SOURCE: "The Victorian Era: Social Reform in Fact and Fiction," in English History in English Fiction, 1940. Reprint by Kennikat Press, 1970, pp. 251-69.

In the following excerpt, Marriott presents an overview of nineteenth-century historical fiction, noting that its authors were concerned with portraying the Victorian way of life and discussing the social issues of that time.

At each stage of our journey the way becomes more arduous, the impedimenta heavier, the problems more baffling. That is pre-eminently true of the Victorian era. The embarrassment is, however, to some extent relieved by the fact that not all the great Victorian novelists dealt with contemporary affairs. Thackeray's (1811-63) history, for instance, belongs to the eighteenth century. The best-beloved characters of Charles Dickens (1812-70) are very early if not prae-Victorian. Even George Eliot (1819-80), though she herself had more of the Zeit-geist than any of her contemporaries, drew inspiration for her best...