What are some really good historicals you’ve read? Alltime favorites and new ones alike.
The historical book discussion is doing so well…recommend your favorites…
by CJ | Aug 16, 2010 | Journal | 123 comments
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Has anyone mentioned Elizabeth Peters’ mystery series beginning with The Ape who Guards the Balance? If you are an Indiana Jones fan, Amelia Peabody is your lady! Egyptology, murder, and mayhem in the 1930s, all while trying to raise a very precocious son and not annoy her husband too much 🙂
Oh, Lord, yes. I’m a Peabody addict—though I like the first books best.
I got to meet Ms. Mertz (Elizabeth Peters) a few years ago at a luncheon. She gave a very wonderful talk, and as an unexpected bonus Anne Perry was with her. I enjoy books by both of them.
I truly enjoy Karen Harper’s Queen Elizabeth I mysteries.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell – the best parts are the epilogues by the author, where he let’s you know what’s historical accurate, what’s controversial, and what liberties he had to take with the historical record. Much more historically accurate than the TV series, though my wife and daughters prefer that to the books – I think it has something to do with the tightness of Sean Bean’s pants . . .
The early tv versions were much better—I don’t know who they let loose on this last batch of tv renditions, but it’s painful. The books, however, are wonderful!
And I can’t remember the actor in the first series, but yummy!
The Eagle, a film based on The Eagle of the Ninth, is due out next February. Descriptions sound like it may actually be fairly faithful to the book, and at any rate, the scenery looks to be beautiful. Here’s hoping.
I’m a great fan of Cadfael. The TV adaptations, not so much. They tried, but they had to compress too much.
Anybody a 1632 fan? Can’t exactly call them historicals, because there’s a great huge anachronistic event as the starting point (the transportation of a twentieth century West Virginia town, lock, stock, and hillbillies, into the middle of Germany in the Thirty Years War. But the 1632 fan/authors community does an immense amount of historical research in figuring out what they can and cannot make plausible.
Oh, I meant to give this link about the film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_of_the_Ninth_%28film%29
I loved Rosemary Sutcliffe as a kid and devoured all the books of hers that I could find!!! Eagle of the Ninth is one of the best.
Oh my, a lot of old favourites here. I’m replenishing my Georgette Heyer library by putting them on my Kindle. Her last work, My Lord John, was never finished and was to be the first of a trilogy. It is the most historically accurate of all her novels.
Today, Aug 16, is her 108th birthday!
I don’t think I am going to be able to get far at all in this set of comments: each author I have such fond feelings for. I read Georgette Heyer all the time and am about to start her retelling of Charles II’s escape in a bit, called (gosh) Royal Escape! Just don’t read Heyer’s mysteries: they aren’t historical and stink.
I seem to remember liking the mysteries back in junior high when I read them. But I probably wasn’t too critical then 😉
No recent historical novels as such come to my mind, but I’m just now enjoying the Gilded Mystery/Nell Sweeney Series by P.B. Ryan (Patricia Ryan), set in the time after the Civil War in Boston. Since they are murder mysteries with a romantic subplot you get all kinds of insights into forensic science of the time, medical knowledge, how the upper class lived, the situation of the Irish in Boston at the time (and in the first book an introduction to opium smoking)…
They’re easy to get hold of, now that the author has made them available on Smashwords and at Amazon as ebooks, but I bet you can still get the print editions used if you don’t have an ebook reader.
My favorite is “Feast of All Saints” by Anne Rice. This was one of her earliest works, and has no supernatural elements of any kind. It’s set in New Orleans in the 1840’s, before the Civil War. It’s told from the point of view of several teenage “free people of color.” This is a novel about being *between* things: Between black & white, child & adult, upper class & lower class, free & enslaved… This world was much more complex than just white slaveholders and black slaves. Her writing is sometimes dreamy, and sometimes plain soap opera. (And, back to what Ms. Cherryh said about a history exam, I wrote a college research paper about a historical figure discussed in this. Marie Coin-Coin was a slave who was freed, then became a plantation owner and slaveholder herself, and made enough money to buy her own children back from their owners.)
There is one particular one of Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January historicals that I found absolutely riveting, but I do not plan to re-read it. In Sold Down the River, January goes back into slavery to unearth evidence. It is absolutely chilling. I really think it is a book everyone should read, once, especially those who have some romantic fantasies about slavery.
