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. Examining the female figure in these contemporary fictions, it looks at the ways in which authors intervene in the historical process to present these women, real and imagined. 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. Featuring chapters by newer scholars alongside established figures in the field such as Diana Wallace, as well as an interview with authors Susan Sellers and Alice Thompson, it engages with debates around history, literary value and the postmodern to illustrate the importance of these female figures.

KATHERINE COOPER is a third-year AHRC-funded Ph.D. Candidate at Newcastle University, UK. Her PhD evaluates presentations of nation in Margaret Storm Jameson's fiction of World War Two.


EMMA SHORT has recently completed her PhD at Newcastle University, UK. Her thesis explored the Hotel in the modernist fiction of Jean Rhys, Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen, considering it alongside theories of space and the body to interrogate the ways in which this space challenges conceptions of home and belonging.