Historical Fiction Classics

Private investigator Charles Maddox is surprised when he is approached by Edward Tulkinghorn for help. The feared and shadowy attorney offers Charles a handsome price he can't refuse to do some sleuthing for a client. Charles learns that Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and now Tulkinghorn wants him to find and stop whoever is responsible. But what starts as a simple open-and-shut case swiftly escalates into something bigger and much darker. As he cascades toward a collision with powerful forces, Charles will need all the assistance he can get…

Desperate times cause for desperate measures and when the Clan of the Fox flees, first Northumberland and then Iceland, the Viking warriors have no idea of the world they will find when they sail across the endless ocean. It is not just the sea and the weather which tries to kill them; it is the animals in the land that they find and it is the Skraeling, the natives who see them as a threat from the east. The clan flees danger but finds more in this new world in the west. When divisions emerge in the clan then it seems as though they are doomed to die in this savage wilderness.

The Osage, Kansa, and Otoe were all tribes west of the Mississippi and dwelt directly in the path of the two friends determined to escape the bounty hunters from Philadelphia and to explore the uncharted wilderness of the West. But when they encounter former French Voyageurs turned slave traders who take Pawnee women captive, their purposes take a turn. But slave-traders are nothing compared to the Omaha and Ponca tribes that have the market cornered on all trade from the Missouri and North Platte Rivers.

Sensual, rebellious Anna falls deeply and passionately in love with the handsome Count Vronsky. When she refuses to conduct the discreet affair that her cold, ambitious husband - and Russian high society - would condone, she is doomed. Set against the tragic love of Anna and Vronsky, the plight of the melancholy nobleman Konstantine Levin unfolds. In doubt about the meaning of life - a mirror of Tolstoy’s own spiritual crisis - Konstantine is haunted by thoughts of suicide.

Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's third published novel, was written by the author at the height of his literary powers. The story of class differences (the relationship between a middle-class woman and a miner) in the tough world of coal mining brought a refreshing realism to literature. It remains a challenging text and is studied widely. It is particularly effective on audiobook in the hands of Nottinghamshire reader Paul Slack.

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.

It's all here: the story of how Robin lost his birthright as the King's Ranger at Locksley, his archery feats at Nottingham, the outlaws' war with the Sheriff, Robin's pursuit of Marian, and many tales of bravery, rescue, laughter and rivalry with Little John, Friar Tuck, Allan-a-Dale, Much the Miller, Will Scarlett, and all the others.Now you can have this incomparable story read to you, in a gripping full stereo audio book. The story is adapted from the Paul Creswick text. It is faithful to the entire original story.

Elizabeth Bennet thought she was prepared to do anything to make the Dragon Conclave accept her beloved young dragon, Pemberley, into the Blue Order, but she had not anticipated it would leave her banished from her ancestral home and betrothed to none other than Mr. Darcy. But before Elizabeth and Darcy wed, they must find a dangerous rogue dragon before it provokes a war amongst the dragons and brings the fragile peace between dragons and mankind to a catastrophic end.

Maureen Lang, Golden Heart Award-winning author of The Oak Leaves, transports listeners to England's Hollingsworth Hall. As the mansion is poised to win the coveted Featherby, its young curator receives special attention from the noble heir to the historic estate. But while she struggles with their mutual attraction, she discovers forgotten Victorian letters that suggest impossible dreams sometimes come true.

The course of true love never did run smooth.... When Fitzwilliam Darcy departs Hunsford after his disastrous proposal to Elizabeth Bennet, he does not expect their paths to cross again. Indeed, knowing the lady's true feelings for him, he makes every effort to see that they do not. But when a chance encounter leaves him stranded in an abandoned cottage with the one woman he can never have, Darcy quickly realizes there is more at risk than just Elizabeth's reputation.

La jeunesse provençale de Giono, entre une mère repasseuse et un père cordonnier, est forcément solaire, musicale, saturée de parfums, de portraits, de tableaux... Dans ces souvenirs parus en 1932, les simples deviennent des héros, les animaux voisinent avec les anges et la nature se gorge de mythes. Transcrite dans la langue du bonheur, voici la genèse d'un très grand écrivain.

Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Anita Rau Badami's acclaimed novel Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? chronicles the stories of three women, linked in love and tragedy, over a span of fifty years, sweeping from the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to the explosion of Air...

Dedicated to keeping her home immaculate and organized, Evangeline Knapp runs a tight ship, with the Knapp family constantly on edge. Meanwhile, her husband Lester, a dreamer, drifts through his bookkeeping job. Both feel depressed and out of place. Suddenly, after a near-fatal accident, their roles are reversed: Lester is confined to home in a wheelchair and his wife must work to support the family. Evangeline dedicates herself to improvement and customer service, something she learned working in her father’s store as a child.

It is 1793 in France, the year of the guillotine. Already, Louis XVI has been sentenced to the scaffold, and Terror reigns. The architects of the Revolution (Marat, Danton, and Robespierre) have set up the Convention, an embryo parliament, designed to stem social chaos. But ideals topple in the face of political necessity, alliances founder, and intrigue is a way of life.

It is 1781 and the British-held American port of Yorktown on the Chesapeake Bay is under siege. Pounded by the American colonists on land and the deadly warships of their French allies at sea, the once proud city is in flames and near ruin. But on the horizon, the King's own fleet of heavily...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." So begins this classic, one of the most beloved novels of all time. Charles Dickens brings the French Revolution to life through such vivid characters as Charles Darnay, the Old Doctor, Sydney Carton and Lucy Manette. The action peaks with the storming of the Bastille, the dreaded symbol of government authority. And the blade of La Guillotine falls again...

He was etched by the desert’s howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were...

This magnificent novel, sequel to The Warden and second in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, satirizes the struggle for ascendancy among the clergy of a cathedral city. The contest is between the outgoing church authorities led by Archdeacon Grantly and the newcomers led by Mrs. Proudie and her protégé, the ambitious Mr. Obadiah Slope. Each wishes to become the dominant voice in the quiet diocese of Barchester, and they contend for the newly vacant post of warden of Hiram's Hospital.

Winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction "A funny and moving debut."—Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post “A love letter to Berlin, to travel, and to saying yes to life.”—Alan Cumming It’s the new millennium and the anxiety of midlife is creeping up on Sam Singer, a...

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read It is no surprise that Little Women, the adored classic of four devoted sisters, was loosely based on Louisa May Alcott’s own life. In fact, Alcott drew from her own personality to create a heroine unlike...