CS Forester’s Hornblower and some GA Henty’s historicals were my first loves (along with Clair Bee’s and John R. Tunis’s sports novels). After reading just about everyone mentioned in this list so far and a bunch more (Alexandre Dumas, Allan Mallinson, Thomas B. Costain, Sir Walter Scott, Mary Renault, Simon Scarrow and Lindsay Davis stand out) — Patrick O’Brian and Dorothy Dunnett get my nod for “best of class” and the “class” is “best writers” not just best historical fiction writers. 🙂 As I am a member of the CJ Cherryh “dedicated”, so also do I belong to the Patrick O’Brian and Dorothy Dunnett cults… 🙂
Patrick O’Brian, subject of numerous articles from NY Times and Washington Post saying thigs like “Is This The Best Author You Never Heard Of?” and “Best Historical Fiction Writer” comparing him to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens for his descriptions not only of life at sea but his description of the Age. http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/pob/ One of the best things is that, the books just get better as you keeping going. That’s why I’ve read the whole 20 book series 4 times!
Dorothy Dunnett whose very long, very detailed, meticulously researched books with their incredibly complex plots resulting in unexpectedly gratifying endings…. Yum.. 🙂 “Lymond Chronicles” and “The House of Niccolo” series. http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/reviews/001224.24malcolt.html
Gerogette Heyer’s Royal Escape is one of my all time favorite historicals. It’s the story of Charles II after his defeat by Cromwell until he escaped to France six weeks later. Of course I knew how it ended but it *still* had me on the edge of my seat.
Oh goody!
OOPS! Hope I didn’t give anything away, Raesean. 😉 8a
I love most of the ones mentioned above, but like Wayspooled have a special place for Dorothy Dunnett – all of her books, including the MacBeth one – and Patrick O’Brian. Dunnett is without peers. She is the CJCherryh of historic fiction.
“I, Claudius” and to a lesser extent, “Claudius the God,” both by Robert Graves. I recall seeing Masterpiece Theatre version oh, 30 years ago. Really gives a sense of the cutthroat deviousness going on in the ruling families. Livia, in particular, as so deliciously evil, while Claudius’ brother Germanicus was a saint (so course had to die…or be killed). Each emperor before Claudius appointed someone just a bit nastier than himself to take over so the people would look mosre fondly on the departed emperor. Claudius’ appointment was a happy mistake.
I am eventually going to Netflix “I, Claudius” I think. My mom speaks so highly of it and I was born with a high tolerance for shoddy BBC production levels from any decade. As far as older BBC period dramas go, I really enjoyed “The Duchess of Duke Street”, “Upstairs Downstairs” (there is a sequel set in the 1930s planned for later this year I think…good cast lined up so it should be awesome), and later on “Bramwell” (which was ITV I guess). I really enjoyed when they did the reality-ish show “1900s House” and had a modern family trying to live like that time period. Pretty much the only type of reality show I can stomach.
Chondrite’s so right: how could I have left Amelia Peabody out? And of course miss Austen deserved a mention as well!
Here’s another one set circa 1930: Thomas Firbank: I bought a mountain. It’s very different, not an adventure as such, nor a romance nor a comedy, but just a very interesting look into the hard life of a Welsh mountain sheep farm, by someone who had never farmed before but loved it so much he made a go of it anyway.
I love these book discussion threads. I’ve already found several new-to-me authors through your recommendations that I’ve enjoyed reading, and some have even gone on my ‘buy every book they’ve written’ list. So thank you all for your ideas and advice!
All right, one last book: The Björndal family trilogy by Trygve Gulbranssen (The forest sings forever, Winds blow round the rocks, The way to each other: I’m not sure they were ever all translated into English). It’s a Norwegian family drama/chronicle from 1760 to 1810. It has several descriptions of the ways Christmas was celebrated that are some of my father’s favourite Christmas reading.
Alas, I can’t find either of them on Gutenberg yet.
“The Björndal family trilogy by Trygve Gulbranssen” – I’ve not read them but I’d like to. I’ve heard before that they are very good. But you won’t find them on Gutenberg for a long time. They were writen in the 1930’s and he didn’t die until 1962.
They’re good (in Norwegian, at least). Chance discovery among my mother’s reading, I liked them. A sense of being so close to the land you become a bit of a force of nature yourself.
“Winds blow round the rocks” is a bit bland. The sense of the Norwegian title is more “The wind’s blowing from Deadman Mountain”. (Wikipedia claims the english title was The Wind from the Mountains, which is fair enough)
I’ve scanned the comments and haven’t seen my favorites: any of the James Mitchner novels, although “The Source”, “Covenant”, “Centennial” and “Chesapeake” are among his best, IMO.
But for the genre of *historical* fiction, I submit a tour de force: Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle; “Quicksilver,” “The Confusion,” and “The System of the World.”
