Historical Fiction Classics

Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.

A dazzling new recording of this classic best-seller to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the author's birth, Rape of the Fair Country follows its hero Iestyn Mortimer from boyhood to manhood, through the turbulent times of the Industrial Revolution and the Chartist Revolt against the ironmasters and a government that supported them. It is a story of love, of loss, of battle and of honour, set in the plundered valleys of South Wales. Rape of the Fair Country launched the career of Alexander Cordell and went on to sell millions of copies in seventeen languages throughout the world.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman has sold over a million copies nationwide since its publication in 1971, making the fictional character of Miss Jane so real many people don’t know she exists only in the imagination of Louisiana-born author Ernest J. Gaines. Miss Jane is 100 years old when she is interviewed by an area high school teacher looking to teach his students more about plantation society in the Deep South. Her story is not only a vivid picture of the South before the dawn of the civil rights era, but also a story of one woman’s survival against overwhelming odds.

Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Charles Swinburne are sucked into the perilous depths of a moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack - and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.

Lena Todd is the perfect spy. Nobody suspects the flirtatious debutante could be a rebel against London's vicious elite - not even the ruthless Will Carver, the one man she can't twist around her little finger. Will Carver is more than man, he's a verwolfen and he wants nothing to do with the dangerous beauty who drives him to the very edge of control. But when he finds Lena in possession of a coded letter, he realizes she's in a world of trouble. To protect her, he'll have to seduce the truth from her before it's too late.

Charles Dickens takes us to the year 1775, where England and France are undergoing a period of social upheaval and turmoil. The forces that are leading to revolution in France are colliding with a circle of people in England, causing their destinies to be irrevocably intertwined. A Tale of Two Cities has helped to shape our understanding of one of the most pivotal events in modern history: the French Revolution and the birth of the new French Republic.

Julio Desnoyers, a wealthy young Spanish American, tries to escape the dirt, blood, and horror of World War I. Why should he fight on foreign soil for a country that is his father's land and not his own? But everywhere he turns, war and its ravages follow Julio, changing everything. His lover Marguerite no longer desires their old life of abandoned intimacy, and his father has no use for his cowardly, profligate son. When Julio finally decides to fight, the world and his family know him for a different man.

Set in Southwest England in the late 1800s, Sense and Sensibility follows the lives of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. When inheritance money from their father does not fall their way, the sisters and their mother must move in with distant relatives. Settling in at Barton Park, the Dashwood sisters discover a new life filled with new acquaintances and different suitors. From these new encounters, their lives are forever changed through a series of love, romance, and heartbreaks.

When a clockwork-powered man of brass is found abandoned in Trafalgar Square, Burton and his assistant, the wayward poet Algernon Swinburne, find themselves on the trail of the stolen Garnier Collection - black diamonds rumored to be fragments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times. His investigation leads to involvement with the media sensation of the age: the Tichborne Claimant, a man who insists that he's the long lost heir to the cursed Tichborne estate.

Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother's Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it's dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground, and Sandrine's deepest desires.

When the beautiful Jessica Pruitt arrives in Venice to star in a film based on The Merchant of Venice, she is preoccupied: She has recently lost custody of her daughter, and as an older actress she is increasingly aware of the difficulty of landing leading roles. One day, as she wanders through an old Jewish ghetto, Jessica is magically transported to 16th-century Venice where she finds herself the heroine of "Will" Shakespeare's play. Immediately attracted to the younger playwright, Jessica enters into an intensely passionate love affair that defies time and place.

Between 1925-27, H.P. Lovecraft wrote Supernatural Horror in Literature, an extended essay about about the history of the weird tale. In it he describes supernatural horror from its earliest manifestations up to the 1920s. Lovecraft offers his own candid opinions on the merits (and deficiencies) of the world's canon of strange literature. The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society recorded the essay as an audiobook. Read by society founders Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, the recording is approximately three hours long.

A fascinating four-volume collection from the private journals of four distinguished historical figures, presented in a dramatised setting.

After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old boarding house. Despite the gruff landlady and an assortment of shifty tenants, Gwynne rents a room for herself. She spends her first few nights at 593 Trent Street tensely awake, the house creaking and groaning as if listening to everything that happens behind its closed doors. A chain of chilling events leads to the gruesome discovery of a mutilated body in the basement kitchen, dead of unknown circumstances. Was it an accident or murder?

An urgent note from a friend spurs Ann Gay to visit her recently married cousin, Jacqueline Heaton. Upon her arrival at Fiddler's Fingers, a remote, pine-grown estate on Lake Superior, Ann immediately senses her cousin's fear - someone has been playing increasingly malicious tricks on the Heatons, a proud family of Minnesota lumber tycoons, and all signs point to Jacqueline as the instigator. Ann quickly resolves to take Jacqueline and her young daughter, Toby, away from the danger. But what began as seemingly trivial pranks escalates to direct attacks and ultimately murder.

A charming rogue, Dan Courtney is learning fast that it takes more than a little charm to lay the groundwork for a railroad. Particularly when the plan is to build it across some of the roughest and most dangerous territory on earth. Courtney's been hired to survey the land that would link up the Uganda Railway to the Anglo-Egyptian railroad. Running through desert, jungle and mountains, this is one line—and story—with more twists and turns than the New York City subway system.

London, 1942. Flight Lieutenant David Heron, home on convalescent leave, awakes to the news that a murder victim has been discovered in the garden of his boardinghouse. With a week until his service resumes, David sets out to solve the murder. Drawn into a world of mystery and double-dealing, he soon realises that there is more to the inhabitants of the boardinghouse than meets the eye and that wartime London is a place where opportunism and the black market are able to thrive. Can he solve the mystery before his return to the skies?

Действие романа происходит во времена короля Людовика XIV. История начинается в Старом Свете, во французской столице, где главные герои исполняют тайное поручение короля Людовика XIV, касающегося его будущего брака. Удивительные и полные опасностей приключения главных героев в Америке составляют вторую часть романа.

This novel depicts a mill owner, Robert, whose business is struggling and in turn rejects his attraction to an orphaned woman, Carolne, in favour of proposing to a rich landowner, Shirley. In Charlotte Bronte's classic Shirley rejects him as she loves Robert's poor brother, Louis, but has too much pride to admit her feelings.

Sulle sponde del fiume Mirkwood, in una fertile pianura circondata da fitti boschi, vivono felicemente le tribù gotiche della Gente della Marca. Una sera d'estate lo squillo di un corno squarcia l'aria e un messaggero irrompe nella Dimora dei Wolfings: tra le mani stringe una lancia spezzata, prova dell'avanzata dell'esercito romano. Sarà Thiodolf, saggio capo guerriero della Casata dei Wolfings e discendente di una misteriosa stirpe, a condurre i suoi uomini in battaglia a fianco delle casate alleate della Marca.