Category: Historical Fiction

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More than history: The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith #fictionalbiography #photohistory @bodleianlibs

When I visited A New Power, the Bodleian Library’s photo-history exhibition which ran earlier this spring, I was fascinated to learn how daguerreotype images were used to produce wood engravings which then became the basis for newspaper illustration, an application of the daguerreotype process of which I had been totally unaware, and so I turned … Continue reading More than history: The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith #fictionalbiography #photohistory @bodleianlibs

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‘Desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England’: The New Life by Tom Crewe @TomCrewe1

‘Truths needn’t depend on facts for their expression.’ The quote is from Tom Crewe’s author notes for his novel The New Life. It’s a book I think will be noticed for its unselfconscious depiction of sex between men, but I also admire it as an example of how history can be melded into create great … Continue reading ‘Desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England’: The New Life by Tom Crewe @TomCrewe1

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Believing Mr Banks: a lesson in how to link fiction and history

P. L. Travers and Walt Disney Farther to my recent thoughts on biopics, over Christmas we recorded Saving Mr Banks and watched it a few nights ago. As most of you probably know (spoiler alert!) this tells the story of Walt Disney’s attempts to get P.L.Travers’s agreement to let him film Mary Poppins despite her … Continue reading Believing Mr Banks: a lesson in how to link fiction and history