The Historian is the 2005 debut novel of American author Elizabeth Kostova. The plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula. The tale is told primarily from the perspective of Paul’s daughter, who is never named. It was the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in U.S. history.
About The Historian in brief
The Historian is the 2005 debut novel of American author Elizabeth Kostova. The plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula. The tale is told primarily from the perspective of Paul’s daughter, who is never named. It became the first debut novel to become number one on The New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale. Sony has bought the film rights and, as of 2007, was planning an adaptation. The Historian has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novel, adventure novel, detective fiction, travelogue, postmodern historical novel, epistolary epic, and historical thriller. It was the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in U.S. history. In general, the novel received mixed reviews. While some praised the book’s description of the setting, others criticized its structure and lack of tonal variety. It is concerned with history’s role in society and representation in books, as well as the nature of good and evil. The novel ties together three separate narratives using letters and oral accounts: that of Paul’s mentor in the 1930s, that ofPaul in the 1950s, and that of the narrator herself in the 1970s. Part I opens in 1972 Amsterdam, where Paul finds an old vellum-bound book with a woodcut of a dragon in the center associated with Dracula. Paul took the book to his mentor, Professor Bartholomew Rossi, and was shocked to find that Rossi had found a similar handmade book when he was a graduate student in the 30s.
After meeting with Paul, Rossi disappears; smears of blood on his desk and the ceiling of his office are the only traces that remain. The bulk of the novel focuses on the 50s timeline, which follows Paul’s adventures. Later she is trying to prevent their research into Dracula, but she is unpersuaded. The librarian is then run over by the car in front of the library and apparently killed. After finding letters addressed to her that reveal her mother has left him, she sets out to find him. Although he does not remain there, she eventually sends her home, eventually finding out that he has left her home. As the novel is slowly made clear in the novel, it is clear that the narrator’s mother is slowly making her way back to the United States to find out what happened to her husband. She is eventually reunited with him and they go on a quest to find her mother, who has apparently died in a car accident. The book is not a horror novel, but rather an eerie tale. It explores the relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic East. The novel received the 2006 Book Sense award for Best Adult Fiction and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. It also received the 2005 Book Sense Award for Best Young Adult Fiction, and the 2006 Quill Awards for Best Short Story and Best Short Fiction.
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This page is based on the article The Historian published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 16, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
