From The Other Boleyn Girl to Fingersmith , this collection explores the popularity of female-centred historical novels in recent years. It asks how these representations are influenced by contemporary gender politics, and whether they can be seen as part of a wider feminist project to recover women's history.

This collection appraises the female figure, both real and imagined, in contemporary historical fictions

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Histories and Heroines: The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction; K.Cooper & E.Short PART I: HISTORICAL WOMEN - REVISIONING REAL LIVES The Virtuosa and the Ventriloquists: Janice Galloway's Clara; T.Jamieson Making Up, or Making Over: Reconstructing the Modern Female Author; E.Short A Deviant Device: Diary Dissembling in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace ; K.Brindle Whoso List to Hunt: The Literary Fortunes of Anne Boleyn; J.Crane PART II: IMAGINED HISTORIES - ROMANCING FICTIONAL HEROINES Do Knights Still Rescue Damsels in Distress?: Reimagining the Medieval in the Mills and Boon Historical Romance; A.Burge Sexual F(r)ictions: Pornography in Neo-Victorian Women's Fiction; N.Muller Re-Claiming Anne Damer/Re-Covering Sapphic History: Emma Donoghue's Life Mask ; C.O'Callaghan Things Slipping between Past and Present: Feminism and the Gothic in Kate Mosse's Sepulchre ; K.Cooper PART III: REWRITING HISTORY - REASSERTING THE FEMALE Imagine. Investigate. Intervene? A Consideration of Feminist Intent and Metafictive Invention in the Historical Fictions of A.S. Byatt and Marina Warner; S.Harris In Defence of Fiction: History and Imagination in Kate Grenville's The Secret River and The Lieutenant ; A.Gething Difficulties, Differences and Discontinuities: Reading Women's Historical Fiction; D.Wallace Writing Historical Fiction: Thoughts from Two Practitioners; S.Sellers & A.Thompson Selected Bibliography Index