Historical Novels

My mother had the novel, Lord Vanity (1953) by Samuel Shellabarger* , on her shelves, via maybe her brother's gift? I remember the first time I read it, in the summer before I started fourth grade, having already devoured all the books I was able to bring home from the Wahpeton Leach Library, on our weekly trip to town, to makes purchases and visit the grandparents.

What a revelation this novel was! It may have been the first 'adult' novel I ever read, and it was, I think, the first historical novel I ever read. I loved it. It was my introduction to so much.

Naturally I had no idea what any of it was about. But the characters and their adventures and relationships came through clearly though I was ignorant of the historical milieu against which they were played. My favorite fiction ever since has been a good historical novel. Alas that so little is being written today. I don't count books like Girl With A Pearl Earring, for instance, as a 'real' historical novel. It's a lovely novel, and beautifully written and it was a joy to read. But there was no swash -- I loves me my swash and intrigue, betrayal and honor. The closest to delivering what I like so much these days has been Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales, though I fear he's turning it into a series. Quality and delight inevitably fall off with open-ended series.

The next Shellabarger novel I read -- pulled from the Wahpeton Leach Library, natch, was Prince of Foxes (1947) It turns out Prince of Foxes was made into a movie (1949) -- with -- get this! -- Orson Welles as Cesare Borgia! O joy! I have the dvd. It is lousy weather. I look foward to tonight. Vaquero's off to KGB for the Mark Jacobs radio show, so I plan to have a very personal revel.

Something else we've lost with the loss of historical novels -- they are most excellent portals into reading and studying history itself. I'm certain this is one of the reasons history is seldom taught, or inadequately taught these days -- the loss of the historical novel as a major publishing genre.

*Shellabarger has a connection to the Civil War. Wiki informs us that "Samuel was therefore reared by his grandfather, Samuel Shellabarger, a noted lawyer who had served in Congress during the American Civil War and as Minister to Portugal. Young Samuel's travels with his grandfather later proved a goldmine of background material for his novels." I wonder if I were to read his novels today if I'd notice objectionable attitudes that the Civil Rights struggle made no longer acceptable in fiction of certain kinds?