The Historical RomanceThe Historical Romance explores the ways in which romance authors seek to represent our fantasies of life in the past. Examining how the cut-and-thrust swashbucklers of the 1930s gave way to female-orientated romances, Helen Hughes takes a comprehensive look at how romance authors have dealt with the turbulent question of female independence, and how traditional attitudes towards love, marriage and women's sexuality have been approached in more recent texts. Hughes also charts the ways in which the marketing of romance has developed, with the eventual explosion of the mass market and the blockbusting family sagas of the eighties. The Historical Romance unravels the formulaic and mythical nature of historical romance to provide a fascinating study of this highly popular genre. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Chapter 2 The structures of historical romance | 13 |
Chapter 3 The readers of historical romance | 29 |
Chapter 4 Evolution versus revolution The inevitability of the bourgeois state | 43 |
Chapter 5 English heritage | 65 |
Chapter 6 Class the gospel of work and hazard | 91 |
Chapter 7 Brute heroes and spirited heroines | 107 |
Chapter 8 History bestsellers and the media | 131 |
Notes | 145 |
| 155 | |
| 159 | |
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A.E.W.Mason Abbess of Vlaye adventure stories Ageaux Alleyne appear aristocratic attitudes Baroness Orczy become Bédarida behaviour Bewitching Imposter Boulaye century characters chivalry Clyne Conan Doyle contemporary Crocans deep England Dermot described detail dominant Doyle's element England English episode fantasy feeling female female-centred feminine freedom French function genre gentleman Georgette Heyer give Henrietta hero heroine heroine's historical fiction historical romance Hordle John ibid ideology Ilena important innocent Jeffrey Farnol Kate kind later less linked London male marriage masculine Mills & Boon Modleski motifs natural nineteenth nostalgia novels Orczy past period picture political popular fiction portrayed presented qualities Rafael Rafael Sabatini reader readership rebellion Regency Buck relationships role Sabatini Scarlet Pimpernel seems seen sense serf setting Shauna Sir Nigel Sir Tristram situations social society Stanley Weyman Starvecrow Farm suggests Tony Bennett traditional values Victorian White Company woman women writers