Show What Are Historical Novels An atmosphere can be as historical as an occurrence says Paul Leicester Ford in the December Atlantic and a created character can transmit a truer sense of a generation than the most labored biography of some actual person It is scarcely possible to obtain a more vivid idea of the 18th century life and people than is to be found in Fieldings Tom Jones and in this sense it is the best of historical fiction In the three volumes of the Littlepage MSS Cooper took as his central theme the history of the great land grants of New York Satanstoe relates the motives mo-tives of state which induced the granting grant-ing of the patents the means taken to secure them and finally thp struggle with the Indians for their possession The Chainbearer carries the history one point further by showing the method of settling of these land grants and tells of the struggle for possession between the owner and the squatters and finally the third of the series The Redskins deals with the fierce anti rent war which broke out on the same estates some 50 years latacr It is apparent ap-parent therefore that these three books are historical novels But as a fact they are not more truly historical than the early works of Bret Harte and it is a safe assertion to make that if the day ever comes when his stories of California are no longer held to be the classics of the west they will still be read as pictures of the upbiulding of the Sierra states or as historical novels |