"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
Winter 2003
Volume I,
issue 3
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"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." | Winter 2003 |
Roberta Gellis holds master's degrees in biochemistry and in medieval literature; she spent ten years working as a research chemist and many years as a free-lance editor of scientific manuscripts. Since 1964, Ms. Gellis has published about 25 meticulously researched historical novels. The recipient of many awards (including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books, and The Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy), the Roberta Gellis website offers an extensive research bibliography. Ms. Gellis lives on Long Island with Charles, her husband of more than fifty years, and a lively Lakeland terrier called Taffy. Direct correspondence to robertagellis@sff.net. |
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The purpose of research for a historical novel is to provide a realistic and believable background in which characters can live. Some writers dread research, some writers adore it; but no writer can afford to allow personal response to decide the depth and detail of the research to be done. That judgement must be made on the basis of how much history is going to be useful.
Those writing costume drama, which is the predominant type of historical romance today, should remember that they need touch only lightly on the historical background. The plot of a costume drama is character-driven and should not be cluttered up with historical facts or too much description. The historical novel, with its history-driven plot, needs much more detailed research; in such books, the background is often as important as the characters and much of the life of the novel comes from the accurate details about historical events, food and dress, and manners and mores.
In the past there were only two source for historical facts: printed matter,
such as newspapers, magazines, books, letters, and memoirs; and an expert, that
is a person who had already consulted the printed matter or lived through the
events the writer wishes to depict. At present another source exists: the electronic
reservoir of information, through which anyone who has the equipment and the
knowhow can reach both experts and "printed matter" and
bring them directly to his or her own computer screen. I, however, am old-fashioned
and I will deal principally with the older sources.
Likely,
the library is an old, familiar friend, but well as I know it, I find certain
books a substantial help in using this almost too-abundant source. Some like
M. G. Cook's The New Library Key (New York, 1975) give detailed information about the catalogs and classifications systems used in the library. Others, like The Modern Researcher (New York, 1992) by Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff are less detailed but explain what a card catalog and a computerized catalog system is and offer advice on using them. A truly wonderful assistant (and an affordable one that you can have in your own home) is Reference Sources. This book can be obtained from the Publications Office of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-4484. The book is divided into two parts: Part I lists reference books of general scope, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and bibliographies. Part II lists reference books according to special subjects, like the humanities and the social and physical sciences.
If
you are working on a costume drama, you might wish to confine your historical
research to the material in a good encyclopedia and specialized dictionary.
For biographical, geographical, and historical articles about Europe, the
9th or 11th editions of the Britannica are greatly to be preferred to more recent editions. I am not familiar with the 12th or 13th editions, but the 14th and later editions place greater emphasis on scientific and technological subjects and on very recent history. Since there is a limit to the length of any encyclopedia, even the Britannica, something must go, and what has been deleted and condensed are the biographical articles about persons before the 19th century and frills, such as colored plates of historical uniforms. A similar problem exists with the Americana, that is, that its emphasis is on science and technology, but it does have excellent biographical articles (many more on American personages than the Britannica, of course) and it has a particularly good section on costume.
For more extensive and varied biographies, however, the Dictionary of National Biography (commonly called the DNB) for British people and the Dictionary of American Biography (commonly called the DAB) for Americans are best, and most libraries have them either in print or on microfilm. The DNB can also be obtained on CDRom from Oxford University Press. Important people in these works may have articles as long as five to ten pages of small print in double column text. (There are similar works for other nations - I know of France and Germany; however, these are in the language of the nation.)
The DNB and DAB are particularly useful when one wishes to include as characters less exalted historical personages than kings and presidents; biographies are offered of those who are not important enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Another valuable asset of the DNB and DAB are their indexes. From these, which provide the dates during which the persons listed lived, one can garner a complete cast of real characters to support the fictional hero and heroine.
For those who would like more information than can be provided by the kind of sources mentioned above, wider use of the library must be made. You will notice if your library has a computerized catalog that many of the books mentioned are not on the shelves. Your librarian may be able to suggest a substitute or even a more adequate source of information or may be able to obtain the book through interloan. Having mentioned interloan, let me make a few points about general use of a library system.
