Jerome De Groot’s The Historical Novel provides a critical foundation for understanding historical fiction with a depth of diverse sources, theories, discussion and critique. This theoretical analysis will examine De Groot’s arguments alongside related historiographic and literary theory to explore how historical fiction functions as a productive framework for speculative reconstruction by positioning historical fiction not as a secondary or decorative mode of history, but as a complex framework through which the past is interpreted, contested, and imaginatively reconstructed. Focusing on questions of authenticity and its associated fallacies, the interpretation of truth, the unknowable, and contemporary cultural impact, this text argues that historical fiction’s value lies not in factual completeness but in its capacity for critical self-awareness. 

 

Authenticity 

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One of the most persistent concerns in discussions of historical fiction is authenticity. Being a mixture of historical setting, characters, and facts tied up in an entirely fictional and invented narrative this hybrid form generates both its appeal as a historical tool while also being the cause of concern. On the one hand, it allows readers to experience the past in ways unavailable to traditional historiography and on the other, it risks producing what De Groot describes as the “authentic fallacy.” (97)  This fallacy emerges when a convincing historical atmosphere creates a “pseudo-historic security,” (Nield 1902 qtd. in De Groot 5) which as put by De Groot “becalms the reader and makes them a passive recipient of all kinds of untruths” (6). The danger is not simply that fiction might mislead, but that its apparent authenticity might obscure its constructed nature. With this being said, this authentic fallacy is not a concept strictly reserved for the historical material that self classifies as fictional. French literature scholar Emanuel Mickel draws emphasis on history as inherently fictional and emphasizes the distinction between the concept of history and the reality of written history, Mickel underscores how the majority of historical accounts written by historians, can not possibly fit in the most absolute sense of “verifiable knowledge” and therefore are in their own way resulting works of fiction (58). This is an important consideration and also significant to distinguish between historical fiction’s use of history as a framework for imaginative invention and fictional history presentation as factual despite its fabricated elements. This clear fictional self awareness applies also when it comes to the readers, as they are rarely naïve; they approach historical fiction with an awareness of its fictionalized status and its mediation of the past. As historian and novelist John Clay explains, historical fiction involves creative “leaps of faith” built on meticulous research, and successful works make clear where documented history ends and imaginative interpretation begins, recognizing that readers are aware of and receptive to this interplay between fact and speculation (Clay). 

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If the concept of operating in collusion with the reader's awareness is unsatisfactory in its assumptions where historical fiction fails, historiographic metafiction may be a more effective tool in its inherent self reflectivity. Metafiction as defined by Patricha Waugh applies to fiction that “consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (Waugh 2 qtd. in De Groot 117). Historiographic metafiction, more specifically, is “characterised by contrariness… self-reflexiveness, subversiveness, and particularly… meditation upon history and identity” (Hutcheon 5 qtd. in De Groot 119). This self-reflexive dimension is not incidental but foundational. Works such as Jose Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon present an ideal example where in the story a character of a proofreader inserts the word “not” purposefully into a historical text about the 1147 Siege of Lisbon, thereby altering the official account of history. The story continues with the new alternative version of the siege alongside his own story. Works of historiographic metafiction do not just ask viewers to believe in a reconstructed past but also confront them to examine how belief is produced. In this sense, these frameworks can be potentially applied to all histories, not just the specific fragments from which they originate. In The Historical Novel De Groot similarly uses self reflexivity as central to the genre’s reader awareness by referencing early examples of historical fiction such as Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, De Groot cites Scott’s Waverley, a pivotal early work of historical fiction, as evidence of a genre captivated in directing attention to its own unfair biases by using characters with different viewpoints to undermine authority in the story, and ultimately the historical account itself (8). 

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When creating speculative reconstructions within a historical fiction framework, authenticity should be approached not as a claim to factual completeness but as a transparent, critically engaged process. An effective strategy is to foreground the speculative nature of the reconstruction through visible seams which acknowledge gaps in the historical record signalling conjecture, and distinguish between documented fact and imaginative interpolation. To resist the “authentic fallacy” and its false sense of historical security, reconstructors can embed cues that invite active interpretation rather than passive acceptance, encouraging audiences to recognize the work as a constructed artefact rather than a recovered truth.  Incorporating elements of historiographic metafiction such as self-reflexive narration, anachronistic commentary, or moments that expose how historical meaning is assembled further reinforces this critical stance. Finally, if a semblance of authenticity is important it may be best framed as connected to historical questions, contexts, and power structures rather than surface realism, allowing speculative reconstruction to remain intellectually honest while using fiction to probe how histories are made, believed, and contested.

