BMJ  2007;334:159 (20 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39066.561551.B7

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A historical whopper

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Does it matter—in so far as anything literary matters these days—if historical fiction is inaccurate? Does anyone mind if Richard III is a tendentious, even a sycophantic and opportunist, justification of the Tudor dynasty, and that the real Richard III of history was a jolly Good Thing (in the Sellar and Yeatman sense), or at least a very much less Bad Thing?

Not long ago, I read Sebastian Faulks's novel Human Traces (reviewed in BMJ 2005;331:1029 doi: 10.1136/bmj.331.7523.1029). It brought out the inner pedant in me: there was more rejoicing in my mind over one historical mistake than over 99 true facts.

As it happens, there is a whopper at the very heart of the book, which concerns the relationship between two 19th century alienists, one French and the other English. Their friendship undergoes strain as one of them remains faithful to the organicist, strictly medical view of psychiatric . . . [Full text of this article]

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