Sarah Gristwood on historical fiction

LCW · Post by **LCW** » Sat September 10th, 2011, 8:21 pm

Its not so much that we have different reading preferences that gets me. Sure, some women won't touch male oriented HF but, in my experience, it's not because they feel its inferior or they're afraid to be seen reading it. Its the implication that female oriented HF is somehow inferior or not as serious as what is written by men for men that I find annoying.

annis · Post by **annis** » Sat September 10th, 2011, 9:15 pm

I think that's because of the unfortunate and apparently indelible association with bodice-ripper style historical romance, which, let's face it, is pure fun fantasy and often quite poorly written.

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Sun September 11th, 2011, 11:33 am

[quote=""LCW""]Its not so much that we have different reading preferences that gets me. Sure, some women won't touch male oriented HF but, in my experience, it's not because they feel its inferior or they're afraid to be seen reading it. Its the implication that female oriented HF is somehow inferior or not as serious as what is written by men for men that I find annoying.[/quote]

I have had a run in with that attitude of late, and from professional (male) authors who should know better - calling women's historical fiction 'hysterical fiction.' I was slightly reminded of the little boy in The Princess Bride!

I totally agree that historical fiction isn't suddenly the bees knees. It's been around forever. Jean Plaidy, Nora Lofts and Anya Seton were bigger than Philippa Gregory in their day. Nigel Tranter, George Macdonald Fraser, Alfred Duggan, were (and still are) all highly popular household names. It's always been with us. So has cover art. You only need to look back at some of the material from the 50's and 60's!

Has there always been such a division of the sexes as perceived by marketing the covers though? I don't know. Perceived women's fiction is sold with a nice frock and a headless woman. Perceived men's fiction is sold with a bloke on a galloping horse bearing a banner, or chaps in military uniform, or bits of weaponry. The only unisex covers appear to be on literary fiction and historical mysteries. I love the romance, I like the fighting, I love emotional dramatic involvement and I love adventure. Both of these styles of cover often encompass those things between their pages and I think readers can end up missing out because of the shorthand of the cover style.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon September 12th, 2011, 4:42 am

Some of the "girly" covers are unfortunate, because they misrepresent what the novel is all about. The jeweled-bodice-type cover seems perfectly appropriate on a historical novel featuring a female protagonist and the romantic intrigue and rich costumes of the royal courts of yore (even if it's not strictly a romance). But when these covers appear on quite different types of novels, I do think they turn off readers who would otherwise enjoy the books - both male and female. I went through a period when I relished historical romance, but that was a few decades ago, and now I much prefer a good political novel like Robert Harris's Imperium or a psychological study like Jane Smiley's Private Life or Mary Doria Russell's Doc. Fortunately, the publishers of those novels knew better than to slap a lavishly dressed female torso on the cover. But the cover seemed wrong for a novel like Catherine Delors' gritty and astute thriller For the King. It's true that the pool of avid novel readers is strongly weighted toward women, so I suppose it's an open question whether the cover attracted more female readers than the number of potential male readers (or female readers uninterested in romantic stories) than it turned off - but it still doesn't seem right to me to put a cover on a novel that misrepresents the nature of the book inside.