THE HISTORICAL NOVEL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 758, 5 March 1910, Page 9

THE HISTORICAL NOVEL.

.Those who like their Thackeray (observes' tlio "Daily News") will bo wondering what to feel in the presence of au "examination edition" of "Esmond" which has just been brought out. It is a compliment doubtless to take a romance so seriously, ouly the kind of compliment which romance finds it hard to live under. Shakespeare lias suffered a good deal that way, and Thackeray cannot exactly carry as heavy a handicap. These considerations apart, it is : a nice question whether we. do well to encourage ourselves to, believe that historical novels are good history.. There is, of course, a great deal of bad history which does not call itself, fiction, but there is on the other haiid a very, great deal of bad fiction which does not affect to illuminate, history; and the serious trouble is that tlie bad historical novel and the bad history book are bail in tlie same,.sort of-way, for the fiction writer usually follows the text-book writer. The imaginative back-ground in the -novel is no hearer the facts than the thread'of narrative is near the thread of national government, and, consciously ,or unconsciously, .the novelist pushes" a theory or a policy, as ardently as the most pronounced pamphleteer. There are occasional exceptions, of course, but they arc ■very rare, and for our own part we think Thackeray would prefer to . rest "Esmond's" hope of survival upon its romance than, upon its history.