The historical romance is a separate genre from that of the historical novel. It originated in the years immediately after the French Revolution as a way of affirming political unity and of reviving the ancient epic. The origins of the historical romance within the Gothic novel are no mere accident. Clara Reeve's work is as important to the development of the historical romance as it is to the Gothic novel. The Old English Baron is a prototype of the historical romance, with its tempered use of the supernatural, its examination of chivalric values, and its homage to ancient epic and medieval romance. Likewise, The Progress of Romance, with its championing of romance as a type of epic lays the theoretical groundwork for the historical romances of Scott and Cooper. Moreover, William Godwin actually moves from the Gothic mode to writing historical romance fifteen years before Scott's Waverley appears. In Mandeville, he critiques the historical romance as written by Scott and examines how history shapes individuals and why the first English revolution failed.
In Waverley, The Antiquary, Rob Roy, and The Bride of Lammermoor, Scott uses displacement and translation as key metaphors for not only the historical changes he records but also for his own literary endeavors. Just as one group displaces another in historical time, so too does Scott displace the ancient epic or the Gothic supernatural with the historical romance. He also shows how the pressure of historical circumstances cause eternal concepts or values to be translated in a particular way.
Cooper nationalizes the historical romance. He is the first American to write a romantic epic in prose in the shape of the historical romance. Cooper also takes the displacement of the Gothic mode by the romance another step further by substituting the terrors of the American wilderness for the supernatural. He balances the claims of stadialist history with the persistence of the archetypes of romance.