Brian Hamnett's The Historical Novel in Nincteenth-Century Europe is
Dr Aleksandar Stević
Qatar University
Department of English Literature and Linguistics
an exceptionally ambitious undertaking, unparalleled in its scope, and frustrating in its methodological shortcomings. In the thirteen chapters of his book, Hamnett offers a sweeping account of the historical novel in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia during the nineteenth century, insisting, in particular, on what he takes to be the privileged relationship between the novel and historiography. "From the beginning of the nineteenthcentury," he writes. "history and the novel became parallel modes of representing reality" (1). The rise of modern historical science and that of the historical I novel novel were were concurrent phenomena, as the two practices arose from the sa me contexts and developed simultaneously, fulfilled the same cultural needs, and sometimes involved the same practitioners, particularly in the early part of the century. "Frequently the two overlapped or influenced one another. Each contested the terrain of fact and imagination, and, in different ways, sought, for distinct purposes, to arrive at truths concerning the human experience in time" (1). Academic historiography thus constitutes the historical novel's natural counterpart, and the main backdrop against which the genre's development is to be judged.
Before the professional teaching of history, the historical novel provided the main means for understanding history for the general reading public. In fact, the popularity of the historical novel responded to a public demand and need at that time. The relation of historical fiction to historio graphy became a seri s of history, for instance, were able to respond to a market already created by the novel. (5)
While the historical novel established itself in the works of Walter Scott, Alessandro Manzoni, Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Vigny, and the young Balzac in the 1810 and 1820s, the development of academic historiography soon derailed the genre's development. By mid-century, the professionalization of history in Western Europe severely undermined the status of the historical novel: "the opening of archives, the establishment of more museums, the creation of