Text to Screen and Back – Books Behind Your Favorite Shows
- Kayleigh Jackson
- Mar 21, 2021
- 10 min read
Updated: Apr 27, 2022
As we’ve established, I am a big history nerd. My favorite genre of TV show or movie is “vaguely historical but also full of violence and romance” which, thankfully, seems to be a top genre for other people nowadays as well. For context, let’s take a glimpse at my IMDb watchlist:
I mean, you get it by now, right?
Thankfully (for me, at least), there is SO MUCH content out there surrounding these fascinating historical topics. Whether it’s actual, non-fiction history or compelling historical fiction, you can guarantee there’s some book out there about it.
Watching these shows, it’s best to assume from the start they are barely historically accurate. The most common change is to swap a character’s name – while there may have been four Catherines in a court in reality, there can only be one in a TV show to help casual viewers keep it straight.
Parsing out who’s who after those name changes is one of my favorite things. Is this a real figure actually portrayed here under a different guise? Have they morphed several together to make the show’s plot more compelling? Have they dropped a major player altogether? It’s fascinating to see the changes between reality and TV, and which shows hold more to what we know of the past and which take more liberties.
(RELATED TO THE TOPIC OF “CHANGES TO MAKE THE PLOT MORE COMPELLING,” PLEASE NOTE: MANY OF THESE SHOWS CONTAIN GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, AND SEXUALITY. WATCH AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.)
Another thing I really love about diving into books about a topic after getting hooked on the show is that I have faces to match with characters. Maybe literary or historical purists would look down on that, but it’s so much easier to follow along with a convoluted historical text when you have a modern actor whose face and mannerisms you can tack into your mind as you read. Heck, even for Game of Thrones – pure fantasy – I know I could never have made it through the books if I hadn’t watched the show first and matched faces to names.
There are a lot of great, if not necessarily accurate shows, saved to my watchlist, and some more than others I’ve resonated with and delved into. We’ll cover a few of those below.
Black Sails
Kids, I love pirates. I have always loved pirates. This show somehow made me love pirates even more, and I have given multiple people my STARZ streaming login information just so they can watch this show.
I gave up on it the first time, I admit. It has a very slow start – long episodes with lots of exposition to start off. But if you can power through the first few, you become so entwined with the plot and these characters and hate every second you spent doubting it.
Frankly, “Black Sails” would not even exist without a book behind it. It’s based on the characters from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, but a few decades before the events of that classic unfold. It follows Captain Flint as he plots, schemes, and murders his way to become a mainstay of the “Golden Age” of Piracy in the Caribbean. It contains fictional Treasure Island characters such as Flint himself, “Long John” Silver, and Billy Bones, but it also ties in iconic figures of true pirate history such as Charles Vane, “Calico Jack” Rackham, Anne Bonny, Benjamin Hornigold, and Blackbeard himself.
STARRING: Toby Stephens, Zach McGowan, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Luke Arnold, Toby Schmitz, Hannah New, Clara Paget, Tom Hopper, Luke Roberts
WATCH: STARZ
READ: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson; Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean and Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly; A Cruising Voyage ‘Round the World by Woodes Rogers; The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard; Pirate Women by Laura Sook Duncombe; A General History of the Pyrates by Charles Johnson (generally accepted to be Daniel Defoe)
Spartacus
The only thing I dislike about the “Spartacus” and “Medici” series is that they have different names between seasons. In particular, this post addresses all the seasons of the STARZ show “Spartacus” except for S2 – “Gods of the Arena.”
The first season, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” features the inimitable Andy Whitfield as the titular character. However, Whitfield was battling and ultimately succumbed to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2011, and the character of Spartacus had to be re-cast (now Liam McIntyre) following his untimely death. “Gods of the Arena” focuses instead on gladiators Gannicus and Oenomaus, prior to Spartacus joining his owner’s gladiatorial school, as Whitfield found he had relapsed and the future of the show was up in the air.
So as much as I enjoy Dustin Clare and Peter Mensah, we’ll just skip right over that prequel and focus only on the episodes that include Spartacus himself.
The thing I found most intriguing was that the Spartacus Revolt – a part of the Third Servile War just before the years of the First Triumvirate – was so incredibly well documented. Naturally, the Romans would want word to spread and discourage any future slaves from rising up again, but given that this was the Third Servile War that clearly hadn’t been the most effective. The sheer power and might of Spartacus was what ensured this war went down in legend, as much as Caesar and Crassus would hope otherwise.
