Historical Fiction

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

D'Artagnan arrives in Paris at the tender age of 18, and that very day gives offence to three musketeers - Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Duels are agreed - but interrupted by five of the Cardinal's guards. Instead of dueling, the four are attacked. D'Artagnan acquits himself impressively: his youthful courage becomes apparent during the battle. The four become friends, and, when asked...

Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell

One of the most dramatic victories in British history, the battle of Agincourt - immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry V - pitted undermanned and overwhelmed English forces against a French army determined to keep their crown out of Henry's hands. Here Cornwell resurrects the legend of the battle and the "band of brothers" who fought on that fateful October day in 1415. An epic of...

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... " With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into one of history's most explosive eras - the French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is the novel's hero, Sydney Carton...

Flashman on the March by George MacDonald Fraser

It's 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-headed soldier, and reluctant hero, is back! Fleeing a chain of vengeful pursuers that includes Mexican bandits, the French Foreign Legion, and the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, Flashy is desperate for somewhere to take cover. So desperate, in fact, that he embarks on a perilous secret...

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic Wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is seen clearly in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle - all of them fully realized and equally memorable. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the...

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

It is the dawn of the nineteenth century; Britain is at war with Napoleon's France. When Jack Aubrey, a young lieutenant in Nelson's navy, is promoted to captain, he inherits command of HMS Sophie, an old, slow brig unlikely to make his fortune. But Captain Aubrey is a brave and gifted seaman, his thirst for adventure and victory immense. With the aid of his friend Stephen Maturin...

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Written as an autobiography of the physically infirm Claudius, who survived intrigues, poisonings, and social dismissal to become emperor of Rome in A. D. 41.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco

It is April 1204, and Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being sacked and burned by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, one Baudolino saves a historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors and proceeds to tell his own fantastical story. Born a simple peasant in northern Italy...

Rob Roy by Walter Scott

Rob Roy is set in the north of England and Scotland in the years before, during and after the first Jacobite rising of 1715. Rob Roy is a swashbuckling chieftain of the Clan MacGregor who is forced to become an outlaw for his alleged espousal of the Jacobite cause.

My Ántonia by Willa Cather

Set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim...