Although it consists of 350 pages of largely turgid Leninist analysis of Western literature of debatable relevance to literary criticism, the book is not without merit. Historical-sociological analysis comes to life in the more strictly literary parts of the book, notably in contrasting the novel and the drama. (1963)

After a lengthy opening study of Scott, this book touches only occasionally on famous authors--Goethe, Cooper, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Thomas Mann--focusing mostly on books that are forgotten today, like Hugo's 93, Anatole France's The Gods Are Athirst, Stefan Zweig's Erasmus, Heinrich Mann's Henri IV, Leon Feuchtwanger's Josephus and Jew Suss. It pays occasionally embarrassing compliments to Stalin, but naughty politics are no impediment to genuinely provocative criticism. What is a historical novel? How does it relate to epic, historical drama, social novel, to trends like romanticism and naturalism? If nothing else, Lukacs offers a novel way of thinking about what a novel is, should be, and can do, infused with the militant anti-fascism of the Popular Front era, with fascinating discussions of issues like the representation of war and revolution, of "heroes" and "the people," and the impossibility of representing "genius" in the novel. This book is pretty tough going at times due to the unfamiliar books that it analyzes but the ideas are accessible and will provide most readers with at least one epiphany. ( )

Extremely valuable literary criticism, applicable to many different kinds of criticism and scholarship. He links the rise of historical fiction to the rise of nationalism. ( )

The Historical Novel by Georg Lukacs (1989) ( )