Women in Historical Fiction: Reclaiming the Stories History Left Behind

My experience writing women in historical fiction

The very first novel I wrote (now, for the time being, relegated to the drawer of unpublished stories) centred on an 18-year-old serving girl named Sarah Walker. In the early nineteenth century, Sarah worked in her family’s lodging house in Holborn, where she caught the attention of the celebrated essayist William Hazlitt. When Sarah later rejected him, Hazlitt responded by publishing a scandalous account of their relationship, documenting their encounters and the despairing letters he shared with his friends. The result was a deeply unsettling and wildly unflattering portrait of Sarah, which was for me all the more poignant because the version of her that has survived is not truly her. It is Hazlitt’s version. Sarah’s ‘voice’ was, in fact, his.

For women especially, the historical record has often been incomplete. Their letters may have been lost, their achievements attributed to others, their voices excluded from official accounts. Historical fiction gives us a chance to imagine those missing pieces, to ask questions where the archives fall silent. 

I hope one day to return to that shelved novel, but writing it awakened something that has stayed with me ever since: a fascination with the lives of women in history, particularly those who were denied the opportunity to tell their own stories.

It made me question how many women have been remembered not through their own words, choices, and experiences, but through the interpretations of others. And how much might still be waiting to be uncovered.

The importance of women’s stories in historical fiction

For centuries, women’s experiences have often existed in the margins of history. Archives frequently tell us what happened, but they do not always reveal the emotional landscape behind those moments.

It is therefore particularly exciting to see the remarkable resurgence of historical fiction centred on women in recent years — female rulers whose voices were muted by the men who chronicled their reigns; artists, scientists, activists, and thinkers whose contributions were overshadowed; ordinary women whose lives may never have made it into the official record, yet whose courage, resilience, and choices helped shape the world around them.

These novels go beyond retellings, and have become acts of reclamation.

For centuries, women’s experiences have often existed in the margins of history. Archives frequently tell us what happened, but they do not always reveal the emotional landscape behind those moments. What did a woman feel as she stood at the centre of a political crisis? What fears did she carry when making an impossible decision? What conversations happened behind closed doors? What hopes, ambitions, and private struggles existed beyond the official record?

This is where historical fiction becomes such a powerful companion to history itself.

You can read The Novelry’s guide to the genre of historical fiction here.

Most formal historical training teaches us to focus on facts and evidence. Historians cannot assume emotion, conversation, or the adrenaline rush of a moment unless it was recorded. We work with what survives in the archives: documents, letters, accounts, and artifacts.

Those sources are invaluable because they are the foundations upon which we build our understanding of the past, but when I discovered historical fiction, I realised it offered a way to explore the spaces between those facts. It allowed me to consider the human experience behind the historical record — the hopes, fears, desires, and choices that may never have been documented, but which shaped the lives of those who came before us.

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That understanding shapes every book I write, tethering each story to true events and filtering it through a historian’s analytical lens, while venturing beneath the surface to discover what might have happened on a deeper, more intimate level.

History ultimately tells us what the archives recorded, while historical fiction asks what the heart might have said, and those burning questions (what did she feel, what did she want, what choices did she have?) lie at the centre of so many contemporary historical novels about women. Authors are looking beyond the traditional narratives and inviting us to reconsider the women we thought we knew... and, perhaps more importantly, to discover the women we never knew at all.

We have seen this in novels that revisit the lives of famous historical figures, but also in stories that shine a light on women whose names have faded over time. Writers are breathing life into queens, rebels, healers, creators, and survivors — not by changing history, but by looking more closely at the humanity within it. A woman did not have to sit on a throne, command an army, or sign a treaty to have a story worth telling. The lives of women from every walk of life contain moments of bravery, sacrifice, ambition, love, and transformation. 

Prominent historical fiction books that feature women, from Mrs Dickens to Hamnet

Some of my favourite historical fiction works are those that take a woman who has been reduced to a footnote and allow readers to see her as a person rather than a symbol. These novels demonstrate the extraordinary power of placing women’s voices at the heart of historical storytelling:

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

In Hamnet, award-winning author Maggie O’Farrell reimagines Anne Hathaway, William Shakespeare’s wife (referred to in the text as Agnes), transforming a woman long overshadowed by her famous husband into a fully realised individual with her own intelligence, passions, and emotional landscape. Set in Stratford upon Avon, William Shakespeare’s famous England home, the novel transcends the themes of Shakespeare’s own plays, serving as a love story, a tragedy, and a study of family, fame, life, and death, through the prism of William, Agnes, and their three children.

Rather than attempting to rewrite history, O’Farrell explores the spaces where the record falls silent — the marriage to William Shakespeare, the motherhood, the grief surrounding their son Hamnet, and the love behind one of literature’s most famous names. Using a close third-person perspective, the book is able to give weight to both sides of the couple with a dual POV, looking at the grief from all angles. The novel’s success is testament to the power of telling a familiar tale from an entirely new (and deeply moving) point of view, with Agnes’ story just as powerful as the man who stands at the epicentre of English literature.

The book has since sold over 2 million copies worldwide and been adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Actor Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of Agnes for the screen has been applauded for being both ethereal and voracious.

