The Historical Novel from Scott to Sabatini: Changing Attitudes toward a Literary Genre, 1814-1920

Sir Walter Scott defined the parameters of the historical novel and illustrated his concept of the genre by writing a long series of novels dealing with medieval times, the Elizabethan Age and the 18th Century. Later novels written by his contemporaries and successors attracted smaller audiences. When Robert Louis Stevenson, in the early 1880s, enthusiastically expanded the boundaries of romantic fiction, he became a standard-bearer and an inspiration to many of his fellow-novelists: Walter Besant, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stanley John Weyman, Anthony Hope, Henry Rider Haggard, and Rafael Sabatini.