Many of the main characters, including Crixus and Gannicus, were well-documented former slaves who did in fact partake in this rebellion and lead alongside Spartacus. While the details and drama are mostly imagined, the accuracy of battles and personal histories is unparalleled. It may have been 2100 years ago, but we can still see the brutality and callousness that led to this revolt and what eternally etched it into the pages of history.
STARRING: Andy Whitfield, Liam McIntyre, John Hannah, Lucy Lawless, Craig Parker, Manu Bennett, Peter Mensah, Dustin Clare, Dan Feuerriegel
WATCH: STARZ, Netflix
READ: The Spartacus War by Barry S. Strauss; The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar; SPQR by Mary Beard; Pax Romana by Adrian Goldsworthy
The Borgias & Medici
Allow me to start by being completely transparent: I would not care about the Medici series quite as much if Daniel Sharman was not in it. However, since he is, I do, and immediately dismiss every source that says Lorenzo de Medici, “il Magnifico,” was the ugliest man they’ve ever seen.
Because, like. Daniel Sharman.
I’m combining these two TV series because, while covering mostly distinct eras of the Renaissance, they still combine two of the strongest power brokers and intertwine their stories just as the reality did.
The Medici established themselves first, primarily through Cosimo de Medici’s economic takeover in the late 1300s. His son, Piero, and grandson, Lorenzo “il Magnifico,” would represent the golden age of the dynasty (even though Piero was “The Gouty” and generally useless). Meanwhile, the Borgias, Spanish expats, arose in the Roman aristocracy in the mid-1400s, culminating in the infamous reign of Pope Alexander VI and his children, primarily the ruthless Cesare Borgia and much-maligned Lucrezia Borgia.
For me, the temporal transition through “Medici” is a perfect lead-in to the few years represented in “The Borgias.” “Medici”‘s first season addresses Cosimo and, to a lesser degree, Piero the Gouty. The second and third address “Il Magnifico” and his family, along with the intrigues of the Pazzi conspiracy. Meanwhile, by the time Rodrigo Borgia is elected pope and his family’s full power swells, the Medici dynasty is already down to its dregs.
These shows, production-wise, are not intertwined. But for anyone interested in this period, the ties and timeline are engrossing. The Borgias still encounter Medici descendants as they work to fund their construction and wars, and ultimately, the Medici family would hold their ties to power far longer than any Borgia.
STARRING: Jeremy Irons, Francois Arnaud, Holliday Grainger, David Oakes, Lotte Verbeek, Colm Feore (“The Borgias”); Daniel Sharman, Dustin Hoffman, Synnove Karlsen, Sean Bean, Annabel Scholey, Bradley James, Richard Madden (“Medici”) WATCH: Both on Netflix – “Medici” is a Netflix series while “The Borgias” is produced by SHOTIME but currently available on Netflix READ: The Deadly Sisterhood by Leonie Frieda; The Borgias by G.J. Meyer; The Borgias and Their Enemies and The House of Medici by Christopher Hibbert; Blood and Beauty and In The Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant; The Prince by Niccolo Macchiavelli; April Blood by Lauro Martines; The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance by Paul Strathern
Reign
Okay, this is a CW show. This is about everything you’d expect from a CW show. However, the historical accuracy is astonishingly legit, if we move aside from the name changes and the actual age of the main characters. Still, I think we all know by this point that no teen drama actually casts teens as their main characters.
“Reign” follows Mary, Queen of Scots, from her arrival in France as a teen betrothed to Francois II, through their short marriage, her return to Scotland, marriage to Lord Darnley, his death/murder and her subsequent abduction/marriage (both depending on who you ask) with Lord Bothwell, and ultimate capture and death by beheading by her cousin, Elizabeth I.
Because it’s a CW series, everyone is absolutely beautiful and not exactly age-appropriate, plus there are some extraneous characters thrown in for the plot. But, to be fair, Mary’s entire cadre as she arrived in France was comprised of other young women named Mary. That would have been astonishingly confusing for a YA TV show. Plus, a hot (yet totally invented) bastard half-brother-to-the-dauphin never hurt anything either.
Despite the added drama, we don’t totally know what happened in Mary’s court either in France or Scotland, so the political intrigues certainly could have occurred to some degree. It’s enjoyable, full of beautiful people in period costumes, tossing bits of razor-sharp wit and schemes at one another, and while we know the true story doesn’t end happily for Mary, we live, laugh, and love along with the dynamic Adelaide Kane throughout the four seasons of this show.
