expertly charts the evolution of one of literature’s most beloved and complex forms. From its eighteenth-century origins to postmodern and contemporary historical fiction, de Groot reveals how historical fiction continues to challenge, provoke, and transform our understanding of the past. The second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded with global perspectives and new emphasis on the role and importance of ...

Double Helix History examines the interface between genetics and history in order to investigate the plausibility of ‘new’ knowledge derived from scientific methods and to reflect upon what it might mean for the practice of history.Since the mapping of the human genome in 2001, there has been an expansion in the use of genetic information for historical investigation. Geneticists are confident that this has changed the way we know the past. This book considers the practica...

‘A really fun idea for a book - and full of great stuff.’ Greg Jenner, Public Historian This is the perfect guide for any writer who wants to recreate the Roman world accurately in their fiction. It will aid any novelist, screenwriter, games designer or re-enactor in populating their story with authentic characters and scenes, costumes and locations. Written from a historian’s perspective, this guide pulls back the curtain to show the reader what life in Ancient Rome was really like: what ...

Remaking History considers the ways that historical fictions of all kinds enable a complex engagement with the past. Popular historical texts including films, television and novels, along with cultural phenomena such as superheroes and vampires, broker relationships to ‘history’, while also enabling audiences to understand the ways in which the past is written, structured and ordered.Jerome de Groot uses examples from contemporary popular culture to show the relationship b...

Consuming History examines how history works in contemporary popular culture. Analysing a wide range of cultural entities from computer games to daytime television, it investigates the ways in which society consumes history and how a reading of this consumption can help us understand popular culture and issues of representation.In this second edition, Jerome de Groot probes how museums have responded to the heritage debate and how new technologies from online game-playing ...

Beginning theory has been helping students navigate through the thickets of literary and cultural theory for over two decades. This new and expanded fourth edition continues to offer readers the best single-volume introduction to the field. The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists and technical language is lucidly and expertly unravelled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics and the theories they represent, Beginning theory allows rea...

In a time when millions travel around the planet; some by choice, some driven by economic or political exile, translation of the written and spoken word is of ever increasing importance. This guide presents readers with an accessible and engaging introduction to the valuable position translation holds within literature and society.Leading translation theorist, Susan Bassnett traces the history of translation, examining the ways translation is currently utilised as a burgeoning inte...

The concept of gender continues to be a central issue in literary and cultural studies, with a significance that crosses disciplinary boundaries and provokes lively debate. In this fully revised and updated second edition, David Glover and Cora Kaplan offer a lucid and illuminating introduction to ’gender’ and its implications, including:an overview of the critical language and concepts surrounding gender from their historical inception to contemporary debatesdiscus...

This introductory volume provides an overview of the history of Literature as a cultural concept, and reflects on the contemporary nature, place and function of what the literary might mean for us today. Literature:* offers a concise history of the canonic concept of 'literature' from its earliest origins* illustrates the kinds of theoretical issues which are currently invoked by the term 'literary'* provides a definition of the 'literary' for the twenty-first...

The 19th century has become especially relevant for the present--as one can see from, for example, large-scale adaptations of written works, as well as the explosion of commodities and even interactive theme parks. This book is an introduction to the novelistic refashionings that have come after the Victorian age with a special focus on revisions of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. As post-Victorian research is still in the making, th...