Historical Biographical Fiction

“Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?” wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history’s ghosts, marginalized and dispossessed due to their gender and class, they are reimagined by Maud Casey as complex, flesh-and-blood people with stories to tell.

Ellen Alpsten's stunning new novel, The Tsarina's Daughter, is the dramatic story of Elizabeth, daughter of Catherine I and Peter the Great, who ruled Russia during an extraordinary life marked by love, danger, passion, and scandal.

In the cold spring of 1936, Arthor Crandle, down-on-his luck and desperate for work, accepts a position in Providence, Rhode Island, as a live-in assistant for an unnamed shut-in. He arrives at the gloomy colonial-style house to discover that his strange employer is an author of disturbing, bizarre fiction. Health issues have confined him to his bedroom, where he is never to be disturbed. But the writer, who Crandle knows only as "Ech-Pi", refuses to meet him, communicating only by letters left on a table outside his room.

Rome, AD 63. Vespasian has been ordered to a far-flung empire in Africa to free 200 Roman citizens who have been enslaved by a desert kingdom. But when Vespasian reaches the city, he discovers tensions spilling over into bloody chaos. Battling thirst and exhaustion, Vespasian must help the Romans escape, their only route to survival a desperate race across a barren desert with a hoard of heavily armed rebels at their backs. Meanwhile, back in Rome, Rome's elite fear for their lives as Emperor Nero's extravagance goes unchecked.

AD 58. Rome is in turmoil once more. Emperor Nero has surrounded himself with sycophants, and together they rampage by night through the city. Meanwhile, Nero's extravagance has reached new heights. The Emperor's spending is becoming profligate at the same time as the demands of keeping the provinces subdued have become increasingly unaffordable. Could Nero withdraw from Britannia, and at what price for the Empire?

Britain, 1961: A beautiful blonde baby is born to Viscount Althorp, heir to the Spencer earldom. But Diana grows up amid the fallout of her parents’ messy divorce. She struggles at school. Her refuge throughout is romantic novels. She dreams of falling in love and being rescued by a handsome prince.

In the century's darkest time, one man became the most unlikely of heroes. German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler used his wealth and influence to save the lives of more than 1,300 Jews who would have otherwise died in the concentration camp at Plaszow. Here is the story on which Steven Spielberg based his powerful motion picture. If you like this, try Ursula Hegi's Stones from a River.

Roma, 1567. Vittoria Colonna, poetessa, vedova di Ferrante d'Avalos, marchesa di Pescara e consigliera di due Papi, è morta ormai da alcuni anni. Ed è solo a distanza di tempo che la sua dama di compagnia, colei che le è stata accanto dal primo giorno, decide di aprire le carte che ha conservato e nascosto fino alla fine: gli amici di Vittoria sono morti ormai e nessuno corre più il pericolo di essere condannato per eresia e tradimento.

It is the turn of the 18th century in Frankfurt, Germany, and young Gutle and Meir Amschel Rothschild struggle to establish themselves in the cramped, restricted Judengasse. But when Meir’s talents as a novice banker catch the attention of a German prince, Meir is afforded entrée into the European world of finance and nobility, and the Rothschilds’ lives are changed forever. As proud as Gutle is of her husband’s success, she is also cautious - very much aware of the fact that her husband’s rise is tied to his patrons’ willingness to “see past” his Jewishness.

The Willow Wren is based on the true story of a neurodivergent boy growing up in Nazi Germany, surviving bombing, the Hitler Youth, and Russian occupation before escaping to the west.

La historia humana está plagada de individuos cuyos nombres perdurarán por siempre; hay otros tan icónicos que se los conoce solo por su nombre de pila. Pero existe otra categoría, la de aquellos que ni siquiera pueden ser nombrados y para quienes basta con una letra: a ella pertenece Benito Mussolini. Esta es la biografía novelada de un hombre y, a través de él, también la de una época entera, la del surgimiento del fascismo.

When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country’s golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there’s someone else in their household—Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny. Betty must find the truth in order to clear her own name—and to find justice for the child she loves.

Did photography replace an absence in her life or expose the truth of her heart’s emptiness? While growing in confidence as a photographer, 18-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele’s personal life is at a crossroads. Hoping she’s put an unfortunate romantic longing behind her as “water under the bridge”, she exiles herself to Milwaukee to operate photographic studios for those owners who have fallen ill with mercury poisoning. Jessie gains footing in her dream to one day operate her own studio and soon finds herself in other Midwest towns, pursuing her profession.

Paris, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel's are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli's bold, experimental, and surreal. When Lily Sutter travels to Paris to visit her brother, Charlie, he insists on buying her a couture dress for her birthday - a Chanel. Lily reluctantly agrees but wants a Schiaparelli, not a Chanel.

Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle.

Instantly recognizable, Auguste Renoir's masterpiece depicts a gathering of his real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a café terrace along the Seine near Paris. A wealthy painter, an art collector, an Italian journalist, a war hero, a celebrated actress, and Renoir's future wife, among others, share this moment of la vie moderne, a time when social constraints were loosening and Paris was healing after the Franco-Prussian War.

Lady Macbeth takes listeners into the heart of 11th-century Scotland, painting a vivid picture of Gruadh, the last female descendent of the country's most royal line. Married, pregnant, then quickly widowed, she is forced to wed her husband's murderer, the warlord Macbeth. Determined to protect her interests and those of her infant son, she vows to preserve her family's legacy at any cost.

Adele Astaire was a glittering, glamorous star, dancing with her brother, Fred, endearing herself to audiences from New York to London. But although she is toasted by royalty and beloved by countless fans, Adele Astaire has dreams of a loving husband and a houseful of children. And when she meets Lord Charles Cavendish, her wishes may just come true—but at what cost?

Brilliant brothers Langley and Homer Collyer are born into bourgeois New York comfort in settled times, their home a fin-de-siècle mansion on upper Fifth Avenue, their future rosy. But before he is out of his teens, Homer begins to lose his sight, Langley returns from the War in Europe with his lungs seared by gas, and when the death of their parents in the influenza epidemic of 1918 leaves the brothers orphaned, they seem perilously ill-equipped to deal with the new era.

It's the spring of 1917, and change is in the air. American women have done something remarkable: They've banded together to create military-style training camps for women who want to serve. These so-called National Service Schools prove irresistible to the Kopp sisters, who leave their farm in New Jersey to join up.