SOURCE: "The Historical Novel," in The Historical Novel and Other Essays, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901, pp. 3-28.

An American critic, playwright, and novelist, Matthews wrote extensively on world drama and served for a quarter century at Columbia University as professor of dramatic literature; he was the first to hold that title at an American university. Matthews was also a founding member and president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Because his criticism is deemed both witty and informative, Matthews has been called "perhaps the last of the gentlemanly school of critics and essayists" in America. In the following essay written in 1897, Matthews argues that the only truly representative and "trustworthy" historical novel is that whose subject matter is contemporary with the author's experience.

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his 'Note on Realism,' and declared that "the historical novel is dead," he did not think he would...