ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the important role that John Everett Millais's images play in Martineau's historical fiction of the 1860s, as both artists create a sense of historicity, represent characters in relation to the shaping forces of history, and theorize history itself. It attends to the dynamics of illustrated historical fictions and the role that plays in the complex narratological balancing of the known and the unknown; the great and the ordinary. The chapter argues that the interplay between Martineau's verbal and Millais's visual texts contributes to the theorization of history and the development of character in relation to history in three central ways: it undermines the assumption that the private can exist outside the political; it emphasizes women as agents of history; and it interrogates the notion of history' as comprehensible to actors in the crucible of its making. Importantly, the historiettes extend the view of historical engagement to women, whom Millais and Martineau consistently depict as agents in history.
