Barbara Willard—Ashdown Forest, Sussex, Laura Ingalls Wilder—the Prairies, and
Hester Burton—Suffolk. Political views can colour a book, often to its advantage, witness
Geoffrey Trease’s stories of revolution. Illustrations are more important than in most other
genres, adding as they can to the period flavour, and in many books a map is vital
(although often missing!).
There are writers, and Leon Garfield is the best example, who write of the past but not
in a way that can be considered as pure historical fiction. Anthea Bell in Twentieth
Century Children’s Writers (Kirkpatrick 1978), says that ‘history sits lightly on these
novels’ (313). Garfield’s characters inhabit a world lightly drawn from the eighteenth
century but his chief concern is with them and not with the period. He has set his own
standards and defies categorising.
Historical fiction, then, is a genre in which many of the best stories for children have
been written: for example, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Iron Lily, The Bronze Bow, The
Little House in the Big Woods, The Machine Gunners, Viking’s Dawn, The Stronghold and
A Thousand for Sicily.
Before the 1930s in Britain, historical novels were largely written for adults, with one
or two noticeable exceptions, such as Captain Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest
(1847). Writers such as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Kingsley and Robert Louis Stevenson
wrote historical adventures much enjoyed by adults and children alike. G.A.Henty wrote
adventure stories for boys from 1881 onwards, with well researched historical
backgrounds. They were patriotic stories full of daring deeds. They read stiffly now and
some of the sentiments expressed are no longer fashionable. Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of
Pook’s Hill (1906) was and still is much admired. Rosemary Sutcliff freely admitted her
debt to Kipling and his influence on her writing can be seen in the rich prose she used.
These early books were in the main adventures or historical romances, rather than an
attempt to create a living past.
In 1934 Geoffrey Trease wrote Bows Against the Barons and changed the nature of the
genre. He painted a picture of a man fighting injustice and oppression, not the
swashbuckling Robin Hood of legend, but a revolutionary character, one to whom
children could relate, a real living person who just happened to be in the past, full of
colour and vigour. Many of Trease’s stories are historical adventures, but this and
several other books are much more than that. Trease’s left-wing views permeated his
writing and his best stories burn with revolutionary zeal. It is difficult not to rush out
and join Garibaldi after reading Follow My Black Plume (1963)! Trease’s considerable
output is always well researched; a great many of his stories involve a journey by a
young man, usually accompanied by a girl, often disguised as a boy. The best of these is
The Red Towers of Granada (1966), which has a bold dramatic opening, and a journey
from Nottingham to Toledo, full of detail and colour, against a background of the
treatment of Jews and lepers.
In the USA in 1932 The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder was
published. This first book of a magnificent series took the story of her family’s move
west in the late nineteenth century. The stories are full of the details of everyday life, the
fight for survival in which the provision and preparation of food dominate. Place is all
important. The Long Winter (1940) makes the reader see the snow on the bedcovers and
feel the lethargy the long intense cold of the winter brings.
366 HISTORICAL FICTION