Romance is "afictitiousnarrative inprose orverse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", a narrative method that contrasts with the modern, main tradition of thenovel, which realistically depicts life.[1]Walter Scott describes romance as a "kindred term" to the novel,[2] and many European languages do not distinguish between them (e.g., "le roman,der Roman,il romanzo" in French, German, and Italian, respectively).[3]
There is a second type of romance:love romances ingenre fiction, where the primary focus is on love and marriage.[4] The term "romance" is now mainly used to refer to this type, and for other fiction it is "now chiefly archaic and historical" (OED). Works of fiction such asWuthering Heights[5] andJane Eyre[6][7] combine elements from both types.
Although early stories ofhistorical romance often took the form of the romance,[8] the terms "romance novel" and "historical romance" are confusing, because the words "romance" and "romantic" have held multiple meanings historically: referring to eitherromantic love or "the character or quality that makes something appeal strongly to the imagination, and sets it apart from [...] everyday life"; this latter sense is associated with "adventure, heroism, chivalry, etc." (OED), and connects the romance form with theRomantic movement, and thegothic novel, as well as themedieval romance tradition,[9] though the genre has a long history that includes theancient Greek novel.[10]
In addition to Walter Scott other romance writers (as defined by Scott) includethe Brontës,E. T. A. Hoffmann,Victor Hugo,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Robert Louis Stevenson, andThomas Hardy. Later examples are,Joseph Conrad,John Cowper Powys,J. R. R. Tolkien andA. S. Byatt.
The American novelistNathaniel Hawthorne described a romance as being radically different from a novel by not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience.[11]
The term romance is applied across a number of genres, including the loveromance novel, the historical novel, theadventure novel, andscientific romance (an older term for what is now calledscience fiction). Works ofnautical fiction can also be romances, as the genre often overlaps withhistorical romance,adventure fiction, andfantasy stories. The more modern termhistorical fantasy covers one sort of "romance".
The following are the two main definitions relating to literature found in theOxford English Dictionary:
Overlap is also sometimes found between the above terms, when literary romance also contains a strong love interest. Examples includeWuthering Heights[12] andJane Eyre.[13][14]
And in other words:
As noted above a relationship exists between romance and "fantasy", something which arises in particular because of the relationship between this type of novel and medieval chivalric romances.
The most common fantasy world is one based on medieval Europe, and has been sinceWilliam Morris used it in his early fantasy works, such asThe Well at the World's End.[16] and particularly since the 1954 publication ofJ.R.R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings. Such a world is often called "pseudo-medieval"—particularly when the writer has snatched up random elements from the era, which covered a thousand years and a continent, and thrown them together without consideration for their compatibility, or even introduced ideas not so much based on the medieval era as onromanticized views of it. When these worlds are copied not so much from history as from other fantasy works, there is a heavy tendency to uniformity and lack of realism.[17] The full width and breadth of the medieval era is seldom drawn upon. Governments, for instance, tend to be uncompromisingly feudal-based, or evil empires oroligarchies, usually corrupt, while there was far more variety of rule in the actual Middle Ages.[18] Fantasy worlds also tend to be economically medieval, and disproportionatelypastoral.[19]
The Epic of Gilgamesh may be considered a romance by some definitions. Gardner and Maier defineSîn-lēqi-unninni's version (13th–10th centuries BCE) as a romance, centered around a heroic quest (perilous journey, preliminary minor battles, a crucial conflict, a tragic turn, then the exaltation of the hero).[20]
As aliterary genre ofhigh culture, "heroic romance" or "chivalric romance" is a type ofprose andversenarrative that was popular in thenoble courts ofHigh Medieval andEarly Modern Europe. They werefantastic stories about marvel-filledadventures, often of achivalricknight-errant portrayed as havingheroic qualities, who goes on aquest. The wordmedieval also evokesdistressed damsels,dragons, and other romantictropes.[21] It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from thechanson de geste and other kinds ofepic, in which masculine military heroism predominates."[22]
