Who writes these kinds of period pieces today? : A.S. Byatt

Started the very long A.S. Byatt novel "The Children's Book," not one I would probably have picked u on my own but it's our next book-group selection so I'll give it my best. First impression from first chapter? Promising, very English, very show-offy, with about 20 words that I could look up if I'd bothered - where do these British writers get such a vocabulary, and such knowledge of arcana? The set-up: three young boys cirac 1890 converge in an art museum, a museum really of objects collected to benefit crafts and industry (art students are supposed to study them I think) - it's probably modeled on the V&A. One boy is the son of the curator or director, and he's one of these British public-school types ridiculously precocious and knowledgable, wouldn't last ten minutes on an American schoolyard; the other, two years older, is son of a well-known children's-book author - she's come to discuss some materials for a potential book with the (widowed) curator - so two types of relations/friendships foreshadowed. The action is that the two boys, Julian and Tom, I think, meet a third: a waif street urchin who's been secretly living in the basement of the museum in a crypt (less scary than the street, he says) and has been sketching objects during the day. He's obviously the talented one of the three. He's a character so obviously out of Dickens that even the other characters note this fact. So a lot of possibilities can develop from these five strong personalities - reminds me a little of the setup of Atonement - who writes these kind of period pieces today? Apparently, a few British writers do so, and very successfully.