Historical Fantasy

Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into the narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those classes as Arthurian, Celtic, or Dark Ages could just as easily be placed in Historical Fantasy. Stories fitting this classification generally take place prior to the 20th century.

Films of this genre may have plots set in biblical or classical antiquity, often with plots based very loosely on mythology or legends of Greek-Roman history, or the surrounding cultures of the same era.

Historical fantasy usually takes one of four common approaches:

All four approaches have overlapped with the subgenre of steampunk commonly associated with science fiction literature. However, not all steampunk fantasy belongs to the historical fantasy subgenre.

After Antoine Galland's translation of One Thousand and One Nights became enormously popular in Europe, many writers wrote fantasy based on Galland's romantic image of the Middle East and North Africa. Early examples included the satirical tales of Anthony Hamilton, and Zadig by Voltaire. English-language work in the Arabian fantasy genre includes Rasselas (1759) by Samuel Johnson, Tales of the Genii by James Ridley (1764), Vathek by William Thomas Beckford (1786),George Meredith's The Shaving of Shagpat (1856), Khaled (1891) by F. Marion Crawford, and James Elroy Flecker's Hassan (1922).

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