Edward Dowden argued thatShakespeare's late comedies should be called "romances", because they resemble late medieval and early modern "chivalric romance".[23]
The rise of the modern novel as an alternative to thechivalric romance began withMiguel de Cervantes, and, especially with,Don Quixote (1605, 1615).[24] Initially seen as a comedy satirizing chivalry, in the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on". Many critics came to view the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote's idealism andnobility are viewed by the post-chivalric world as insane, and are defeated and rendered useless by common reality.[25]
While the modern literary fiction romance was influenced by medieval romance via the Gothic novel, and the interest of Romantic writers in the medieval period,William Morris and J. R. R. Tolkien were directly influenced bymedieval literature. In the nineteenth centuryWilliam Morris wrote a series of imaginative fictions usually referred to as the "prose romances",[26][27] which were attempts to revive the genre ofmedieval romance, and written in imitation of medieval prose. These novels – includingThe Wood Beyond the World andThe Well at the World's End – have been credited as important milestones in the history offantasy fiction, because, while other writers wrote of foreign lands, or of dream worlds, or the future (as Morris did inNews from Nowhere), Morris's works were the first to be set in an entirely inventedfantasy world.[28] On its publication,The Well at the World's End was praised byH. G. Wells, who compared the book toMalory and admired its writing style.[29]
J. R. R. Tolkien objected toThe Lord of the Rings being called a novel, as he viewed it as aheroic romance.[30] Literary critics also apply the termhigh fantasy toThe Lord of the Rings.[31]
Whilefantasy is, generally speaking, not significant in the works of romance writers, Walter Scott's definition includes "marvellous and uncommon incidents". Hawthorne, as noted above, also described romance as "not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience".
From 1764, with theHorace Walpole'sgothic novelThe Castle of Otranto, the romance genre experienced a revival. Other important works areAnn Radcliffe'sThe Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and'Monk' Lewis'sThe Monk (1795).
In the preface of the second edition, Walpole claimsThe Castle of Otranto is "an attempt to blend the two kinds ofromance, the ancient and the modern." He defines the "ancient" romance as being defined by its fantastic nature ("its imagination and improbability") while defining the "modern" romance as being more deeply rooted inliterary realism ("a strict adherence to common life," in his words).[32] By combining fantastic situations (helmets falling from the sky, walking portraits, etc.) with supposedly real people acting in a "natural" manner, Walpole created a new and distinct style ofliterary fiction, which has frequently been cited as a template for all subsequent gothic novels.[33][34]The Monthly Review stated that for "[t]hose who can digest the absurdities of Gothic fiction"Otranto offered "considerable entertainment".[35]
The Castle of Otranto is widely regarded as the first Gothic novel, and, with its knights, villains, wronged maidens, haunted corridors and things that go bump in the night, is the spiritual godfather ofFrankenstein andDracula, the creaking floorboards of Edgar Allan Poe and the shifting stairs and walking portraits ofHarry Potter’s Hogwarts.
— "Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole's fantasy castle, to open its doors again",The Guardian.[36]
Charles Dickens was influenced bygothic fiction and incorporated gothic imagery, settings and plot devices in his works.[37] Victorian gothic moved from castles and abbeys into contemporary urban environments: in particular London, inOliver Twist, andBleak House.[38]Great Expectations contains elements of theGothic genre, especially Miss Havisham, the bride frozen in time, and the ruined Satis House filled with weeds and spiders.[39] Other characters linked to this genre include the aristocratic Bentley Drummle, because of his extreme cruelty; Pip himself, who spends his youth chasing a frozen beauty; the monstrous Orlick, who systematically attempts to murder his employers. Then there is the fight to the death between Compeyson and Magwitch, and the fire that ends up killing Miss Havisham, scenes dominated by horror, suspense, and the sensational.[40]
Historical romance (alsohistorical novel) is a broad category of fiction in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past.Walter Scott helped popularize this genre in the early 19th century.Literary fiction historical romances continue to be published, and a notable recent example isWolf Hall (2009), a multi-award-winning novel by English historical novelistHilary Mantel. It is also agenre ofmass-market fiction, which is related to the broaderromantic love genre.
