Subject: Historical Fiction | Page #4
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Petticoat Rule Emma Orczy
A story of the French aristocracy, the book concerns Madame de Pompadour's influence over the King and France. read more »
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Precious Bane Mary Webb
Narrated by the central character Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives her inner beauty but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and only one man can save her and take her away to the happiness she believes she... read more »
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Privy Seal Ford Madox Ford
The tumultuous relationship between Katharine Howard and England's King Henry VIII was inextricably entwined with the rise to power and eventual fall of Thomas Cromwell, who served as the Lord Privy Seal. In this fictionalized account from Ford Madox Ford, the once-innocent Katharine begins to be swept up in the... read more »
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Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz
Quo Vadis is a love story of Marcus Vinicius, a passionate young Roman tribune, and Lygia Callina, a beautiful and gentle Christian maiden of royal Lygian descent and a hostage of Rome, raised in a patrician home. At first Marcus, a typical aristocratic Roman libertine of his time, has no notion of love and merely... read more »
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Redgauntlet Walter Scott
Set in 1765 in the fictitious third Jacobite rebellion, Redgauntlet tells of Darsie Latimer, a student of law who becomes embroiled in a plot to put Prince Charles Edward (aka, Bonnie Prince Charlie) on the British throne. He is kidnapped by his uncle, Redgauntlet, who is involved in a last, fictional attempt to... read more »
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Ride Proud, Rebel! Andre Norton
Civil war buffs and historical fiction fans alike will enjoy Andre Norton's Ride Proud, Rebel! This detailed and emotionally resonant account focuses on the personal sacrifices and astounding courage of rebel soldiers in the waning days of the Confederacy. read more »
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Rob Roy Walter Scott
Rob Roy is set in 1715-16, yet it concerns not the conduct of the Jacobite Rising, but the economic and social conditions which gave rise to it. It celebrates the freebooting capitalism of the hero's father in the City of London, and the actual freebooting of Rob Roy, the "Robin Hood of Scotland, the dread of the... read more »
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Rogue Herries Hugh Walpole
Described on its first publication by John Buchan as the finest English novel since Jude the Obscure, Rogue Herries tells the story of the larger than life Francis Herries who uproots his family from Yorkshire and brings them to live in Borrowdale where their life is as dramatic as the landscape surrounding them... read more »
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Romola George Eliot
Set in late fifteenth-century Italy, in the Renaissance Florence of Machiavelli and the Medicis, Romola is the most exotic and adventurous of George Eliot's novels. It charts the career and martyrdom of the charismatic religious leader Savonarola, who rebelled against the humanistspirit of the age and burned books... read more »
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Rose in Bloom Louisa May Alcott
In this sequel to Eight Cousins, Rose Campbell returns to the "Aunt Hill" after two years of traveling around the world. Suddenly, she is surrounded by male admirers, all expecting her to marry them. But before she marries anyone, Rose is determined to establish herself as an independent young woman. Besides, she... read more »
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Salammbo Gustave Flaubert
An historical novel that interweaves historical and fictional characters. The action takes place immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt against Carthage in the third century BC. This book, which Flaubert researched painstakingly, is largely an exercise in sensuous and violent exoticism. The Carthaginian... read more »
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Scaramouche Rafael Sabatini
When the aristocratic Lord of La Tour d'Azyr murders Andre-Louis's best friend - a young man who is politically active during the French Revolution - Andre-Louis vows to take up his friend's cause and avenge his death. He takes refuge as an actor in a travelling troupe, performing under the name Scaramouche. His... read more »
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Scaramouche The Kingmaker Rafael Sabatini
Another adventure from Sabatini's remarkable and much-loved hero. In Scaramouche the Kingmaker, Andre Louis again dons his famous and much-admired disguise to embark upon a new adventure - and one full of the thrill and swashbuckling action that has earnt Sabatini his place in the hall of great writers. read more »
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Shadows on the Rock Willa Cather
At the end of the seventeenth century, on that 'grey rock in the Canadian wilderness' known as Quebec, a French family, the Auclairs, begin a life very different from the one they knew in Paris. On her mother's death ten-year-old Cecile is entrusted with the care of the household and of her father, Euclid, the... read more »
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Sir Percy Hits Back Emma Orczy
The League is up to their old tricks again, but this time they have the help of a local simple girl from the country, Fleurette. When she and her love fall into danger for her help, the League decides these two innocents must be rescued as well. But matters are complicated when the Pimpernel discovers that Fleurette... read more »
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Sir Percy Leads the Band Emma Orczy
