My mother loved historical fiction. In the days when Erma Bombeck was the queen of domestic humor, and would be feminists felt caught between Betty Friedan (too serious) and Erica Jong (too randy) historical novels were a thinking woman’s guilty pleasure. More serious than Barbara Cartland’s frothy stories, less licentious than the bodice and pants-bursting tales of the “Sweet Savage” series and miles beyond the Harlequin romances, historical novels combined enough research and literary craft to create entertaining stories that someone wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen reading. About half of the stories were based on historic figures; the other stories were based around historic places and events. The heroines weren’t always beautiful (at least they didn’t think they were) and while most of the stories still focused on a woman’s quest to achieve a happy home, husband and family, the traditional ending wasn’t guaranteed. Mama had a ton of these books and I ran through them all while I was a kid. At the time I thought they were terribly boring; I was in love with “the classics”. The world must have have agreed with my teenaged self , because I don’t see many historical novels these…
My mother loved historical romance novels. These tales were the “chick-lit” of her day, usually set in an era of voluminous skirts and low, square necklines (which looked good on the cover) and centered around headstrong, resourceful heroines who caused scandals and made mistakes until circumstances or the right man came into alignment and the heroine became a part of history. Mom’s favorite writers were Norah Lofts and Anya Seton, two authors who made a point of researching the background of each book for accuracy. I know because I read every book in her collection. (This was before before YA books really came onto the scene and I will read the back of bug repellant bottles if nothing else is available.) My favorite was an Anya Seton story set in 19th century Massachusetts and it’s a little bit different from the rest. It was called, The Hearth and Eagle. The Hearth and Eagle is (in the story) a historic tavern in Marblehead and the daughter of the tavern owner isn’t interested in history. Hesper Honeywood’s dad may be fascinated by genealogy and poetry but his daughter prefers ready bought goods to home-made and the company of a young fisherman to…