Walter Scott withWaverley (1814) invented "the true historical novel".[41] At the same time he was influenced bygothic romance, and had collaborated in 1801 with'Monk' Lewis onTales of Wonder.[41] With hisWaverley novels Scott "hoped to do for the Scottish border" whatGoethe and other German poets "had done for theMiddle Ages, "and make its past live again in modern romance".[42] Scott's novels "are in the mode he himself defined as romance, 'the interest of which turns upon marvelous and uncommon incidents'".[43] He used his imagination to re-evaluate history by rendering things, incidents and protagonists in the way only the novelist could do. Scott, the novelist, resorted to documentary sources as any historian would have done, but as a romantic he gave his subject a deeper imaginative and emotional significance.[43] By combining research with "marvelous and uncommon incidents", Scott attracted a far wider market than any historian could, and was the most famous novelist of his generation,throughout Europe.[41]
Scott influenced many nineteenth-century British novelists, includingEdward Bulwer-Lytton,Charles Kingsley, andRobert Louis Stevenson, and those who wrote for children, likeCharlotte Yonge andG. A. Henty.[44]
Walter Scott had an immense impact throughout Europe. "His historical fiction ... created for the first time a sense of the past as a place where people thought, felt and dressed differently".[45] His historical romances "influencedBalzac,Dostoevsky,Flaubert,Tolstoy,Dumas,Pushkin, and many others; and his interpretation of history was seized on byRomantic nationalists, particularly inEastern Europe".[46] Auguste- Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret (1767–1843) "the principal French translator of the Waverley Novels, played a pivotal role in the diffusion of Scott's work throughout Europe". "In Italy, Poland, Russia, and Spain they were widely read long before indigenous versions appeared."[47]The reception of Sir Walter Scott in Europe, edited by Murray Pittock, has articles on Scott's influence on the novels throughout Europe, including France, Spain, Austria, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.[48] (See also, "Other authors", below).
In America he influenced Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne, amongst others.[49][50]
Romance is closely associated with theRomantic movement.[51] Thegothic novel, andromanticism influenced the development of the modern literary romance.Hugh Walpole's gothic novels combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism.[52] Romanticism influenced the romance through its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, and preference for themedieval rather than theclassical; its emphasis on extremes of emotion and its reaction against the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment, and associated classical aesthetic values, were also a significant influence.[53]
Walter Scott's novels are frequently described as historical romances, andNorthrop Frye suggested "the general principle that most 'historical novels' are romances".[54] In addition to Walpole, Scott, and the Brontës other romance writers (as defined by Scott) includeE. T. A. Hoffmann,Victor Hugo,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Robert Louis Stevenson, andThomas Hardy. In the twentieth century, examples areJoseph Conrad,John Cowper Powys, and more recently,J. R. R. Tolkien andA. S. Byatt, whose best-selling novelPossession: A Romance won theBooker Prize in 1990.
The genre of works of extended prose fiction dealing with romantic love existed in classical Greece.[55] Five ancient Greek romance novels have survived to the present day in a state of near-completion:Chareas and Callirhoe,Leucippe and Clitophon,Daphnis and Chloe,The Ephesian Tale, andThe Ethiopian Tale.[55]
Precursors of the modern popular love-romance can also be found in thesentimental novelPamela, or Virtue Rewarded, bySamuel Richardson, published in 1740.Pamela was the first popular novel to be based on a courtship as told from the perspective of the heroine. Unlike many of the novels of the time,Pamela had a happy ending, when after Mr. B attempts unsuccessfully to seduce and rape Pamela multiple times, he eventually rewards her virtue by sincerely proposing an equitable marriage to her.[56] Richardson began writingPamela as a book of letter templates,[57] in the tradition of theconduct book, that evolved into a novel.
