Abstract
This article is intended to highlight the pressures and tensions inherent when academic history reaches out to a readership beyond its usual constituency. Issues of drama and entertainment become foregrounded, along with the privileging of certain incidents over others, in order to 'draw in' a non-specialist audience. By linking together a series of excerpts from a variety of sources, the author explores his own direct experience of this writing dilemma, and considers the potential for empirical history and literary fiction to work together in a complementary way to enhance and deepen understandings of our storied past.