Constanza by Rachel Blackmore

Rachel Blackmore’s Costanza similarly takes a woman who has often existed in relation to a famous man and places her at the centre of her own story.

Costanza Piccolomini Bonucelli, remembered historically as the muse and lover of sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, becomes more than an inspiration for someone else’s art. Blackmore restores her ambition, complexity, and agency, asking readers to consider the woman who looked back rather than simply the woman who was observed.

This interesting and sensual study of an artist’s muse brings extra texture to their relationship, while giving us an insight into being the subject of an illicit scandal in Ancient Rome. While Costanza may be immortalised in marble, Rachel Blackmore portrays her as a wronged and resilient character, reclaiming her agency and reimagining her whole narrative.

Joan: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Katherine J. Chen

In Joan, Katherine J. Chen revisits Joan of Arc, a figure so familiar that she has almost become separated from her humanity. Beyond the saint, martyr, and national symbol of female power, this fascinating story reveals a young woman with fears, desires, determination, and an extraordinary sense of purpose, stripping away mystical elements to focus on a secular, resilient warrior driven by human grit rather than divine intervention. Now, Joan is lifted from the page as a living, breathing person.

The novel reminds us that these icons were once real people with real needs and struggles before they became legends.

This dialogue spoken to Joan in the book paints a deft picture of the female struggle.

Consider what people will think when they hear this: A woman on a battlefield. A woman fighting in an army. A woman sent to free a city from siege. It is laughable, no? And there are many at court laughing already. At you, at me, at poor le Maçon, despite all the arguments he has made in your favor. They laugh, too, at the Dauphin for even meeting with you. But I will tell you something I have learned in my forty-eight years. Either a woman must be raised high, higher than the heads of men, or she will be crushed beneath their feet. So, we must raise you high. We must raise you to the height of the heavens themselves.
— Joan: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Katherine J. Chen

I Am Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons

In I Am Cleopatra, Natasha Solomons offers a fresh perspective on one of history’s most mythologised women. For centuries, Cleopatra, who was crowned Pharaoh after her father’s death, has been defined through the eyes of the men around her as a seductress, political pawn, or romantic figure.

Solomons instead explores Cleopatra’s childhood and rise to power, telling her story as a strategist, scholar, and ruler navigating a dangerous world through intelligence, courage, and political skill. By juxtaposing her voice with that of Caesar’s Roman mistress, Servilia, the novel delivers a nuanced study of female power and survival in a male-dominated empire. 

Natasha Solomons’s other novels have celebrated other female figures of history, such as I, Mona Lisa, which focuses on the subject behind Da Vinci’s famous painting.

Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper

Elodie Harper’s Boudicca’s Daughter shifts the focus from one of history’s most famous rebels to the woman left in her aftermath. Through Solina, the daughter of Boudicca, Harper explores what happens to those who must live with the consequences of history’s great moments. From the history books, we do know that Boudicca had children, but here, Harper fleshes out what their stories might be, giving us a fascinating insight into a daughter stepping out of her famous mother’s shadow.

Solina may be connected to a legendary figure, but here we see her with her own fears, hopes, and determination to survive. 

Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes

Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes brings another overlooked woman into the spotlight: Catherine Hogarth Dickens, Charles Dickens’s wife. Often remembered only in relation to her author husband’s literary genius, Catherine is given space to become the heroine of her own life. Howes explores marriage, expectation, fame, and the quiet endurance of a woman whose story has too often been told from someone else’s perspective.

The beauty of historical fiction is the invitation it gives us to look at the past with deeper curiosity and empathy. With Mrs Dickens, the author gives us a new spotlight on Catherine, along with the general struggles of Victorian women thrust into marriage and family life at such a young age.

Tied to one of the most celebrated novelists of all time, this novel offers a spotlight on Catherine’s life, albeit fictional. We also meet an orphan character called Anne, and explore how her story intertwines with the Dickens family.

London’s Victorian era was a particularly challenging time for women of all classes, and through both Catherine and Anne, we can see what happens when a life is changed through immense privilege.

The themes of all of these stories offer compelling reads into so many different women, exploring romance, death, grief, careers, and the communities that often stifled them.

How to write fiction responsibly from a historical time period

History ultimately tells us what the archives recorded, while historical fiction asks what the heart might have said, and those burning questions (what did she feel, what did she want, what choices did she have?) lie at the centre of so many contemporary historical novels about women.
— Susan Stokes-Chapman

Responsible fiction of this genre begins with research, respect, and a commitment to understanding the world in which these people lived, but it also recognises that people are more than the records they leave behind.

For women especially, the historical record has often been incomplete. Their letters may have been lost, their achievements attributed to others, their voices excluded from official accounts. This genre gives us a chance to imagine those missing pieces, to ask questions where the archives fall silent. 

Whether it’s characters from modest beginnings or rulers and queens, these vivid women of the past were never truly forgotten. Their stories have simply been waiting for us to listen.

Members of The Novelry can watch our special Q&A with Susan Stokes-Chapman in our Catch Up TV library.

Through writing courses, one-to-one coaching with bestselling authors and Big Five publishing editors, and partnerships with leading literary agencies, The Novelry guides writers along a proven pathway from first idea to a finished, submission-ready novel.