In the early part of theVictorian era, theBrontë sisters, like Austen, wrote literary fiction that influenced later popular fiction.[58]Charlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre incorporates elements of both thegothic novel andElizabethan drama, and "demonstrate[s] the flexibility of the romance novel form".[58] One 2007 British poll presentedWuthering Heights as the greatest love story of all time.[59] However, "some of the novel's admirers consider it not a love story at all but an exploration of evil and abuse".[60]Helen Small seesWuthering Heights as being, both "one of the greatest love stories in the English language", while at the same time a "most brutal revenge narratives".[61] Some critics suggest that readingWuthering Heights as a love story not only "romanticizes abusive men and toxic relationships but goes against Brontë's clear intent".[60] Moreover, while a "passionate, doomed, death-transcending relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw Linton forms the core of the novel",[60]Wuthering Heights
consistently subverts the romantic narrative. Our first encounter with Heathcliff shows him to be a nasty bully. Later, Brontë puts in Heathcliff's mouth an explicit warning not to turn him into a Byronic hero: After ... Isabella elop[es] with him, he sneers that she did so "under a delusion ... picturing in me a hero of romance".[60]
Emily Brontë was influenced by Walter Scott, the gothic novel, and romanticism more broadly.[62][63]
CriticChristopher Lehmann-Haupt, writing aboutA. S. Byatt'sPossession: A Romance in theNew York Times, noted that what he describes as the "wonderfully extravagant novel" is "pointedly subtitled 'A Romance'."[64] He says it is at once "a detective story" and "an adultery novel."[64]
Many famous literary fiction romance novels, unlike most mass-market novels, end tragically, includingWuthering Heights byEmily Brontë,Anna Karenina byLeo Tolstoy,The Thorn Birds byColleen McCullough,Norwegian Wood byHaruki Murakami,Atonement byIan McEwan, andThe Song of Achilles byMadeline Miller.[65][66]
Genre fiction romance novels, first developed in the 19th century, started to become more popular after theFirst World War. In 1919,E.M. Hull's novelThe Sheik was published in theUnited Kingdom. The novel, which became hugely popular, was adapted into amovie (1921).[67]
The mass market version of the historical romance, is seen as beginning in 1921, whenGeorgette Heyer publishedThe Black Moth. This is set in 1751, but many of Heyer's novels were inspired byJane Austen's novels andare set around the time Austen lived, in the laterRegency period. Because Heyer's romances are set more than 100 years earlier, she includes carefully researched historical detail to help her readers understand the period.[68] Unlike other popular love-romance novels of the time, Heyer's novels used the setting as a major plot device. Her characters often exhibit twentieth century sensibilities, and more conventional characters in the novels point out the heroine's eccentricities, such as wanting to marry for love.[69]
In the 1930s the British publishersMills & Boon began releasing hardback romance novels. The books were sold through weekly two-penny libraries. In the 1950s the company began offering the books for sale through newsagents across the United Kingdom.[70]
Thesensation novel was aliterary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s.[71] Its literary forebears included themelodramatic novels and theNewgate novels, it also drew on theGothic andromanticgenres of fiction.[72] Whereas romance and realism had traditionally been contradictory modes of literature, they were brought together in sensation fictionof theVictorian era – combining "romance and realism" in a way that "strains both modes to the limit".[73][74]The loss of identity is seen in many sensation fiction stories because this was a common social anxiety.[75]
Sensation fiction is commonly seen to have emerged as a definable genre in the wake of three novels:Wilkie Collins'sThe Woman in White (1859–60);Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood'sEast Lynne (1861); andMary Elizabeth Braddon'sLady Audley's Secret (1862).[76] Charles Dickens'Great Expectations (1861) is another example.[77]
CriticDon D'Ammassa defines theadventure fiction genre as follows:
An adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting and other elements of a creative work.[78]
D'Ammassa argues thatadventure fiction makes the element of danger the focus; hence he argues thatCharles Dickens's novelA Tale of Two Cities is an adventure novel because the protagonists are in constant danger of being imprisoned or killed, whereas Dickens'sGreat Expectations is not because "Pip's encounter with the convict is an adventure, but that scene is only a device to advance the main plot, which is not truly an adventure."[78]
The standard plot of Medieval romances was a series of adventures. Following a plot framework as old asHeliodorus, and so durable as to be still alive inHollywood movies, ahero would undergo a first set of adventures before he met his lady. A separation would follow, with a second set of adventures leading to a final reunion.
