Historical Fiction Classics

It began in a women's club in London on a February afternoon. A discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed to "Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine..." lures four very different women away from the dismal British weather to San Salvatore, a castle high above a bay on the sunny Italian Riviera. There, the Mediterranean spirit stirs the souls of Mrs Arbuthnot, Mrs Wilkins, Lady Caroline Dester, and Mrs Fisher, and remarkable changes occur.

Mary Challoner must protect her sister at all costs. When she discovers that the notorious Marquis of Vidal is planning to run away with her little sister, Mary will not stand idly by. To save Sophia's reputation without destroying her own, Mary will take her sister's place - and once the Marquis sees through her disguise, he will be humiliated and forced to return her home. But the irresistible Marquis is a wilder rake than even Mary anticipated, and her growing feelings for him are proving an unexpected complication....

A sweeping tale of clashing cultures, warring gods, and forbidden love: In AD 1000, a young Inuit shaman and a Viking warrior become unwilling allies as war breaks out between their peoples and their gods - one that will determine the fate of them all.

Young nobleman d’Artagnan has arrived in Paris intent on joining the guardians of King Louis XIII. He befriends the regiment’s most formidable musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and together they unite in their commitment to uphold justice. Soon, a royal indiscretion thrusts them into an audacious escapade of courtly intrigue, thwarted romance, and daring rescue. But it’s the Machiavellian schemes of a powerful enemy and the wicked seductions of an ingenious female spy that will be their greatest challenges.

Her eccentric and childless guardian, Mr. Penicuik, is leaving Kitty all of his vast fortune - but with one condition. She must marry one of his five grand-nephews. However, Kitty's clear favourite - the rakish Jack Westruther - doesn't appear at all interested in the arrangement. To make Jack jealous, Kitty impulsively convinces his cousin, the kind-hearted and chivalrous Freddy Standen, to enter into a pretend engagement. But the more time she spends with Freddy, the more Kitty wonders whether Jack is the right choice after all....

In the cutthroat world of bounty hunters, Joe Noose is as honest as they come. Which isn't saying much. Just look at his less-than-honest colleagues. They framed Joe for a murder they committed. They made sure Joe's face wound up on a wanted poster. Now they're gonna hunt Joe down and collect the reward money. There's just one problem: Joe Noose thinks it's his bounty. It's his reward. And it's their funeral .

In this extraordinary World War II alternate history, master storyteller Harry Turtledove begins with a big switch: what if Neville Chamberlain, instead of appeasing Hitler, had stood up to him in 1938? Enraged, Hitler reacts by lashing out at the West, promising his soldiers that they will reach Paris by the new year.

When the Emperor's army comes recruiting, Mai signs up, seeing it as the perfect escape from her stepmother and a lifetime of drudgery. Armed with her mother's armor and a pair of magic shoes, Mai marches off to war only to find herself sharing a tent with the General's arrogant nephew, Prince Yi. The best swordsman in the Empire, Prince Yi wants to make war, not love, but the Emperor insists this will be Yi's last campaign before he must marry. Prince Yi has never met his match until now.

Jack Whyte has written a lyrical epic, retelling the myths behind the boy who would become the Man Who Would Be King - Arthur Pendragon. He has shown us, as Diana Gabaldon said, "the bone beneath the flesh of legend". In his last book in this series, we witnessed the young king pull the sword from the stone and begin his journey to greatness. Now we reach the tale itself - how the most shining court in history was made.

Der Zauberberg erstmals als ungekürztes Hörbuch, virtuos gelesen von Thomas Sarbacher. Geplant als Novelle, als heiteres Gegenstück zum Tod in Venedig, entstand mit dem Zauberberg einer der großen Romane der klassischen Moderne. Ein kurzer Besuch in einem Davoser Sanatorium wird für den Protagonisten Hans Castorp zu einem siebenjährigen Aufenthalt, der Kurort wird zur Bühne für die europäische Befindlichkeit vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg.

After 18 years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Arthur is conceived and taken away in secret, returning as a young man to claim the throne by pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone. In retelling the story of Arthur's rule of Britain, Malory intertwines the romances of Guinevere and Launcelot, Tristram and Isolde, and Launcelot and Elaine. Sir Galahad's appearance at Camelot begins the quest for the Holy Grail.

Having inspired a classic film and Broadway play, The Caine Mutiny is Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life—and mutiny—on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater. It was immediately embraced upon its original publication as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of the Second World War. In the intervening half century, this gripping story has become a perennial favorite, selling millions throughout the world, and claiming the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

While Frank is boarding at Mrs. Trevor's home, she decides to play matchmaker between him and another boarder, Diana Fothering. While Frank has not yet met the young lady, he is assured of her beauty by means of a painting in his room that she strongly resembles. Mysteriously, the painting has been a feature of Frank's nightmares while he has been staying in the room. He and Mrs. Trevor begin unraveling a bit of mystery concerning Diana and the painting, while his nightmares seem to be coming to fruition.

With Uther, Jack Whyte, author of the richly praised Camulod Chronicles, has given us a portrait of Uther Pendragon, Merlyn's shadow - his boyhood companion and closest friend. And the man who would sire the King of the Britons. From the trials of boyhood to the new cloak of adult responsibility, we see Uther with fresh eyes. He will travel the length of the land, have adventures, and, through fate or tragedy, fall in love with the one woman he must not have.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as a gifted and original writer. When Quoyle, a 36-year-old, third rate newspaperman, learns that his two-timing wife has abandoned him and their two daughters, he returns to his ancestral home on the Newfoundland coast, to rebuild his life. We also recommend Proulx's, Accordion Crimes.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

It is a truth universally accepted that well-bred members of society are not beleaguered with magic. For Elsabeth Dover and her sisters, that truth means living in a perpetual state of caution, never using their sorcerous gifts in public. Elsabeth chafes under the stricture, although not enough to risk the possibility of good marriages for her sisters...until she meets handsome, arrogant Fitzgerald Archer

One of the great classics of world literature and the inspiration for the most beloved stage musical of all time, Les Misérables is legendary author Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. This extraordinary English version by renowned translator Julie Rose captures all the majesty and brilliance of Hugo’s work. Here is the timeless story of the quintessential hunted man—Jean Valjean—and the injustices, violence, and social inequalities that torment him.

Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.