Quote:
Originally Posted by Victoria
Me too, and now I wonder if I’ve taken Tey all wrong? Making up your sources is a hanging offence in most contexts. But it’s perfectly legit in fiction. Maybe she just thought it would be fun topic for an novel, and was pretty casual about the research. She could be looking down highly amused to see people treat the novel like an academic paper.  |
I don't think it's legit in the way Tey did it. I've read mysteries where someone is researching a past event or person and, eureka! finds hitherto unknown evidence that upends the common wisdom. I think that's fine; the author is clearly inventing the new evidence and only a foolish reader would think it's real. Tey, though, jumbled her invented sources and real ones such that a reader doesn't know which is which without further research. It's easy enough for us these days to use Google or check Wikipedia, but in 1951, how many people were hoodwinked?
I'm too lazy to try to find what historians at the time of publication had to say about Tey's book, but if I were a historian, I think I'd've been outraged.