'There are essentially two kinds of novel set in the past. In the first, we follow the fortunes of a real person, such as Henry VIII's Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell, the protagonist of Hilary Mantel's celebrated trilogy. This is a flexible genre, in which the portrait does not have to be accurate to be convincing: witness Peter Carey's brilliant impersonation of Ned Kelly in The True History of the Kelly Gang. These works stand or fall according to the psychological interest they create.' (Publication summary)