Historical fiction
Stories set in another age, from Walter Scott’s followers to today’s bestsellers.
New books in this genre
Landmark works
- 1859 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens · read free
- 1934 I, Claudius by Robert Graves
- 1971 The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
- 1840 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens · read free
- 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
- 1834 The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton · read free
- 2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
- 1722 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe · read free
- 1719 The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe · read free
- 1859 Adam Bede by George Eliot
- 2004 The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
- 1994 Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
- 1862 Romola by George Eliot · read free
- 1893 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard · read free
- 1889 Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard · read free
- 1823 Valperga by Mary Shelley · read free
- 2003 Pompeii by Robert Harris
- 2010 The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
- 1800 Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth · read free
- 1830 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck by Mary Shelley
- 1972 The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
- 2005 The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell
- 1958 The King Must Die by Mary Renault
- 1997 Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell
- 1995 The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
- 2013 An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
- 1880 The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy · read free
- 1998 Sharpe's Fortress by Bernard Cornwell
- 1998 Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell
- 2006 The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell
Writers
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Charles Dickens1812–1870 · English novelist and social critic (1812–1870) -
Mary Shelley1797–1851 · English writer (1797–1851) -
George Eliot1819–1880 · English novelist, essayist, poet and journalist (1819–1880) -
Thomas Hardy1840–1928 · English novelist and poet (1840–1928) -
William Golding1911–1993 · British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate (1911–1993) -
D. H. Lawrence1885–1930 · English writer and poet (1885–1930) - Daphne du Maurier1907–1989 · British writer (1907–1989)
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Anthony Burgess1917–1993 · English writer and composer (1917–1993) -
Robert Graves1895–1985 · English poet and novelist (1895-1985) -
Frances Hodgson Burnett1849–1924 · English-American playwright and author (1849–1924) -
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803–1873 · British statesman and author (1803–1873) -
H. Rider Haggard1856–1925 · English adventure novelist (1856–1925) -
Frederick Forsyth1938–2025 · English novelist (1938–2025) -
Ann Radcliffe1764–1823 · English author and pioneer of the Gothic novel (1764–1823) -
P. D. James1920–2014 · English crime writer (1920-2014) -
Mark Gatiss1966 · British actor, screenwriter and novelist -
David Mitchell1969 · English novelist (b. 1969) -
Jeanette Winterson1959 · English writer -
Maria Edgeworth1768–1849 · Irish writer (1768-1849) -
Richard Adams1920–2016 · English novelist best known as the author of Watership Down -
Susanna Clarke1959 · British author (1959-) -
Daniel Defoe1660–1731 · English trader, writer, and journalist (1660–1731) -
Jojo Moyes1969 · British novelist and journalist -
Bernard Cornwell1944 · British writer
And 46 more
- Antony Beevor (1946)
- Ben Elton (1959)
- Bruce Chatwin (1940)
- Georgette Heyer (1902)
- Kate Atkinson (1951)
- Pat Barker (1943)
- Walter Pater (1839)
- Michael Morpurgo (1943)
- Mary Renault (1905)
- Alan Hollinghurst (1954)
- John Cowper Powys (1872)
- Edith Pargeter (1913)
- Victoria Hislop (1959)
- Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893)
- Kim Newman (1959)
- David Garnett (1892)
- Taylor Caldwell (1900)
- Joan Aiken (1924)
- Helen Dunmore (1952)
- Paul Kingsnorth (1972)
- Ian McDonald (1960)
- Jed Mercurio (1966)
- Charles Reade (1814)
- Jim Crace (1946)
- George W. M. Reynolds (1814)
- Marjorie Bowen (1885)
- Horace Smith (1779)
- Mary Butts (1890)
- Russell Thorndike (1885)
- Simon Mawer (1948)
- George Payne Rainsford James (1799)
- F. L. Lucas (1894)
- Stanley J. Weyman (1855)
- Susan Kay (1952)
- Adam Foulds (1974)
- Anna Eliza Bray (1790)
- William Kirby (1817)
- William Kenrick (1725)
- Shahida Rahman (1971)
- Peter Carter (1929)
- Zadie Smith (1975)
- Robert Harris (1957)
- Louis de Bernières (1954)
- Nicholas Shakespeare (1957)
- Victoria Holmes (1975)
- Natalie Haynes (1974)