Fireweed (1969), by the same author, is about a fight for survival on London’s bombed streets. Robert Westall’s The Machine Gunners (1975) relates the adventures of a boy who finds a machine gun in the wreck of a German bomber. In Back Home (1985) Michelle Magorian explores an ex-evacuee’s adjustment to post-war London life.

Leon Garfield’s adventures are mostly set in the 18th century, although Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart stories are fast-paced thrillers set at the end of the 19th century. Penelope Lively interweaves past and present in novels such as Astercote (1970), The Driftway (1972), A Stitch in Time (1976) and also the Revenge of Samuel Stokes (1981). Dick King-Smith’s Lady Daisy (1992) is about a Victorian doll that wakes up within the 20th century, while Clive King’s Stig of the Dump (1963) is the story of the caveman living in modern times.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962) by Joan Aiken begins a series of fantasies set within the imaginary times of James III. Peter Dickinson’s Changes trilogy begins with The Weathermonger (1968), an unusual tale in which the individuals of Britain enter a mental Dark Ages, after Merlin’s exhumation. Peter Dickinson has also written mainstream historical novels The Dancing Bear (1972), for example, about a young slave from Byzantium and Tulku (1979), set throughout China’s Boxer Rebellion.

A writer of similar stature, Henry Treece has contributed 25 novels towards the genre, including Roman stories – Legions of the Eagle (1954), for example – and a Viking trilogy, republished in one volume in 1985 as The Viking Saga. He has also composed about the Italian Renaissance and the tragic Children’s Crusade that took place in the early 13th century.

Geoffrey Trease has composed over a hundred books for kids. Bows Against the Barons (1934) is really a Robin Hood story with a difference. Cue for Treason (1940) begins a series of English Civil War stories. The WhiteNights of St Petersburg (1967) describes the Russian Revolution, although Song for a Tattered Flag (1992) is set throughout the Romanian Rising of 1989. Trease’s latest novel, Curse on the Sea (1996) travels back towards the 11th century to join King Charles journeying to Scotland for his coronation.

Other popular writers of historical fiction novels include Peter Carter, Robert Leeson, Ronald Welch, Barbara Willard and Cynthia Harnett, whose Carnegie Medalwinning The Wool-Pack (1951) may be the story of a 15thcentury merchant. Ian Serailler’s The Silver Sword (1956) and Esther Hautzig’s The Endless Steppe (1968) are based on true stories of refugee life throughout WWII.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiographical Small House stories are even much more popular now than when they were first written. The Small Home within the Big Woods (1932) introduces the Ingalls family, Ma, Pa, Mary, baby Carrie and Laura herself, and the pains and pleasures of log cabin existence. Eight much more books, including an unfinished novel found following the author’s death, describe the family’s various homes and hardships, and Laura’s later existence as a wife and teacher. The stories are unusual in that they ‘grow up’ using the reader, becoming increasingly adult in style as the series progresses.

Other tales set in America’s pioneer days consist of Carol Ryrie Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn (1935) and its sequel Magical Melons (1944). New Zealand looks to its pioneer days in E MEllin’s The Kids of Clearwater Bay (1969) and the Greenstone Axe (1975), although Ivan Southhall’s King from the Sticks (1979) is the very first in a trilogy about Australia’s early history.

Like horror stories and romantic tales, historical fiction novels stem from 18th-century Gothic novels, most of which were loosely set within the Middle Ages. It was not until the early 19th century, however, that stories with a strong emphasis on carefully reconstructed or imaginatively re-created history appeared. Sir Walter Scott introduced the genre to Britain with Waverley (1814), a novel set throughout the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and Rob Roy (1817), a tale inspired by the exploits of the Scottish outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor. Scott’s most well-liked novel, Ivanhoe (1819) is really a vivid portrait of life during the reign of Richard I.

The first great historical fiction novels were for young readers followed in 1847, when Captain Marryat published The Children of the New Forest, the story off our youngsters orphaned by the English Civil War. Children also enjoyed Charles Kingsley’s Elizabethan saga Westward Hol (1855) and Hereward the Wake (1866), a story about an 11th-century outlaw, although neither was written specifically for young individuals. Other favourites included R D Blackmore’s Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (1869), R L Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886) and G A Henty’s tales. Mark Twain’s The Prince and also the Pauper (1882), a fantasy about the future King Edward VI of England, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) are early American examples from the genre.