OPINION: Stephen Matchett | August 09, 2008 THE popularity of fiction set in a past that suits a novelist's imagination must drive historians nuts. It's easy to understand why. Consider Peter Carey's take on Ned Kelly; although unquestionably informed by the sources, he presented a man who looked suspiciously like a member of the Howard-hating, republic-endorsing 21st-century inner urban Left rather than a 19th century Australian-Irish brigand. The story meant more than the history. Historical fiction is popular because it does what scholarly historians won't, in most cases can't: communicate a sense of what life was like in the past. Scholars can only go where the archival evidence and cultural records take them. But this can take the lived experience out of what historians write. The task for writers who are interested in...
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