Historical Fiction Classics

When a young couple moves into their new home, they are taken aback by the strange behavior of their new landlord. While at first he bid them to do all of the fixing-up the home needed on their own, he quickly changed his tune and was persistent in his attempts to help them tackle some of the rooms himself. The source of his desire to help lies in the fact that the old tenant may have hidden a fortune within the walls - a fortune that winds up belonging to the young couple after all!

Dorothy Hare, the dutiful daughter of a rector in Suffolk, spends her days performing good works and cultivating good thoughts, pricking her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. She does her best to reconcile her father’s fanciful view of his position in the world with such realities as the butcher’s bill. But even Dorothy’s strength has its limits, and one night, as she works feverishly on costumes for the church-school play, she blacks out. When she comes to, she finds herself on a London street, clad in a sleazy dress and unaware of her identity.

《三国演义》中国古典四大名著之一，反映了三国时代的政治军事斗争和三国时代各类社会矛盾的渗透与转化，概括了这一时代的历史巨变，塑造了一批咤叱风云的英雄人物。…… 《三國演義》中國古典四大名著之一。反映了三國時代的政治軍事鬥爭和三國時代各類社會矛盾的滲透與轉化，概括了這一時代的歷史巨變，塑造了一批吒叱風雲的英雄人物。

An elderly couple living in Victorian London struggle against despair as their small resources dwindle. When an eccentric and mysterious gentleman answers their advertisement for a lodger, they celebrate. But as women begin dying at the hands of "The Avenger", they start to suspect something too horrific for words.

Abbie Mackenzie dreamed of becoming a fine lady like her aristocratic grandmother, devoting herself to music and art. But at eighteen Abbie found a different dream, turning away from the promise of a comfortable life as a doctor’s wife to marry handsome, quiet Will Deal. Together, they eagerly accepted the challenge of homesteading in Nebraska territory, where the prairies stretched as far as the eye could see, and only the strongest survived for long.

Roosevelt was a cowboy, a boxer, a politician, a war hero, a father, a devoted husband, and most of all, a real human being. I hope you will listen to this book in his own words and get to know one of America's presidents, and I hope that you will come to appreciate him as much as I have.

As he did so masterfully in The Jungle, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Upton Sinclair interweaves social criticism with human tragedy to create an unforgettable portrait of Southern California's early oil industry. Enraged by the oil scandals of the Harding administration in the 1920s, Sinclair tells a gripping tale of avarice, corruption, and class warfare, featuring a cavalcade of characters, including senators, oil magnates, Hollywood film starlets, and a crusading evangelist.

The last novel completed by Jane Austen before she died at 41, Persuasion is often thought to be the story of the author's own lost love. Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall has three daughters: Elizabeth, who shares his haughty vanity and, at 28 has found no one good enough to marry; Mary, who has, with some condescension, married the son of the local squire; and admirable Anne, who "was nobody with either father or sister".

Perhaps the most haunting and tragic love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a brooding, troubled orphan, and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. His desire for her leads him to madness when Catherine is made to marry a wealthy lord, sending Heathcliff on a lifelong quest to avenge himself upon those who stole his only love and his life.

This 1896 novel follows the Mark Twain series of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894). Tom finds himself on another exciting adventure as he serves as detective for a mysterious murder in the banks of the Mississippi. Listen to this suspenseful, yet whimsical story of Tom and Huckleberry and be fascinated once again with Mark Twain's imagination.

Jane Austen's first major novel, a parody of the popular literature of the time, is an ironic tale of the romantic folly of men and women in pursuit of love, marriage, and money. The humorous adventures of young Catherine as she encounters "the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath" lead to some of Austen's most brilliant social satire.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job. Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege.

The star of her school’s running team, Sadako is lively and athletic…until the dizzy spells start. Then she must face the hardest race of her life - the race against time. Based on a true story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes celebrates the courage that makes one young woman a heroine in Japan.

"[The] story speaks directly to young readers of the tragedy of Sadako's death and, in its simplicity, makes a universal statement for 'peace in the world.” (The Horn Book)

The exhilerating tale of Takeo continues in book II of the internationally best-selling Tales of the Otori trilogy, a sweeping saga set in a mythical, medieval Japan.

"Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat." This compelling, dignified and moving novel was inspired by and based upon the Nazi invasion of neutral Norway. Set in an imaginary European mining town, it shows what happens when a ruthless totalitarian power is up against an occupied democracy with an overwhelming desire to be free.

In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous re-imagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella’s "evil" stepmother. We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we? As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story...

Percival Tunstell loves that his sister and her best friend are building themselves a family of misfits aboard their airship, the Spotted Custard. Of course, he'd never admit that he belongs among them. He's always been on the outside - dispassionate, aloof, and hatless. But accidental spies, a trip to Japan, and one smart and beautiful doctor may have him renegotiating his whole philosophy on life.

First conceived during a rainy summer holiday in the Highlands of Scotland in an attempt to amuse his stepson, Treasure Island began with the map. Young Lloyd Osbourne had drawn a crude version of an island, and Stevenson, looking over the boy's shoulder, began to elaborate, christening various curves and smudges the famed names of Skeleton Island and Spyglass Hill and finally adding the three red crosses marking the buried treasure.

In a vivid depiction of Ancient Greece and its legendary heroes, The Mask of Apollo tells the story of Nikeratos, the gifted tragic actor at the centre of political and cultural activity in Athens, 400 B. C. Wherever he goes, Nikeratos carries a golden mask of Apollo, a relic and reminder of an age when the theatre was at the height of its greatness and talent. Only a mascot at first, the mask gradually turns into Nikeratos' conscience as he encounters famous thinkers, actors, and philosophers, including the famous Plato himself.

Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring adventures of the past four centuries and one of the most well-known works in the English language. Or is it? Recently discovered amidst the papers of the 20th-century writer and historian H. P. Lovecraft is what claims to be the true story of Robinson Crusoe. Taken from the castaway's own journals and memoirs, and fact-checked by Lovecraft himself, it is free from many of Defoe's edits and alterations. From Lovecraft's work a much smoother, simpler tale emerges - but also a far more disturbing one.