Historical fiction is a category of literature and movies used to describe books and movies that are fictional, yet take place in historical settings. While many fictional works take place in today's society and today's time, many authors choose to take us back to an earlier time period, such as the early 1900s, or even the 1600s, 1700s or 1800s, in order to provide us with a unique perspective of what life was like in those times. While an author may take the time to painstakingly research the historical period during which their story takes place, the story itself will still be considered fictional, since it did not really happen; or if it did, it did not happen the way the author is telling it. Many stories about Henry the Eighth, for example, are classified as historical fiction, because while they include many facts and accurate details about Henry, his family and the time during which he lived, many aspects of the story are nontheless made up, or embellished.
There's no doubt that historical fiction is popular. Many people of today's time are fascinated with how life was in earlier time periods. And since we can't go back to that time period ourselves, and accurate history books are often rather dry reading material, what better way to explore and discover an earlier time period than to allow a historical fiction book to take us back to it?
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