Many writers use historical settings like a background for adventure or fantasy stories, or to describe enduring qualities of human nature. WWII stories, in particular, have proven popular like a backdrop for thrills, spills and illustrating indomitable human spirit. Jill Paton Walsh’s powerful The Dolphin Crossing (1967) captures the flavour of the times and describes how two boys risk life and limb in an attempt to rescue British soldiers stranded at Dunkirk.

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.