1. Life and literary activity of Charles Kingsley. Historical fiction genre in Literature

Geography and Dialect

The first part of this book is set in the English county of Devon, in southwest England, which is the only county to have both a north and south coast. It is known as a very seafaring place; Plymouth is on the south coast.
"Leafy Devon is the beauty of the western counties. It has a blue sea margin north and south, bordered with cliffs, which on the south coast are often of pink and grey marble. Trees fringe the coast almost to the waters edge, and the very cliffs are hung with creepers.
"Much of central Devon is breezy moorland, bleak and barren enough; and there is another stretch of moor towards the north; but spurs from these high moors reach the coast, both north and south, and between these spurs are deep, shadowy combes, the valleys of the sparkling moorland streams.
"The villages nestle in these combes; and very pretty a Devon village is, with its narrow, steep lanes, bordered by high hedges, and its snug-looking cottages, with thatched roofs and rosy walls of cob. Cob is made of the reddish mud of the district mixed with pebbles or straw. The villages often lie among great orchards of apple trees, and myrtle grows freely about the cottage doors." (from Charlotte Mason's geography textbook)
Several of the Devon characters speak in the West Country dialect, particularly Rose's "friend" Lucy Passmore. They often use the word "mun" as an all-purpose pronoun; it can mean it, him, or them.

El Dorado

The legendary "Lost City of Gold", also known as Manoa, has fascinated explorers since the days of the Spanish conquistadors.

Historical Incidents

This book is so full of real people and real events that it is sometimes difficult to tell which are true and which are fictional. Many of the explorers referred to, their adventures and their deaths, are commonly covered in geography courses. The Spanish Inquisition, by the time of this book, had been in place for a hundred years and would continue for over two hundred more. The English battle with the Spanish Armada has been well described by many writers, including David Howarth, whose 1981 book The Voyage of the Armada: The Spanish Story is on the Year Eight booklist.
I will try to note sources of information on other events as they come up.