ABSTRACT
The image of the state and its institutions has been reflected in historical romances since the time of Scott, though more recent female-centred romance makes little more than passing reference to the political settings. Although the historical romances from the 1890s and the earlier half of the twentieth century are concerned with exciting adventures, however, these are always set within a political context. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) revolves around the French Revolution, and so does Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche (1921), while A.E.W.Mason’s heroes in Lawrence Clavering (1897) and Clementina (1901) are Jacobites working on behalf of the Old Pretender against the Hanoverian state. This means that even though the books are not about politics, they nevertheless give a picture of a political situation in what purports to be a specific historical moment.