 

Truth

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Another contribution from De Groot is his text Remaking History : The Past in Contemporary Historical Fiction where he argues that both history and historical fiction are fundamentally narrative forms that shape our understanding of the past; through their representations, they show how the past is “written, structured and ordered,” rather than simply discovered (De Groot 1). Drawing on broader historiographic debates, American historian, Hayden White argues that historical narratives are shaped not only by evidence but by narrative choices, employment of specific literary devices, and aesthetic preference. In Historiography and Historiophoty, White suggests that historical representation whether it be textual or visual is inherently interpretive. He challenges the assumption that history can ever be purely objective, noting that historians inevitably impose narrative structures on the past (White 1195 - 1197).  Literary scholar Linda Hutcheon aligns with this thinking, suggesting that historical narratives simultaneously invoke historical reference while foregrounding the impossibility of objective access to the past (Hutcheon 105). 

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Concerning interpretation of truth, De Groot references the idea that historical fiction can “communicate something more profound than the historian” (18). This claim rests on what is described as the  “poet–historian binary,” (18) in which the “artist is granted creative latitude” (18) where the historian is constrained by evidence. Historical fiction acknowledges our desire to discover more than historical facts by allowing for experiential, affective, and reflective modes of truth. Bruno Munari in the Theoretical Reconstructions of Imaginary Objects argues that reconstruction can function as a creative act that can prioritize “aesthetics and imagination” revealing conceptual coherence over historical accuracy, allowing imagination to operate but only within constraints (Munari 203–207). Balance between fact and invention through creative interpretation enables history to be conceptualised, questioned and simply presented in ways that are meaningful to non-experts allowing historical fiction to function as a fundamental cultural practice, translating historical complexity into accessible forms. 

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Building on this, De Groot’s discussion of counterfactual or “What if?” history provides another important framework. Counterfactual thinking has the potential to correct “overly proscriptive and prescriptive models of history” (171). Quoting from Crowley De Groot references that “What-ifs can lead us to question long-held assumptions. What ifs can define true turning points. They can show that small accidents or split-second decisions are as likely to have major repercussions as large ones (Cowley 2001: xi–i qtd. in De Groot 171). These “what if’s” support the framework by elevating imagining alternatives that can deepen historical understanding by disrupting the illusion of inevitability and engaging with the unknown. Historical fiction’s unique strength, according to De Groot, lies in this engagement with the unknowable. Employing the work of historian and philosopher Herbert Butterfield, De Groot reminds us that history offers only fragments: “tales half told, and… tunes that break off in the middle” (Butterfield 15–16; qtd. in De Groot 49). In the context of Butterfield’s thoughts, he writes that the genre is “directly interested in the ways in which the unknowability of the past can be communicated to the contemporary reader” (49). Together, counterfactual thinking and historical fiction foreground absence, uncertainty, and possibility as meaningful components of historical knowledge. Rather than resolving gaps in the record, they invite readers to dwell within them, recognizing speculation not as a failure of history but as a productive mode for understanding its complexity and limits.

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When addressing subjectivity, interpretation of truth, and the unknowable in speculative historical reconstructions, it is best to treat subjectivity as an explicit structuring principle rather than a flaw to be concealed. This can be achieved by highlighting interpretive choices such as narrative framing, perspective, and anachronism to highlight how meaning is imposed on historical fragments. Drawing on the idea that historical truth is experiential as well as evidentiary, speculative reconstructions can privilege affective and conceptual coherence over empirical completeness, allowing imaginative interpretation to communicate forms of truth that exceed factual verification. Counterfactual or “what if?” scenarios can further function as critical tools, not to assert alternative outcomes, but to destabilize deterministic readings of the past and expose the contingency of historical causality. Rather than resolving historical absences, reconstructions can deliberately preserve uncertainty, using gaps, ambiguities, and unresolved narratives to signal the limits of historical knowledge. In doing so, authenticity emerges not from claims of objectivity, but from an honest engagement with interpretation, partiality, and the fundamentally unknowable nature of the past.

