Could a historian rely on a novelist: on «The history of Henry Esmond» by W. M. Thackeray as a historical novel

The author of the essay demonstrates some obvious similarities of history and literature from the point of view of anthropocentric comprehension of a human being in time. The essay develops the idea that literature is capable to reconstruct faithfully, quite often even more faithfully than any other spheres of knowledge, distant times and people who lived in those times. «The History of Henry Esmond» by W. M. Thackeray is to prove this idea. First of all, the author focuses his attention on plot-making and genre. The crucial point of the essay is that this historical novel, on the one hand, develops Walter Scott's tradition of the synthesis of social and political histories, and, on the other, it moves beyond it due to the deep psychological approach to depicting a hero, who narrates from his memory. The novel is stylized as the memoirs of a 'real' participant of some important events in the British history, such as changing of the Royal dynasties in the 1714 War of Spanish Succession, political rival of the Tories and the Whigs in the beginning of the XVIII century, religious contradictions and discussions, cultural and literary development of the time. The original approach of Thackeray to the period of the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries in Britain is being discussed in the essay. At the same time the author of the essay shows that the novel could be regarded as an interesting document of the Victorian times and its ideas of history.