Historical Fantasy - Overview

Overview

Historical fantasy usually takes one of three common approaches:

• magic, mythical creatures or other supernatural elements co-exist invisibly with the mundane world, with the majority of people none the wiser. In this, it has a close similarity to contemporary fantasy. This commonly overlaps with the secret history trope. Alternatively, the author's narrative shows or implies that by the present day, magic will have retreated from the world so as to allow history to revert to the familiar version we know. This take place in Lord Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, which takes place in Spain, but which ends with the magician in it removing himself, and all creatures of romance, from the world, thereby ending the Golden Age.
• The story takes place in an alternative history with clear differences from our own.
• The story takes place in a secondary world with specific and recognizable parallels to a known place (or places) and a definite historical period, rather than taking the geographic and historical "mix and match" favored by other works of secondary world fantasy. However, many if not most, works by fantasy authors derive ideas and inspiration from real events, making the borders of this approach history.

All three approaches have overlapped with the sub-genre of steampunk commonly associated with science fiction literature. However, not all steampunk fantasy belongs to the historical fantasy sub-genre.