‘The New Downton Abbey’? Poldark and the Presentation and Perception of an Eighteenth-century Past...

<jats:p> As soon as it was commissioned, Poldark, like a number of other recent historical dramas, was labelled as the ‘new Downton Abbey’ and the comparison has persisted. Given Downton Abbey's hit status such comparisons are surely welcomed by production companies. For historians, however, such associations highlight an important phenomenon: the grouping of diverse period dramas as broadly similar, all perceived as being ‘like’ Downton. In what ways, though, are such dramas part of the same genre? And what implications do such associations have for how we should approach and analyse period dramas as a form of public history? This article uses a case study of Poldark as a starting point for addressing these questions, exploring the history foregrounded in the Poldark narratives and examining what happens to audience perceptions of that history as the story moves from novel to screen. It argues that although Winston Graham created a deeply researched, revisionist historical world in his fiction, his historical innovation is rarely acknowledged when his stories are consumed. While this goes some way to explaining why it is that a drama set in the eighteenth century can be regarded as being ‘like’ Downton Abbey, this apparent lack of engagement with a drama's specific historical content raises important, if difficult, questions for historians keen to analyse historical drama as a form of public history. </jats:p>