First, be sure to ask whether your library is part of an interloan system. Often the librarian will not voluntarily mention the system, since it makes extra work to obtain books through it. Although the interloan librarian in my own small local library always looks as if she wants to get under the desk when I approach, rare and difficult-to-procure books have been found for me and obtained from university libraries all over the country.
Second, if you find no mention at all of the subject in which you are interested in the card catalog or electronic catalog or the computer brings up only books that do not pertain, this may mean you are looking under the wrong word or words. For example, in the computer system used by my local library, "LIBRARY, USE OF" does not bring up references like The New Library Key but studies on library usage. If you run into a similar problem, consult the librarian for a hint about what wording to use. I have found that there are books devoted to any subject the human imagination can conceive -- and some I would not have conceived of before I came upon such books by accident.
Third, if you are not near a library, research books may be obtained from mail-order booksellers, such as Barnes & Noble (126 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10011), Dover Publications, Inc. (31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, NY 11501), the Scholar's Bookshelf (51 Everett Drive, Princeton Junction, NJ 08550), or from many, many university presses. Any of the three discount houses and any university press will be glad to send you a catalog if you write and ask.
This is, of course, a more expensive proposition than free use of a library, but many of the books offered by the discount houses (and even some by the university presses) are not costly, and delightful adjuncts can be found in the catalogs, like the coloring books and costume paper dolls that Dover sells. These are quite accurate from the 18th century on as the clothes are reproductions of those in the fashion magazines of the period. Barnes & Noble offers a fascinating set called the See Inside Series which exposes sectionally a castle, an ancient Greek town, a Roman town, an ancient Chinese town, an Egyptian town, and a galleon.
Once you know how to use the library, the information available seems overwhelming. Where and how does one start? Let me suggest the Children's Library. No, I am not insulting you. Although I have spent nearly 40 years researching one or another historical period and geographical place, I still go back to the children's library to start anything new.
Most likely you already know the period and place in which you intend to set your novel, but if you do not or are looking for a new idea, try a children's book on world history. Such a book takes only a few hours to read and will present events in the most dramatic way possible. And children's books are especially good in describing how people lived. One of the best books I have ever found on castles was a library discard from the children's section (Castles, by R. Allen Brown).
A great help in research, once period and place are decided, is to choose a limited time period in which one or two climactic events, such as a great battle with far-reaching results or statehood for a territory, have taken place. Such a choice gives adequate scope for individual adventures for the heroine or hero, limits the amount of historical explanation one must give the reader, and greatly simplifies the research. The state or territory will certainly have a name and most battles do too; thus, you are immediately provided with a specific word to look up in the electronic subject index of your library, in encyclopedias, and in the indexes of historical texts and biographies to pinpoint which books will be useful for your purposes.
In addition, the people involved in the adoption of statehood or the battle (not only those who fought for it or in it but those whose policies caused or directed it) will be named. Reading about the individuals involved in any historical event can not only illuminate situations surrounding that event but also may present it from a more personal point of view.
A good scholarly biography (from the adult section of the library this time) will provide a multitude of types of information and often read like a novel too. Not only will you get the history of the period but you will find discussions on the manners and mores of the time, descriptions of clothing, of the places in which the people lived, the meals they ate, the methods by which they traveled. Often there will be quotations of letters or diaries - the very best way to learn how the people of your period thought and expressed themselves. Perhaps expense accounts will be printed from which one can learn what people of your period spent for food, lodging, clothing and furniture, and how much they gave to charity.
Historical events can be outlined from a biography, but obviously they will be presented in a diffuse form and often in greater detail where the subject of the book is concerned and skimped or even ignored where the subject was not affected. A summary of historical facts in clear and straightforward form can be of great help. This can best be obtained from what are called "secondary" sources: that is, books about history written in modern times. Such books can be found by looking under the country and period, for example, "British History" and the date, in the library catalog (card or electronic) or in Books in Print or in a bibliography, such as those listed in Research Sources.
