This is not a book on how to write historical fiction. It is a book on how not to write historical fiction.
If you love history and you’re hard at work on your first historical
novel, but you’re wondering if your medieval Irishmen would live on
potatoes, if your 17th-century pirate would use a revolver, or if your
hero would be able to offer Marie-Antoinette a box of chocolate bonbons .
. .
(The answer to all these is “Absolutely not!”)
. . . then Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders is the book for you.
Medieval Underpants will guide you through the factual
mistakes that writers of historical fiction—both beginners and
professionals—most often make, and show you how to avoid them. From
fictional characters crossing streets that wouldn’t exist for another
sixty (or two thousand) years, to South American foods on ancient Roman
plates, to 1990s slang in the mouths of 1940s characters, Susanne Alleyn
exposes the often hilarious, always painful goofs that turn up most
frequently in fiction set in the past.
Alleyn stresses the hazards to writers of assuming too much about
details of life in past centuries, providing numerous examples of
mistakes that could easily have been avoided. She also explores
commonly-confused topics such as the important difference between the
British titles “Lord John Smith” and “John, Lord Smith” and why they’re
not interchangeable, and provides simple guidelines for getting them
right. In a wide assortment of chapters including Food and Plants;
Travel; Guns; Money; Hygiene; Dialogue; Attitudes; Research; and, of
course, Ladies' Underpants (there weren't any), she offers tips on how to avoid errors and
anachronisms while continually reminding writers of the necessity of
meticulous historical research.