 

Time

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At the heart of historical fiction lies what can be understood as an othering of time. This othering is the awareness that the past exists both as part of a shared human continuum and as an unreachable other that can never truly inhabit the minds, motives, or emotions of historical subjects. The past, much like another consciousness, resists full comprehension. This resonates with De Groot’s acknowledgment of the inherent limits of both the historian and novelist in any attempt to reconstruct the past as an encounter with temporal otherness (113). The act of fictionalizing the past thus becomes a speculative exercise in reconstructing what is beyond our lived experience while acknowledging that such reconstruction is always partial, subjective, and interpretive. In this, historical fiction’s speculative reconstruction always returns to the present. De Groot emphasizes that a “clear sense of connection with the past, and an awareness that the events of history have an impact upon the contemporary, is something which has profound consequences for the way we live our lives and conceive of ourselves” (27). The drive to read history, then, is not solely an act of historical education, it is a tool to situate ourselves in the present. Through mediated encounters with historical others, the reader perceives patterns, inheritances, and traumas that can echo into their own time. However, the meaning derived from historical fiction is never detached from the time it is being read or time that it was written. The past, as represented in fiction, is always viewed through contemporary consciousness. Thus, the historical novel not only examines the otherness of past centuries but simultaneously reflects the anxieties, ideologies, and values of its present. In this it is a genre that continually collapses the boundary between historical distance and ongoing experience.

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While many works of historical fiction, as De Groot notes, “have a conservative agenda, seeking to close off debate and dialogue” (121), the genre’s potential still lies in its capacity for disruption. Historical fiction “provides a space for political intervention and reclamation; for innovation and destabilisation” (140). This dual potential, in some cases reinforcing and in other challenging dominant narratives, positions the genre as a complex site of memory, identity, and power. By narratively reconstructing the past, historical fiction at the minimum contests the singular authority of conventional historiography but also has a history of, and has the potential to “reinsert communities into the past, rescuing them from the marginal positions to which they have consciously been consigned” (148). To operate within this mode is to acknowledge that all history is a form of storytelling, and thus, all storytelling about history is potentially a critique of history itself. 

In speculative historical reconstruction, strategies attentive to the othering of time, contemporary impact, and the challenge to history can begin by explicitly locating temporal distance as a baseline rather than attempting a perspective of totalizing realism. By acknowledging the past as fundamentally inaccessible yet resonant, a reconstructor's reconstructions can signal the limits of historical knowledge while still engaging imaginatively with historical subjects. To address contemporary impact, reconstructors can frame speculations so that historical moments are visibly impacted through present concerns, making clear how reconstructions speak as much about current anxieties, identities, and power structures as about the past itself. Challenging history further requires using speculation as a critical intervention to destabilize dominant narratives, resisting determinism, and reintroducing marginalized or suppressed perspectives through imaginative retelling. Techniques such as counter-narratives, fragmented storytelling, and metafictional disruption can expose the constructedness of historical authority and undermine grand narratives. In this way, authenticity emerges not from reverence for an untouchable past, but from a critical, self-aware engagement with time’s otherness and history’s ongoing political and cultural consequences.

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De Groot ultimately reframes historical fiction as a critically engaged narrative practice rather than a flawed substitute for historiography. When approached as a framework for speculative reconstruction, the historical fiction genre exposes the interpretive processes underlying all historical representation, revealing authenticity to be an effect of narrative construction rather than a guarantee of truth. By foregrounding subjectivity, embracing the unknowable, and resisting grand narratives, historical fiction challenges deterministic models of history and destabilizes the authority of singular historical accounts. Its engagement with the otherness of the past and its reflexive relationship to contemporary concerns position historical fiction as both an epistemological and political tool. Speculative reconstructions built on a framework of historical fiction should not seek to recover an intact past but to critically examine the conditions under which historical meaning is produced. In this sense, historical fiction’s strength lies in its ability to make visible the fractures, possibilities, and power structures embedded within historical narratives, allowing fiction to function not as historical illusion, but as a form of critical historical inquiry.

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Works Cited

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Clay, John. “Historical Fiction and Fictional History.” History Matters, 28 Oct. 2015, historymatters.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog-archive/2015/historical-fiction-and-fictional-history. Accessed 10 Oct. 2021.

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De Groot, Jerome. Remaking History: The Past in Contemporary Historical Fictions. Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2015.

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De Groot, Jerome. The Historical Novel. Routledge, 2020.

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Mickel, Emanuel J. “Fictional History and Historical Fiction.” Romance Philology, vol. 66, no. 1, 2012, pp. 57–96. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44741973.

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Munari, Bruno. “Theoretical Reconstructions of Imaginary Objects.” Design as Art, translated by Patrick Creagh, Penguin, 1971, pp. 203–07.

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White, Hayden. “Historiography and Historiophoty.” The American Historical Review, vol. 93, no. 5, Dec. 1988, pp. 1193–199. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1873534.

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Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, 1988.