'Self, that ever intrusive guest’: constructed authoring selves in the historical romance, 1760s–1830s

The focus of this study is the intersection between the art of fiction, historiography and the projection of an authoring self in historical romances first published in the period from the 1760s to 1830s. The rise of the modern romance in the eighteenth century is intimately bound with emerging philosophies of history writing and the Gothic aesthetic: authors of such fictions engage with ethical questions about the narrativising of history, the agency of the author of fiction and its confusion with that of the historian (and vice versa), and the design and purpose of different species of history writing.

In the works scrutinised by this study, authors project designed selves via narrative frames, whether those are Gothic ‘found manuscript’ frame narratives, where the story’s origins are discovered to the reader, or more conventional-seeming introductions and prefaces. Within framing structures authors manipulate and project multi-faceted identities, engage with the historiographical debate, and challenge the idea that there is a distinct boundary between historical fact and fiction.

The Romantic concept of the author of fiction as an artist figure, whose motives, intent and processes are central to the understanding of a work of art, permeates philosophies of fiction and history in the period. Through metaphors connected with architecture, construction, visual rendering and the arranging of the audience’s aesthetic experience, philosophers and authors of the period ruminate on the role of the author as a ‘maker’ of text. The preoccupation with crafting, assembling, framing and editing is reflected in the ways in which historical romances are constructed. It also draws attention to the nature of the narratives as a collection of parts that can be dismantled, allowing for the possibility of the deconstruction of history and the authoring self that makes it.