Historical Domain Characters

I've recently read a mystery trilogy set a couple of years before the American Revolution and starring Abigail Adams, written by Barbara Hambly uner the pen name Barbara Hamilton. One of my publishers prohibits using real people as characters in historical fiction; they can be mentioned only in the background. But such fiction is far from uncommon, ranging in realism from flights of fantasy such as ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER (better than one might expect) to more grounded novels such as the aforementioned trilogy and Hambly's fictionalized account of the later life of Lincoln's widow, THE EMANCIPATOR'S WIFE (written under her own name), careful not to violate any known facts of Mary Todd Lincoln's biography.

TV Tropes labels real people of past eras who appear in fiction "historical domain characters":

Historical Domain Character

Sharyn McCrumb's "Ballad" series includes several novels researched in such depth they amount to fictionalized history. For instance, THE BALLAD OF FRANKIE SILVER, THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, and THE UNQUIET GRAVE are all based on real-life murder trials. In McCrumb's afterword to THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, she answers the question of how much of her story about the Tom Dula case is true with "as much as I could verify." The novel invents conversations and minor incidents, as well as exploring the mind of the principal narrator in a depth impossible for nonfiction. It ventures into actual speculation, however, only by taking a position on the perpetrator of and motive for the murder -- more plausible, incidentally, than the popular but inaccurate version sung by the Kingston Trio.

Then there are innumerable works of fiction that feature historical persons as secondary characters. Hambly does this often in her Benjamin January antebellum mystery series, e.g., when January meets Henry Clay in DEATH AND HARD CIDER. Emperor Marcus Aurelius figures prominently in S. M. Stirling's time-travel novel TO TURN THE TIDE.

I see no valid objection to this kind of fiction, if accurately researched and well written. I enjoy reading it. A potential problem does arise, though, with fictional use of real people who died more recently. Suppose they have still-living close relatives? C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have been portrayed as characters in fantasy novels, for instance. How might their surviving family members feel about such books? Should an author have qualms about writing and publishing them?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.