Ainsworth's Historical Accuracy Reconsidered

After Sir Walter Scott made the historical novel popular with his Waverley novels, many other writers, including the major novelists Dickens and Thackeray and the minor novelists Ainsworth, G. P. R. James, Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, took up the form. But while the major novelists are credited with artistry in their use of history, the minor ones are generally regarded as hacks who used history indiscriminately in any way they wished in order to “make saleable novels.” The disparaging criticism of William Harrison Ainsworth's use of history exemplifies this unreflective critical tendency.For several probable reasons, critics have not been inclined to credit Ainsworth with using history responsibly; however, none of the reasons is based on an examination of his sources: his rapid ascension and decline as an important literary figure, his popularity with the common reading public, and his failure to progress artistically after his first few good novels. His artistic growth seems to have ended in 1840, forty-one years before the publication of his last novel. These critics have seen him as a “manufacturer of fiction,” and therefore not responsible in his treatment of historical fact and his use of historical documents, even though time and place are of crucial importance to Ainsworth. One could hardly regard Ainsworth more incorrectly. A close reading of Ainsworth's historical sources demonstrates that Ainsworth's history is extremely reliable in both generalities and particulars; his alterations, usually minor, serve only to adumbrate his concept of history as cycle. Thus, even though he is a novelist and not a historian, the faithful revelation of the past is central to his work. He examines history carefully in order to present truths about life and in order to demonstrate how history reveals these truths.