The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel has disguised themselves as a group of shabby second-rate musicians, in order to save an innocent family from death. But Citizen Chauvelin is hot on their heels, and still looking for revenge against his bitter enemy. The Pimpernel's plans are, however, complicated by betrayal of... read more »
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St. Martin's Summer Rafael Sabatini
Martin Marie Rigobert de Ganache had far too many important things to do than worry about the plight of an endangered heiress. But as he and the unfortunate lady become more involved, he has no choice but to carry on with the situation until it is reaches its fitting conclusion. read more »
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Suspense Joseph Conrad
Conrad's unfinished novel that he was working on before his death in 1924, in which he returns to one of his favorite subjects: the French Revolution. Unlike Duel, his character here is a young Englishman named Cosmo Latham, who visits Genoa during the days in which Napoleon was imprisoned on Elba, where a... read more »
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Sylvia's Lovers Elizabeth Gaskell
The tragic tale of a young woman caught between the attractions of two very different men. England is at war with France, and press gangs are seizing young men for service. Charley Kinraid, a whaling harpooner who captured the heart of Sylvia Robson, was one of their victims. After her true love is believed to have... read more »
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Ten Years Later Alexandre Dumas
D'Artagnan, a young swordsman intent on joining the king's musketeers, becomes embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. The book at hand is the second volume of the third serial. Louis XIV is well past the age where he should rule, but the ailing Cardinal... read more »
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The Adventures of Gerard Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Gerard is an anthology of short stories about the heroics of a Hussar of the French army who lived from the 1780s to 1860s. The strategies of war and the lives of soldier are romantically described, as is the vanity of the protagonist himself, who views himself as the most... read more »
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The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
Somewhere in this book, Wharton observes that clever liars always come up with good stories to back up their fabrications, but that really clever liars don't bother to explain anything at all. This is the kind of insight that makes The Age of Innocence so indispensable. Wharton's story of the upper classes of Old... read more »
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The Antiquary Walter Scott
The Antiquary completes the series of books dealing with social manners of Scotland. Waverly embraced the age of our fathers. Guy Mannering that of our youth and Antiquary covers the last ten years of the 18th century. Set in the tense times of revolutionary France, a young man named Lovel who travels idly toward... read more »
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The Betrothed Walter Scott
Set at the time of the Third Crusade (1189-92), The Betrothed is the first of Scott's Tales of the Crusaders, and although set in the Welsh Marches it is a crusading novel in that it is about those who stayed at home. The betrothed is Eveline, daughter of a Norman warrior, who is a victim of the Crusade in that her... read more »
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The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson
From the beloved author of Treasure Island Originally serialized in a periodical of boys’ adventure fiction, The Black Arrow is a swashbuckling portrait of a young man’s journey to discover the heroism within himself. Young Dick Shelton, caught in the midst of England’s War of the Roses, finds his loyalties... read more »
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The Black Dwarf Walter Scott
The Black Dwarf, is set in the Liddesdale hills, an area which Scott knew intimately from the time he had spent hunting ballads for his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The plot itself draws on a number of Border Ballads. The adventures of Hobbie Elliot, the pillage of Heughfott, appeal to the Black Dwarf for... read more »
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The Blanket of the Dark John Buchan
Buchan skillfully weaves the story of young clerk Peter Pentecost, who has a claim to the throne, and a tale of intrigue against King Henry VIII, where 'under the blanket of the dark all men are alike and all are nameless'. Buchan's description of the ruthless king is compelling. His knowledge of the time of Henry's... read more »
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The Bride of Lammermoor Walter Scott
Dark prophecies and ominously symbolic events beset the romance of Edgar, Master of Ravenswood, and Lucy Ashton, daughter of the man who has displaced the ancient Ravenswood family from its ancestral home. Sir William Ashton, the wily and self-seeking Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, has used his power to... read more »
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The Bright Pavilions Hugh Walpole
This fifth novel in the Herries Chronicle, set against the background of the turmoil and politics of Elizabethan England, tells the tale of one family's experiences of divided loyalties and thwarted love. Being the first part of the prequel to the Herries Chronicles. read more »
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The Broken Road A. E. W. Mason
The Broken Road, one of two books by the author set in British India. It is an exciting adventure story involving the Indian Army, Rajas and secret agents. It was the Road which caused the trouble. It usually is the road. That and a reigning prince who was declared by his uncle secretly to have sold his country to... read more »