[Lewes was one of the most versatile men of letters in the Victorian era. A prominent English journalist, he was the founder, with Leigh Hunt, of The Leader, a radical political journal that he edited from 1851 to 1854. He served as the first editor of the Fortnightly Review from 1865 to 1866, a journal which he also helped to establish. Critics often cite Lewes's influence on the novelist George Eliot, to whom he was companion and mentor, as his principal contribution to English letters, but they also credit him with critical acumen in his literary commentary, most notably in his dramatic criticism. In the following excerpt, Lewes harshly criticizes authors of some historical romances for their inclusion of "useless" information and for their failure to capture the spirit of the time period about which they were writing.]

To judge from the number yearly published, one may presume that there is a great demand for historical romances; and to judge from the quality of those published, one may suppose the readers very good-natured, or very ignorant; or both. We believe they are both.

To write a good historical romance is no easy task; to write such as are published (with an exception here and there) is, we believe, one of the easiest of all literary tasks. Were it otherwise, how could Mr James and Alexandre Dumas pour forth their novels with such amazing rapidity? One announces that he finished a volume in twelve days; the other has recently signed an agreement to limit himself to twenty volumes in the year! Were it otherwise, how could the great quantity of yearly publications be kept up? Few will be bold enough to assert that the great mass of novelists display any remarkable talent; yet the great mass of novels are historical; ergo, we conclude that the historical novel is one wherein mediocrity is at its ease. Must it not be so? In the domestic novel mediocrity cannot escape dulness and twaddle; in the art-novel it cannot escape rant and maudlin; in the roman intime it degenerates into utter drivel; and in the satirical novel it is in the plight of one endeavouring to be witty, and sinking into mere pertness and personality. For the domestic novel a man needs knowledge of character, power of truthful painting, pathos, and good sense. For the art-novel he needs imagination, style, and a knowledge of art. For the roman intime he needs a mastery over mental analysis, passion, and lyrical feeling. For the satirical novel he needs wit, and knowledge of the world. But for the historical novel, as it is generally written, he needs no style, no imagination, no fancy, no knowledge of the world, no wit, no pathos; he needs only to study Scott, and the historical novelists; to "cram" for the necessary information about costumes, antiquated forms of speech, and the leading political events of the epoch chosen; and to add thereto the art, so easily learned, of complicating a plot with adventures, imprisonments, and escapes. As for character, he need give himself no trouble about it: his predecessors have already furnished him with types; these he can christen anew. Probability he may utterly scorn. If he has any reflections to make, he need only give them a sententious turn; truth, novelty, or depth, are unimportant. Sprinkle largely with love and heroism; keep up the mystery overhanging the hero's birth, till the last chapter; and have a good stage villain, scheming and scowling through two volumes and a half, to be utterly exposed and defeated at last—and the historical novel is complete.

The writers of this bastard species are of two kinds: the one kind has a mere surface-knowledge of history, picked up from other novels, and from Hume, or Sismondi. The other has "crammed" for the occasion: knows much, but knows it ill: is minutely tedious, because he insists on teaching you to-day what he himself learned yesterday. He reads chronicles only to quote them, and endeavours by notes to supply the want of that mastery of the subject, which long familiarity alone can give, and which alone enables a man to paint an epoch. This false erudition, joined to a false imagination, produces an abortion, to which we prefer the flimsiest of novels.

Yet the public evidently encourages historical romance, even such historical romance as is afforded it. We have already hinted two reasons for this; and to them we could add a third, viz.: It is thought easier and pleasanter to read history in romance, than to read it in those respectable russia-bound octavos, "which no gentleman's library should be without." Idleness;—a wish to get at knowledge by a royal route; and a pleasant self-sophistication, that reading such novels is not "a waste of time,"—these are the great encouragers of historical novels. What is the consequence? The consequence is, that we have false history, and a bad story, palmed upon us for a novel. Now we are of those, albeit accustomed to grave studies, who utterly deny the fact of a novel being a waste of time: certainly a bad novel is; but so is every bad book. Think of the delight a good novel will give; think of the emotions it excites, the trains of thought it suggests; think also of the influence exercised upon mental culture by the perusal of novels. This influence may be good or bad, according to the truth or falsehood of the works; but in stating the case for novels, we have a right to speak only of the good. The question is not, are bad novels waste of time? No one doubts it. We confess, then, to a high relish for novels. If we seldom read them, it is because the good are rare. We confess to a high opinion of their influence; and so far from thinking them a "waste of time" (which is the frequent assertion of some very frivolous people, trying to look pro-found) we believe few works more capable of fulfilling the highest aim of books. There is but one indispensable condition: they must be true. Of course by truth we do not mean literality; few tales are so false as those "founded upon facts"; the truth we speak of is truth of character and feeling.