STARRING: Adelaide Kane, Toby Regbo, Will Kemp, Megan Follows, Celina Sinden, Rose Williams, Jonathan Keltz, Torrance Coombs, Anna Popplewell WATCH: Netflix READ: Game of Queens by Sarah Gristwood; Mary, Queen of Scots and the Isles by Margaret George; The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone; Queen of Scots by John Guy; Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Harmon
Versailles
“Versailles” holds the distinction of being the most expensive TV series filmed in France, and you can absolutely tell it from the details of the show.
This show follows the Sun King, Louis XIV, and his historic affairs, reforms, and court intrigues during his astonishingly lengthy and influential reign. Incidentally, Louis himself is played by George Blagden – Aethelstan in “Vikings” and Grantaire in Les Miserables – so if you’re a history series aficionado like me you’ll start to notice an overlap in the actors.
(That is absolutely not what I want to do with my life, I do not want to become an actress and act only in niche historical dramas, no way. Crazy.)
Anyway, this series was unfortunately cut short (perhaps due to that budget?) before it could totally wrap up, so the ending to the final season is somewhat open-ended and unfulfilling, but at least with historical series we can read the register and check out how things truly ended.
The opulence of Versailles, which truly came unto itself under Louis XIV, is astounding to watch in TV series form. Even visiting there myself once, I didn’t feel the same weight. (To be fair, our entire tour group somehow missed seeing the Hall of Mirrors.) I’d like to go back and try to dive into, once again, that astonishing experience.
STARRING: George Blagden, Alexander Vlahos, Tygh Runyan, Stuart Bowman, Evan Williams, Maddison Jaizani, Anna Brewster, Jessica Clark WATCH: Netflix READ: Sex with the King and Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Harmon; literally anything by Leslie Carroll; Love and Louis XIV by Antonia Fraser; Secret Memoirs Of Madame La Marquise De Montespan by Athénaïs de Montespan
TURN: Washington’s Spies
This is perhaps the show I’ve been waiting for, my whole life, this whole blog. It doesn’t matter. This is my favorite show of all time.
Based off a book by Alexander Rose, “TURN” details a previously unbeknownst area of Rev War history: George Washington’s top spy ring and the affect they had on turning the war in the fledgling nation’s favor. The spy ring was led by Benjamin Tallmadge (a historical crush of mine, oops) and its secrets were so well-guarded that more information didn’t emerge about it until long after the war’s end.
As much as I love the American Revolution and our freedom from beans on toast, it’s necessarily problematic. How can the early Americans avow the freedom of all men while holding slaves? To some degree the show forces us to tackle that question more than the historical books do, revealing the attitudes of not only the British, who felt morally superior to the colonists in regard to slavery but still manipulated slaves’ subjugation as a means of winning the war, but also traditionally heroic figures like Washington himself, whose slave-owning habits are rarely mentioned in American textbooks.
The drama and characters – some mythic figures of Americana and some completely obscure, yet real nonetheless – engage you deeply in this lesser-known slice of history. I discovered this show early in the COVID quarantine and in the year since then, I think I’ve re-watched it at least eight more times. The questions it raises and forces us to think deeply about demonstrate that nothing is ever as it seems, and a little quick wit and compassion can often go as far as the best-laid plans.
STARRING: Jamie Bell, Seth Numrich, Daniel Henshall, Ian Kahn, Kevin R. McNally, Meegan Warner, Heather Lind, Samuel Roukin, J.J. Feild WATCH: AMC, Netflix READ: Washington’s Spies by Alexander Rose; George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger; Valiant Ambition and In The Hurricane’s Eye by Nathaniel Philbrick; Memoirs of Col. Benjamin Tallmadge by Benjamin Tallmadge; Major André’s Journal by John André; The Traitor’s Wife by Allison Pataki; Turncoats, Traitors And Heroes: Espionage in the American Revolution by John Bakeless; You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
I could go on forever, but as my computer’s on 2% battery, I won’t.
Of course, many of the other TV series on my watchlist stem right from books, such as Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series or Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton, now high-profile hits on STARZ and Netflix, respectively. Like all media that moves from the page to the screen, there are more details in the written word, but sometimes the popularity of the book(s) would never take root if the big screen didn’t pave the way.
There is so much fantastic historical fiction out there to read, as well as actual series from historic shows. It’s hard to ever put these books down when you start to tie the past to images from the modern times and people you start to identify with and engage with.
I joked recently on Twitter that if you don’t have a historical crush, I don’t trust you. Whether you read or watch your way through the past, that still holds true. Get back to me with your new favs below.
Original story on Buying New Bookshelves blog.
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