History failed women. History as a discipline has neglected women. Now with the rising popularity of historical fiction women are being donated an alternative narrative.

   The popularity of historical fiction is reflected in events such as the Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival. Where panels, despite their genres had heavily historical elements, such as gothic tales, mythology, and regency romances – suggesting there is something drawing readers, of all genres, to the past. This surge of historical fiction is valuable beyond the ritual of reading, historical fiction despite being anchored in entertainment, is being used as a channel to publish female-centred histories, largely for the first time.

One author who acknowledged the weight of fiction in a historical setting was Rosie Hewlett, writer of female-centred Greek mythology. Hewlett stated, “History is the Biggest running Boys Club ever” (2024) and that she “feel[s] like it’s a feminist act to write these books and reassert ourselves in history” (2024).

   We are currently seeing the flourish of historical fiction in popular culture, and regardless of intentions, these authors are giving previously voiceless women a narrative, agency or justice. These contemporary works are usually stories unheard, or misrepresented, they are documented “by men and for men… then the historians, who were all men” (Hewlett, 2024).  Which explains why history has rarely highlighted the female experience.

   The power in reading and writing historical fiction is that it allows girls and women to access the history that impacts or interests them- it provides them with, albeit fictional, access to the women that paved the way for them. Because “despite the massive proliferation of paper documents, of books, letters, business documents and ephemera that attends the historical moment of the twentieth century, still there are women’s stories that don’t seem to be regularly told”. (Battershill, et. al., 2024, p.7) Whilst historical fiction cannot be compared to academic works, it can foster curiosity or act as a starting point for further research. Further there is beauty in being able to access women’s stories, that have been told with care and respect – this is another advantage of having these stories from the perspective of women rather than accounts from the men who owned, ruled and burned them.

   Retelling these histories is as close to justice as some women will get. One example of this would be Witch trial fiction, whereby authors study archives and supplementary records in order to find the story they wish to tell. A success of this is Naomi Kelsey’s The Burnings (2023) which provides two witches with an alibis, humanising and exonerating a young girl and a midwife whose names are synonymous with witchcraft to this day because of the written historical record. Historical fiction in this sense serves some kind of justice and in a world in which women have only relatively recently been taught to read and write, it is extraordinary that contemporary women are choosing to publish stories for their predecessors.

(Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival, 2025)

Bibliography

Battershill, C., Staveley, A., Wilson N., (2024) ‘Making Fields: Women in Publishing’ in Wilson, N., Battershill, N., Heywood, S., Joseph, M., La Penna, D., Southworth, H., Staveley, A., Gordon, E.W., (eds.) The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900–2020, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp.1-17.

Hewlett, R., (2025) Goddesses and Gorgons: Rediscovering magic and witchcraft in Greek mythology with Rosie Hewlett and Phoenicia Rogerson – chaired by Lizzie Tiffin [Online] 26 September 2025, Edinburgh. [Accessed: 10/10/25] Available from:https://www.crowdcast.io/c/biq4qfk0s0hh.

Kelsey, N., (2023) The Burnings. Manchester: HarperCollins Publishers.

Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival, (2025) Available at: https://www.edwomensficfest.co.uk/ [Accessed 15/10/2025]