Variations kept the genre alive. From the mid-19th century onwards, when mass literacy grew, adventure became a popular subgenre of fiction. Although not exploited to its fullest, adventure has seen many changes over the years – from being constrained to stories of knights in armor to stories of high-tech espionages. Examples of that period includeSir Walter Scott,Alexandre Dumas, père,[79]Jules Verne,Brontë Sisters,H. Rider Haggard,Victor Hugo,[80]Emilio Salgari,Louis Henri Boussenard,Thomas Mayne Reid,Sax Rohmer,Edgar Wallace, andRobert Louis Stevenson.
Rider Haggard (1856–1925), author ofKing Solomon's Mines ("romantic adventure"),[81]She: A History of Adventure, was an English writer ofadventure fiction set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of thelost world literary genre.[82] He was "part of the literary reaction againstdomestic realism that has been called a romance revival."[83] Other writers following this trend wereRobert Louis Stevenson,George MacDonald, andWilliam Morris.[83]Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote romances, including historical romances, in whichadventure is often a prominent element ("adventure, heroism, chivalry", amongst other things, are associated with the word "romance" according to the OED). These includeTreasure Island (1883) – an adventure novel about piracy and buried treasure;Prince Otto (1885) – an action romance set in the imaginary Germanic state;Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) – A kind and intelligent physician turns into a psychopathic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality (a gothic novel);Kidnapped (1886) – an historical novel;The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses (1888) – an historical adventure novel and romance set during theWars of the Roses, andThe Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale (1889) – a tale of revenge, set in Scotland, America and India.
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genius was his ability to create a stream of brand new, wholly original stories out of thin air. Originality was Wells's calling card. In a six-year stretch from 1895 to 1901, he produced a stream of what he called "scientific romance" novels, which includedThe Time Machine,The Island of Doctor Moreau,The Invisible Man,The War of the Worlds andThe First Men in the Moon.
— Cultural historianJohn Higgs,The Guardian.[84]
In the United Kingdom, Wells's work was a key model for the British "scientific romance", and other writers in that mode, such asOlaf Stapledon,[85]J. D. Beresford,[86]S. Fowler Wright,[87] andNaomi Mitchison,[88] all drew on Wells's example. Wells was also an important influence on Britishscience fiction of the period after the Second World War, withArthur C. Clarke andBrian Aldiss expressing strong admiration for Wells's work.[89][90]The Space Machine: A Scientific Romance, by English writerChristopher Priest, published in 1976, is another work influenced by Wells. This novel effectively combines the storylines of the H.G. Wells novelsThe War of the Worlds (1898) andThe Time Machine (1895) into the same reality. Action takes place both in Victorian England and on Mars.
In an interview withThe Paris Review,Vladimir Nabokov described Wells as his favourite writer when he was a boy and "a great artist."[91] He went on to citeThe Passionate Friends,Ann Veronica,The Time Machine, andThe Country of the Blind as superior to anything else written by Wells's British contemporaries. Nabokov said: "His sociological cogitations can be safely ignored, of course, but his romances and fantasies are superb."[91]
As noted, many European languages do not distinguish romances from novels. In France, for example,le roman is the term used for a novel.
ThoughMary Shelley'sFrankenstein is infused with elements of theGothic novel and theRomantic movement,Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first truescience fiction story.[92] (See H. G. Wells's scientific romance above).
