Historical History

A poster's comment from a discussion about starting a separate sub-group for readers of the sub-genre of historical cozy mysteries:

Since Christie, Sayers, Allingham, Tey, J.D, Carr, and not to forget A.C. Doyle, are high in my regard and my favorite type of cozy reads, you can believe I'd be there. 

I know I'm not alone here, but I really wish people would not confuse historical fiction with fiction written in times we now consider history.

Christie, Sayers, and Doyle all set their novels contemporary to when they were written.  That is not historical fiction!  It should now be more properly considered simply fiction, but at the time would have been contemporary fiction.

I find it very hard to believe that readers of any kind don't understand the distinction And it's not just mysteries that lead me to this conclusion.

I feel the same when people describe Dickens or Austen as writers of historical fiction.  Both wrote novels set contemporary to their lives.

In discussing this with dearest, he asked a very interesting question:  Do we consider Orwell wrote historical fiction because it is now 30 years after 1984 was set, even though that novel was written in 1948?

It is difficult because the words and meanings are similar.  But they are not the same.  Just because it's history does not make it historical.