It is your bad historical romance, the reading of which is waste of time. No-knowledge is better than misknowledge; and the scraps of history picked up from a novel are just sufficient to mislead the indolent into the idea of their possessing "information." Either history is worth knowing, or it is not: if worth knowing, then worth studying in proper sources; if not, then surely a great incumbrance to a tale. We suggest this to worthy mammas, and tutors, who only allow young people to read historical romances, because there some good "information" is to be gained. We know a lady who piques herself upon her strictness, and who, while refusing to allow her daughter, aged sixteen, to read novels, allowed her to read St Simon's 'Memories'—because they were historical! This is a good instance of the error we are combating; it is indeed a type. Worthy mammas! Excellent tutors! Is there no other sort of "information," but that of "facts"? Are there no things under the sun worth learning, besides the erudition of 'Mangnall's Questions?' Is knowledge of the human heart not information? Are your children to live in the world, to battle with it, and not to know it? Are they to mix with men and women, and rather than learn the natures of men and women, in the best way they can, to "cram" up a certain amount of "information" of mere externals, of names and dates, and those ancient names and dates? This is poor wisdom; but akin to the wisdom which devotes the long and precious years of youth to the study of that which they will never (in nine cases out of ten) need in after-life.

Let not the reader suppose that we cast any slight upon historical romance. Our object has been solely to point attention to the fallacy of supposing that bad historical romances—and very few good ones are published—can be less a waste of time than other romances. The conjunction of two such elements as history and fiction may be excellent, provided the history be good and the fiction good. But if the history be bad, or superficial, it is an excrescence. The story, after all, is the main thing; and if history be joined to it, it is only on the privilege of adding a new interest to the story.

When we speak of bad and false history, we mean useless, or worse than useless handling of past times, characters, and events. Those sticklers for truth, who reproach Scott with having falsified history because he wilfully confused dates, forget the far greater truth which that wonderful writer generally presented. If, for his purposes, he disarranged the order of events a little; no grave historian ever succeeded better in painting the character of the epoch. He committed errors of detail enough to make Mrs Markham shudder. He divined important historical truths which had escaped the sagacity of all historians. A great authority, Augustin Thierry, has pronounced Scott the greatest of all historical divinators. All Europe has pronounced him to be the greatest of modern romance writers.

When, therefore, a writer has so familiarized himself with the inward spirit and outward form of an epoch, as to be able to paint it with accuracy and with ease, he may make that epoch a very useful and entertaining scene for his story: and then if his story be good, he will have written a good historical romance. Unfortunately it is only the outward form that most writers study; thinking with this outward form to compose splendid accessories. But after all, what are accessories? Very much what splendid processions, gorgeous scenery, numerous attendants, and spangled dresses are to a tragedy: a panoply of ennui.

Admitting the utility of history to romance, when history is properly understood, there is, we think, still one caution necessary. Let a man be thoroughly versed in the epoch, and perfectly capable of painting it, there is one danger he must always avoid: the danger of misrepresenting historical personages. In a former paper on the historical drama, we attempted to prove the almost insuperable difficulty of representing well-known historical persons, except as subordinate actors in the drama. The dramatist is forced to falsify history. The novelist is not quite so badly situated, but the danger is considerable. He may sketch portraits; but he must be wary how he makes the persons act and speak. His safety lies in entrusting the main action of his story to imaginary actors, and bringing known persons forward as only slightly connected with the plot. Of course, this applies only to such persons whose characters are tolerably known to us. If the epoch be remote, and the characters dimly perceived, the novelist has perfect licence; for such epochs verge upon the domain of the fabulous, wherein imagination may roam at will. But this, which is an obstacle to the historian, is an assistance to the novelist. Assured that we must be as ignorant as himself, he can invent his materials and create his characters. Shakspeare was at liberty to create a character for Macbeth, for Hamlet, or for Lear. No such licence could be allowed to one who treated of Elizabeth, Charles I., Strafford, or Louis XIV.