Let me see among my faves are Mary Renault’s “The Persian Boy” (a tale of Alexander the Great), James Clavell’s “Shogun” (set in long ago Japan), Cecelia Holland’s “Great Maria”, Eliot Arnold’s “Blood Brother” (is 19th century America historical enough? If so I’d like to also add Gwen Bristow’s “The Calico Palace about the Gold Rush), the previously mentioned novels of Georgette Heyer and Elizabeth Peters and, though it may sort of be borderland fantasy, I get real feel for the era from Mary Stewart’s “The Crystal Cave” and “The Hollow Hills”.
In googling something just now I came across this website: http://www.historicalnovels.info/index.html with over 5000 novels listed by time and place *rushes over to investigate further*
agreed, again, re Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, and I adore Amelia Peabody and all her family.
Re Dunnett, I read the Niccolai books first and found Lymond a bit hard to take when I finally got to them. But I have now reread Lymond more often than Niccolai. It is easier to reread a 5-6 volume series than an 8 volume series. I think I actually like Nicholas better than Francis. But it is a close call. Someone said over at Shejidan that Dunnett will soon be available on Kindle. O frabjous day.
I bought and downloaded Niccolo Rising to my android phone over the weekend. The publisher says both series are available now, but I had trouble finding them except via Amazon. $9.99 each, btw.
** possible mild spoilers **
I also read the House of Niccolo series first and like them much more than the Lymond Chronicles. I find Claes a much more sympathetic character to the point that I was practically pulling my hair over his actions in the later books. Lymond, IMHO, starts out unsympathetic and is redeemed over the course of his series.
** end possible spoilers **
Kate Ross wrote several books about Julian Kestrel set in the early 1800s. Steven Saylor has an excellent Roman series about Gordianus the Finder (It’s set earlier than Lyndsay Davis’s Falco series as one of Gordianus’s sons is in Julius Caesar’s army). And finally, Madeleine Robins’s Sarah Tolerance books are also set in early 1800s.
Edith Pargeter–aka Ellis Peters–wrote some non-Cadfael historical fiction under her own name. The Heaven Tree trilogy (Welsh history). The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet (more Welsh history). A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury (Henry IV & V and Henry Percy–Hotspur). The Marriage of Megotta, a heartbreakingly true story a la Romeo & Juliet (featuring Hubert de Burgh and Henry III, Henry’s sister Eleanor, and Simon de Montfort). For those who like to wallow in long books and fat series, Heaven Tree runs 899 pages; Brothers runs 822 pages in paperback (and is available for a Kindle).
One that lacks, well, really accurate history, but that I loved when I was a kid was Eric Brighteyes, H Rider Haggard, who also wrote King Solomon’s Mines and She. Those are probably on Project Gutenberg as free downloads.
Hi, I’m new here, long time fan of CJC, been lurking recently, and this discussion looks like a fun place to jump in. Lots of interesting titles coming up here. Here are some of my favorites, non-fiction:
In Search of the Dark Ages, by Michael Wood (which I think was originally printed before he did the PBS program on this, and the book has since been reprinted)- I learned more about this period in the preface alone than I did in school. Also, The life and death of a Druid prince: the story of Lindow Man, an archaeological sensation by Anne Ross and Don Robins, an account of a body found in a bog and how/why he died; not sure how accurate this is, but it makes for fascinating reading; and Pendragon: the definitive account of the origins of Arthur by Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd, which suggests that rather than a king himself, Arthur may have actually been the king’s warlord. In fiction I love the Cadfael books, and also enjoyed the “Sister Frevisse” novels by Margaret Frazer (except the last one upset me because I actually sympathized more with the villain than the nuns!)
A big yes to the Cadfael novels. I love them. Along with the Lindsey Davis Falco series. There is a new one of hers I haven’t picked up yet Rebels and Traitors. Looking forward to it.
Having studied History at University…I have a couple of textbooks that stick out in my mind. “Richelieu and Olivares” a wonderful discussion of Cardinal Richelieu and his Spanish counterpart the Duc D’Olivares. “The Return of Martin Guerre” is another (written by the historical consultant for the French film of the same title).
However, one of my (still) favourites, was a “mystery” assigned to us as the first book by my Introductory History professor–“The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey. An absolutely riveting discussion of how history (and personages) can be distorted through the re-telling of “facts”. In this case, Richard III, as investigated by a injured and bored police detective from his hospital bed.
Oh gosh, yes! The Daughter of Time. One of the best historical examinations of Richard II that there is!!!! My grandma and I devoured it (and other mysteries by Tey. Brat Farrar is great!)
Not to forget the Poldark novels by Winston Graham. I saw the PBS series back in the Jurassic, and finally found the books in a smalltown bookstore near Renton WA; and now they’ve reissued the PBS version: it holds up well.
Fascinating book, Life and Death of a Druid Prince. I’d add to it: X-Raying the Pharoahs.