An accessible introduction to the genre and the critical debates surrounding it.

Introduction 1. 'Origins': early manifestations and some definitions 2. 'Low' genre or sensational novels 3. High or Literary Fiction 4. Postmodernism and the Historical Novel 5. Challenging History History from the margins: colonial, sexual Glossary Further Reading

Jerome de Groot is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature and Culture at The University of Manchester. His publications include Consuming History (2008) and Royalist Identities (2004).