historical novel

historical novel, a novel that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some cases only apparent fidelity) to historical fact. The work may deal with actual historical personages, as does Robert Graves’s I, Claudius (1934), or it may contain a mixture of fictional and historical characters. It may focus on a...