R. D. Blackmore describedLorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, (1869) in his preface, as a romance and not a historical novel, because the author neither "dares, nor desires, to claim for it the dignity or cumber it with the difficulty of an historical novel." As such, it combines elements of traditional romance, of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel tradition, of thepastoral tradition, of traditional Victorian values, and of the contemporarysensation novel trend.[93]
Thomas Hardy classified his novels under three headings: "novels of character and environment", such asTess of the D'Urbervilles; "novels of ingenuity", such asA Laodicean; "romances and fantasies", such asA Pair of Blue Eyes (1873);The Trumpet-Major (1880);Two on a Tower: A Romance (1882);A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories);The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament (1897) (first published as a serial from 1892)
Amongst twentieth-century writers of romance areJoseph Conrad,Mary Webb, andJohn Cowper Powys. Joseph Conrad wroteRomance (1905), andThe Rescue, A Romance of the Shallows (1920).Literary criticJohn Sutherland refers to Mary Webb as the pioneer of the genre of "soil and gloom romance".[94]
John Cowper Powys describes Walter Scott's romances, as "by far the most powerful literary influence of my life".[95] InA Glastonbury Romance Powys makes use ofArthurian mythology, and theHoly Grail story.Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages is set during the end ofRoman rule in Britain, withKing Arthur,Myrddin (Merlin),Nineue (Lady of the Lake), and two survivors of an ancient race of giants. When John Cowper Powys beganOwen Glendower in April 1937 he referred to it in his diary, as "my Romance aboutOwen Glyn Dwr ",[96] but then, in subsequent years, he generally referred to it as ahistorical novel, and it was so sub-titled when it was published.[97]
The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea is an earlyhistorical romance byJames Fenimore Cooper. Its subject is the life of anaval pilot during theAmerican Revolution. It is often considered the earliest example ofnautical fiction inAmerican literature. Asailor by profession, Cooper had undertaken to surpassWalter Scott'sPirate (1821) inseamanship. Cooper's most famous romance isLast of the Mohicans. According toSusan Fenimore Cooper, Cooper first conceived the idea for the book while visiting theAdirondack Mountains in 1825 with a party of English gentlemen.[98] The party passed through theCatskills, an area with which Cooper was already familiar, They passed on toLake George andGlens Falls. Impressed with the caves behind the falls, one member of the party suggested that "here was the very scene for a romance." Cooper promised "that a book should be written, in which these caves should have a place; the idea of a romance essentially Indian in character then first suggesting itself to his mind."[99] Cooper has been called the "American Walter Scott."[100] CriticGeorg Lukacs likened Fenimore Cooper's characterBumppo in theLeatherstocking Tales to Sir Walter Scott's "middling characters; because they do not represent the extremes of society, these figures can serve as tools for the social and cultural exploration of historical events, without directly portraying the history itself".[101]
In the mid–nineteenth century Hawthorne and Melville wrote romances.Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote:The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (1850);The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance;The Blithedale Romance.Herman Melville describedMoby-Dick (1851) as a romance in a letter of June 27 to his English publisher:
My Dear Sir, — In the latter part of the coming autumn I shall have ready a new work; and I write you now to propose its publication in England. The book is a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries, and illustrated by the author's own personal experience, of two years & more, as a harpooneer.[102]
In the twentieth centuryFlannery O'Connor (1925–1964) often wrote in a sardonicSouthern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings andgrotesque characters, often in violent situations.Her stories usually focus on morally flawed characters, frequently interacting with people with disabilities or disabled themselves (as O'Connor was), while the issue of race often appears. Most of her works feature disturbing elements.[103]
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was a GermanRomantic author offantasy andGothichorror.[104][105]Ludwig Tieck,Heinrich von Kleist, and E. T. A. Hoffmann "also profoundly influenced the development of European Gothic horror in the nineteenth century".[106]
Hoffmann's novelThe Devil's Elixirs (1815) was influenced by Lewis'sThe Monk and even mentions it. The novel also explores the motif of theDoppelgänger, the term coined by another German author and supporter of Hoffmann,Jean Paul, in his humorous novelSiebenkäs (1796–1797).[107]
Balzac was an inheritor of Walter Scott's style of the historical novel,[108] publishing in 1829Les Chouans, a historical work in the manner of Sir Walter Scott,[109] set in 1799 Brittany. This was subsequently incorporated intoLa Comédie Humaine. The bulkLa Comédie Humaine, however, takes place during theBourbon Restoration and theJuly Monarchy, and Balzac is regarded as one of the founders ofrealism inEuropean literature.[110]Séraphîta, with its theme ofandrogyny, contrasts with the realism of most of the author's best known works, delving into the fantastic and the supernatural to illustrate philosophical themes.
