Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall wins the first Walter Scott Prize

It was the favorite going in, and Wolf Hall has ultimately prevailed as the first-ever winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction (worth £25,000). Hilary Mantel has already won the 2009 Booker Prize and the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for her historical novel about Thomas Cromwell and his times; she now has another major award to add to her accolades. The announcement was made earlier today at the Borders Book Festival at Sir Walter Scott's home in Abbotsford. More from the BBC News report, which has quotes from both the judges and Mantel.

And in a related piece in the Scotsman, written before the prize was announced, academic Jerome de Groot (The Historical Novel) explains historical fiction's current popularity and relevance. This is one of the best essays of its type that I've seen, and I say this not just because I'm in agreement with its sentiments and have written similar things myself.

Historical novelists like Catherine Cookson, Jean Plaidy, and Georgette Heyer have become regular targets in the press, especially by writers who otherwise praise the genre. Plaidy et al are blamed for pushing historical fiction back into the Dark Ages, meaning the creators of the new breed of historical novel -- those written with a more literary flair -- had to overcome a decades-old stigma in order to gain critical acceptance. However, as de Groot points out, this wasn't so much a problem with the works themselves, which are quite good, as with their downtrodden status as "genre fiction" and their immense popularity. To quote: "Historical fiction became the preserve of the popular novelist, and those who were good at it – Bernard Cornwell, Philippa Gregory – were ignored or patronised despite their massive popularity and at times compelling narratives." How refreshing to see these and other writers given their proper due alongside their more literary counterparts.