Signing with the Dead: The Contract behind Historical Fiction

The typical criticism that a work of historical fiction is aesthetically flawed because it is historically inaccurate is puzzling. In this article, I argue for a fundamental modification of Iskra Fileva’s contract solution to the puzzle of historical fiction. I agree with Christopher Bartel and Fileva that other solutions in the literature, like appealing to genre, imaginative resistance, and import–export inconsistency, fail to solve the puzzle. However, I recommend that the contract between creator and audience be expanded to include a third party: the historical figures featured in the historical fiction. In this way, we make contracts with the dead when we engage with historical fiction.