Imagining a History of Women

Guest blog by Rebecca D’Harlingue 

Historical fiction authors are often asked whether the events in their book really happened. The answer to that question can range from, a lot of it did happen, to, I have imagined what might happen within that time and place. Readers will usually accept either answer, but they often want to know. When I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s wonderful Hamnet, which upended much of what I thought I knew of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, I wondered how much of O’Farrell’s version was based on historical fact. In brief historical notes at the beginning and an author’s note at the end, O’Farrell mentions a few facts that allow the reader to believe in her portrayal. In transforming the often-maligned Hathaway (in the novel she is called Agnes, the name used by her father in his will) into a sympathetic and intriguing character, the author presents us with a reality that might have been. That is the power of historical fiction.

While novels such as Hamnet focus on people who did actually live, much of historical fiction contains just that, fictitious characters. Yet, if the author has done the job well, the characters are placed within a context that makes their lives believable. This ability is especially useful when presenting members of groups who were so often left out of the historical record. Here I will focus on a few novelists who have suggested the lives of women who could have been.

This ability to invent those who might have lived is not limited to any particular historical fiction genre. Mystery writers seem particularly adept at portraying women striving to solve a crime that has occurred within their sphere. For example, there is more than one series about medieval nuns who solve mysteries, including Priscilla Royal’s Prioress Eleanor and Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse. Can this have been possible? The authors give the details of historical fact to make what happens in the novel seem completely natural.

Although one might not immediately think of the romance genre as providing alternative views of women in history, author Edie Cay’s Regency-era novels, A Lady’s Revenge and The Boxer and the Blacksmith feature a woman pugilist. Her character is not just a product of Cay’s imagination, however, but is based on an actual female prize-fighter from a previous period, Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes. Stokes had virtually disappeared from the history books for a time, but books like Cay’s can bring to life an aspect of women’s history that very few know about.

In my novel, The Lines Between Us, a seventeenth-century girl’s life is threatened by her father because she has been raped and has thus become a symbol of his dishonor. In the “honor plays” of that period, female characters may throw themselves on their father’s or husband’s mercy. One character even encourages her father to kill her, and thus cleanse the stain. In my novel, Juliana takes her fate into her own hands. Although her options as a woman at that time are very limited, she is able to flee and make a life for herself. Her choice is believable because I placed her in a setting based on historical fact.

My favorite example of this ability to create a believable female character doing something surprising is The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. In the novel a Portuguese Jewish woman in seventeenth-century London experiences a rigorous life of the mind by using a man’s name to correspond with famous philosophers of the time. Did such a woman exist? Not that we know of, but just because something was forbidden, or is not known to have occurred, does not mean that it did not occur. We do know of women who disguised themselves as men in order to participate in activities and careers allowed only to men. We know of women artists and writers who used the names of men in order for their work to be made available to the public.

In a 2018 article in The Paris Review, titled “Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women,” Kadish talks about historical fiction as an opportunity to repair the historical record, which excluded the lives of so many. She explains that setting the character in a story that is factually plausible allows the reader to imagine that such a character not only could have existed, but must have existed. Referring to a quote in which author Hilary Mantel said that the historical record is “what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it,” Kadish says that, “Lives have run through the sieve, but we can catch them in our hands.”

Rebecca D’Harlingue has studied Spanish literature, worked as a hospital administrator, and taught English as a Second Language to adults from all over the world. In her award-winning dual timeline novel, The Lines Between Us, she highlights the resilience of women, and explores the repercussions of family secrets. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, Arthur, where they are fortunate to frequently spend time with their children and grandchildren. Visit her at rebeccadharlingue.com