It will rarely be necessary for the writer of historical romance to consult primary sources (those that come from the period you are studying) however, they are not hard to find. Biographies, as I mentioned, have bibliographies and many of the works listed will be primary sources, like diaries and collections of letters. The secondary sources you may have consulted also probably contain bibliographies, and if you are near a large library or a university library with a computerized search system, a request such as mine at the New York Public Library for "London history" turned up 282 references, about 10 of which were "primary," reprints of early chronicles.
Let me warn you, however, that a primary source is not necessarily more reliable than a secondary source. For example, before modern times the idea that a historian should be objective would have been considered laughable. For early historians, your friends and allies were good, your enemies were evil. As you know, this attitude has not been wholly extirpated from the modern mind; however, the reputable modern historian is supposed to struggle for an impersonal view that presents all aspects of an event.
Last but not least is the problem of making your historical novel come alive. Fortunately, this subject has fascinated many researchers, and there are many, many books on daily life in all times and places. Again try the YA (young adult) or Children's section of the library first. A book for children often has clearer, more dramatic illustrations and more interesting details than books for adults. You will find many titles starting with "Life in ... " or "Everyday Life in ... "
There are also many books on costume; I have found those by Yarwood, such as European Costume, clear and simple. One or another book on costume can be obtained quite reasonably from the discount mail-order booksellers mentioned earlier.
Possibly there are even more books about food than about costume. Many of these are utterly delightful, because they include commentary or quotes from the period in which the recipes were recorded. Pepys at Table with recipes and extracts from Pepys' famous diary gives not only dishes and their preparation but songs and illustrations from the 17th century. To the King's Taste, also illustrated and provided with careful explanations, does a similar job for the time of Richard II. And Dover has published a facsimile edition of The First American Cookbook, by Amelia Simmons.
Few details of life in the past remain unexplored. Books on medicine, on gardens, on architecture and furniture are all readily available.
Clothes change, cities change, methods of travel change but people's emotions (although their motives and the causes that bring forth these emotions differ) change very little. Proof of that can often be found in biographies, in letters and diaries and, more importantly, in the fiction of the period. Naturally any fictional account must be used with caution, the earlier the account, the more cautious the use. Just as all modern people do not live the kinds of lives depicted in the glitz and glamor novels, not all knights were Lancelots and Tristans nor all ladies Guineveres and Isoldes. However, one very important point about early fiction must be made. These works of the imagination depicted people as they wished they were or wished they could be. If you read the romances and novels of your period, you can scale down their heroes and heroines to more human characters with faults and foibles.
As you come into more modern times, you can take your sources more literally - no one could depict character more realistically than Shakespere or the novels of Fielding and Smollet. Sometimes a tiny vignette will brand an indelible memory: for me, no better reminder of the stench and filth of 18th century life exists than Smollet's image of the young lady who fainted on entering a country ballroom; felled by the incredible stink of overheated, long-unwashed bodies drenched with strong scent to cover the sweat.
I remember; I may not frequently describe such a situation mostly because those who lived at the time were too accustomed to the stink to notice it (the odor in the ballroom, for example, had increased slowly as it filled and as the guests exerted themselves, so their noses got paralyzed), but I do not write about people in that period bathing unless I give a special reason for it.
How do you find out what was written in the period you are researching? The bibliography of most scholarly biographies will list diaries and collections of letters, and any literary history listed in Brief Guide to Research Sources will provide titles and authors. Reference Sources, 10th Edition, by Eleanor A. Swidan, edited by Thomas H. Patterson, John A. Damond, Jr., and Rachael Kubie is published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library 2000.
Much of the information I have been describing may be obtained through the internet. Unfortunately, I am not young and I am old-fashioned enough to prefer paper text. Because I am familiar with my sources, I can find the information I want far more quickly in books, and since the information I want has usually been static for several hundred years, I need not worry about up-to-the-minute research.
Under the circumstances, I must admit that I am no expert in searching the internet. Moreover, I find that the internet is an infinite time sink because at least 90% of the references turned up by my favorite search engine, Google, are useless for my purpose but exquisitely attractive so that I must go and look at them and hours and hours later am no forwarder in my quest. However, that may just be me; I tend to get trapped reading the dictionary too.
Copyright 2003 by Roberta Gellis
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"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |