The article analyzes the interplay between the imaginary and the real in Julian Barnes's novel Elizabeth Finch. Through its unique structure, Elizabeth Finch serves as a complex and contradictory synthesis of reality and imagination, achieved through the innovative use of textual elements, the dynamics of author-text and textreader relationships, and the genre ambiguity. The novel reinterprets historical events, constructing a new reality through intertextuality. An intertextual semantic analysis allows the author to present historical facts from his own ideological perspective.