While authors have appropriated literary works for centuries, they have also appropriated historical settings and places well outside their own realities, creating new works in historical settings that reflect a new cultural purpose. The Restoration and eighteenth century are frequent subjects of popular formula-fiction romances due to the distinctive, easily replicated atmospheres; but the period has also inspired serious, traditional historical fiction and fictionalized biography as well as productions of novels from the period. This panel focuses on the long eighteenth century and the period’s intrigue for filmmakers, TV producers and audiences in a modern-day culture

Excerpt: It was the sixties—albeit the 1660s—a time for tricksters, rakes, subversive women and sexual energy on the stage. It was a time of fun for those with the means to partake of it. The “good old days” are, of course, always better from a distance, but writers on through the twentieth century found the Restoration an apt setting for their fictions about prostitution, political intrigue, and tragic or comic historical events, especially for the cinema.