Making history come alive: The magic combination of fiction and sense of place

This paper examines the exploration of fiction in partnership with Higher Education museum visits in order to animate the past and better understand history. Using examples comprising novels and plays written in the past, plus historical fiction written in the present about the past, the paper argues that fiction can be a powerful tool, transporting the reader back in time and allowing empathy with people who lived long ago. The authors contend that fiction’s potential to bring the past alive is often more fully realised when readers visit the places where fictional narratives are set or written. The five examples given relate to visits to heritage museums, where an historic site is preserved and artefacts displayed; and also to living museums, where the museum visitor is guided and assisted by role-playing guides, often dressed in period costume. These examples reveal how the fiction-museum partnership works, resulting in a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the past than could ever be gained from textbooks alone.