Why Historical Fiction? by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

I freely admit to not having started off as a history buff. I found it the most boring subject when I was at school and never could remember dates, or the succession of kings or who ruled what country in Europe. It didn’t matter to me at all as the subject had no relevance to my life at the time.

It wasn’t until the early 80s when I read Sharon Kay Penman’s novel The Sunne in Splendour that I had a shift in interest. In this book, Richard III and the Wars of the Roses came to life for me in a very profound way. From reading anything that caught my interest from Danielle Steele to Louis L’Amour and anything and everything in between, I started raiding my local library’s history section. I read Anya Seton, Jean Plaidy, Umberto Eco, loved Wilbur Smith and later Ken Follett. I read all the Mazo de la Roche Jalna series pretty well back to back. Those books documented a slice of life and social history as did R.F. Delderfield’s A Horseman Riding By series or H.E. Bates’ Darling Buds of May which was made into a successful TV series.

I returned several times to the books of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, reading them from a totally different aspect. Austen was a must-read at school and, at that age, I had no idea what a treasure trove of minutiae they were. The same applies to Heyer. The first of her

books I ever read was Frederica (which I consider her best) but then I collected and read all her Regency romances without ever considering that they were, in fact, history books. A stylized history, maybe, but history nonetheless. Second readings of many of her titles gave me a whole new appreciation of the Regency era (1811 – 1820) beyond ladies' dresses and gentlemen’s sporting preferences.  

I started digging around in non-fiction history books, checking for myself anything I queried whether it was a style of dress or manner of speech and found I loved the research. At that time in my life I had no more thought of writing a book, historical or otherwise. But, in those odd and forgotten facts I came across snippets of past lives that really fascinated me. How other people lived, loved, and the events that surrounded them came to life in an amazing way. It was those people I wanted to write about and now I do.

Victoria Chatham

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Historical non-fiction writing by Ron Crouch

Embarking on this Brides of Canada historical novel with Kathy Fischer-Brown, has been a completely new adventure for me as a writer. All my previous novels, though based on some aspects of reality, have all been works of fiction. This project has required an enormous amount of time in research and countless hours of reading as well as time well spent in the library.


Probably, like most immigrants to Canada, I was very ignorant about the history of North America. Having been born and raised in England, the history lessons, as I recall began with the Stone Age, then the Saxons and the Celts, the Romans and of course the Battle of Hasting in 1066 when the Normans invaded from France under William the Conqueror … and as they say, the rest is history. I don’t have any clear recollection about North American history, I’m sure the subject was mentioned. I was brought up on Rule Britannia and Briton’s never, never, never shall be slaves. (Though the government at the time didn’t have a problem making citizens of other countries, slaves). No mention of what was done to the aboriginal peoples of not only North America, but to those around the world, even as far away as Australia.

Becoming involved in this project has been a complete eye opener for me. I had no idea how much influence the Hudson’s Bay Company had on the formation of Canada, having read one of Peter Newman’s books on the subject. Unbelievable that Canada was built on the fur trade, notably the humble beaver. What struck me the most was the resilience of the people, the hardships and suffering, the cruelty that they endured, both the people of the First Nations and the immigrants. The thought that people travelled thousands of miles across Canada in all weathers, enduring the brutality of long winters, the mosquitoes and blackflies in spring and summer and all manner of biting, stinging insects. As I researched North American history, it struck me how close Canada was to becoming part of the United States or the other way around.

I know firsthand how unforgiving the seas can be. To have boarded a sailing ship back in the late 1700’s, bound from England to North America, was to risk life before you even got there, assuming you got there. Imagine walking down the gangplank onto another continent back then. Unless you were one of the landed gentry, establishing a new life in North America would have been unbelievably challenging.

My grandfather told me an interesting story. I guess it would have occurred back in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. His mother-in-law, a young woman at the time, decided to board a ship from England bound for the United States. Her husband had already set out to make a new life for them over there. They missed each other terribly. It was to be a surprise. When she finally landed in the U.S. she learned her husband had taken another ship back to England to surprise her. Apparently the two ships must have passed each other somewhere in mid Atlantic, these two lonely souls unaware their sweetheart was aboard the other ship.

You know, you don’t have to be that old to recall childhood events, that to the so-called millennials, you’d have to have been at least a hundred years old, if not older to remember such things. I’m in my sixties, but can still recall as a small boy in England, having our milk being delivered to the house in glass bottles by horse and cart. To me, it’s incredible how far technology has brought us in such a relatively short space of time and where it is all going to lead us.

Thanks to Brides of Canada, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about my new country.

If you are interested in learning more about the Canadian Fur Trade and the Hudson Bay Company, check out this website from Canada Geographic.

Finding History in Canada

Victoria Chatham just posted today on our sister blog, Inside Books We Love, sharing some of the discoveries she's made as she delved into the historical subjects she started researching for her books, as well as just for the love of history.

FINDING HISTORY IN CANADA

In school, history was never my favorite subject. I couldn’t remember dates.1066 and 1492 are ingrained in me, but don’t ask me about the succession of kings or when the Industrial or French Revolutions began.

It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I read Jean Plaidy’s The Sun in Splendour. What a difference that made. I could see the characters in history, the people behind the words on the page. I scrambled to read all I could, both fact and fiction, about the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the War of the Roses. My history teacher would have been proud of me.

Today I write historical romance set in my favorite eras, the Regency and the Edwardian, but I still read historical novels from any period. History comes alive for me between the covers of a good book but I do understand that it is subjective.

What happened yesterday, a minute or an hour ago becomes history and we all have our own. My history is growing up in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol, England. Today it’s known not only for its Regency era architecture but also the palatial homes built by the merchant venturers of Bristol, a society of businessmen formed in 1552.

When I immigrated to Canada in 1990, I frequently had people tell me ‘you won’t like it here, we’re not old enough’, or ‘Canada has no history’.

I will admit my ignorance at that time. After all, what did I know about Canada other than it’s a very big country, the Mounties always get their man (or woman) and it’s cold in winter. After nearly twenty-five years I am happy to beg to differ with those early and misleading statements.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of her post ...