Amongst writers of adventure novels wereAlexandre Dumas,Jules Verne, andLouis Henri Boussenard. Dumas was the author ofThe d'Artagnan Romances, which includesThe Three Musketeers, which is also a historical novel.Jules Verne (1828–1905) was the author a series of bestselling novels that includesJourney to the Center of the Earth (1864),Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), andAround the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always very well documented, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time.
Louis Henri Boussenard (1847–1910) ) was dubbed "the FrenchRider Haggard" during his lifetime, but better known today inEastern Europe than in Francophone countries. Boussenard's best-known bookLe Capitaine Casse-Cou (1901) was set at the time of theBoer War.L'île en feu (1898) fictionalizedCuba's struggle for independence. Aspiring to emulateJules Verne, Boussenard also turned out severalscience fiction novels, notablyLes secrets de monsieur Synthèse (1888) andDix mille ans dans un bloc de glace (1890), both translated byBrian Stableford in 2013 under the titleMonsieur Synthesis.[111][circular reference]
Victor Hugo'sThe Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a gothic, historical novel.
Alessandro Manzoni'sThe Betrothed (1827) is an historical novel set in Lombardy in 1628, during the years of Spanish rule, which has similarities with Walter Scott's historic novelIvanhoe, although evidently distinct. Georg Lukàcs, inThe Historical Novel (1969) comments:
Emilio Salgari (1862–1911) was a writer of action adventureswashbucklers and a pioneer ofscience fiction.[112] Many of his most popular novels have been adapted as comics, animated series and feature films. He is considered the father of Italianadventure fiction and Italianpop culture, and the "grandfather" of theSpaghetti Western.[113]
Walter Scott was perhaps more popular in Russia, "in the late 1820s and 1830s", than anywhere "on the Continent", through the French translations of Auguste- Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret. Amongst "pilgrims to Abbotsford [were] a large proportion of Russian writers, diplomats, soldiers."[114]
Walter Scott "very profoundly influenced"Pushkin, "in his capacity [as] a poet, ... a collector of folk-songs and ... the originator of the historical novel based on life ... We know that Pushkin's library contained not only Walter Scott's novels, but also his poetical works".[115]
Tolstoy's "great-great-grandson Vladimir Tolstoy, 36, inspected the recently renovatedScott Monument in Edinburgh and suggested that "without the inspiration of Scott's writing genius his famous ancestor might never have pennedWar and Peace". "Mr Tolstoy ... the director of the Leo Tolstoy Museum and president of the Russian Museums' Association, said his great-great grandfather drew great inspiration from Scott's novels, particularlyWaverley,Ivanhoe, andRob Roy." He also noted that "In the library of the Tolstoy Museum in Russia there are many of Scott's books, including some early editions". He "said some of Scott's books in the museum's library had comments written by Leo Tolstoy beside the text - but he would not reveal what they said".[116]
The historical novel developed in imitation ofWalter Scott (80 of his works had been translated). The most notable Spanish authors are: Enrique Gil y Carrasco 1815–1846, the author ofEl señor de Bembibre, the best Spanish historical novel, written in imitation of Scott; Francisco Navarro Villoslada (1818–1895), who wrote a series of historical novels when the romantic genre was in decline andRealism was coming to be at its height. His novels were inspired by Basque traditions, and were set in the medieval era. His most famous work isAmaya, o los vascos en el siglo VIII (Amaya, or the Basques of the 8th century), in which the Basques and the Visigoths ally themselves against the Muslim invasion. Other authors includeMariano José de Larra,Serafín Estébanez Calderón andFrancisco Martínez de la Rosa.