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Beyond
the Bodice Ripper:
Historical Fiction for the Well Informed
 …NOT!
A
Highly Selective List
THE
ANCIENT WORLD
Creation.
Gore Vidal. A panoramic and ironic look at the world in 5C BC as told
by a friend of Xerxes who got around.
The Greenlanders. Jane Smiley. A total immersion for the
reader into the doomed 10C Norwegian settlement in Greenland.
Songs of Kings. Barry Unsworth. A retelling of the Trojan
War story.
The Warlord Chronicles [The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur].
Bernard Cornwell. 3 volumes set in 5C Britain following the most probable
theory on the historical Arthur. The Celts are trying to hold it together
after the Romans have withdrawn and a mystery cult from the Middle East,
called Christianity, is moving in to spoil everyone’s fun.
THE
MIDDLE AGES
The
Corner That Held Them. Sylvia Townsend Warner. Set in a nunnery,
with a convincing depiction of its internal politics, in England during
the Black Death, a time of great social upheaval.
Down by the Common. Ann Baer. Realistic – almost too realistic
considering the state of sanitation – account of a year in the life of
a medieval peasant woman.
Ivanhoe. Sir Walter Scott. Although the Normans have ruled
England for 100 years, tensions with the conquered Saxons still run high.
Robin Hood lends a hand. Scott may be considered the founder of the genre
and this book is still quite readable.
Morality Play. Barry Unsworth. Set among a traveling troupe
of actors doing Mystery Plays in 14C England. Explores the beginnings
of theatre as well as life and belief at that time.
RENAISSANCE
AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Black
Robe. Brian Moore. Set among the Jesuit missionaries in 17C North
America, a thoughtful depiction of culture clash.
An Instance of the Fingerpost. Iain Pears. Multifaceted
novel covering politics, religion, and science in early 17C England, mainly
Oxford.
Jem (and Sam). Ferdinand Mount. A young man sets out to
make a name for himself in Restoration London but is upstaged at every
turn by some smart aleck named Samuel Pepys.
The Lymond Chronicles [The Game of Kings, Queen’s Play, The Disorderly
Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle, Checkmate]. Dorothy
Dunnett. 6 volumes follow the life and adventures of a Scottish soldier
of fortune throughout Europe and the Middle East in the mid-16C.
Restoration. Rose Tremain. Set during the reign of Charles
II. The title has a double meaning as a courtier finds the true meaning
of life amid plague and politics and the Great Fire of London.
Year of Wonders. Geraldine Brooks. Based on a true incident
during the 1666 plague year in England. Chronicles what happens to the
residents of a village when they voluntarily quarantine themselves to
prevent the spread of the disease.
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
The
American Chronicle [Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, Washington,
DC, The Golden Age]. Gore Vidal. In 7 volumes, beginning in the
late 18C and ending in the McCarthy era, Vidal provides a rather acerbic
but always entertaining view of American history.
Drums Along the Mohawk. Walter D. Edmonds. Set in upstate
NY during the American Revolution, a vivid depiction of daily life on
the frontier in wartime.
The Year of the French. Thomas Flanagan. Set in 1798 when
the French attempted to aid an uprising against British rule in Ireland.
NINETEENTH
CENTURY
Beloved.
Toni Morrison. A slave woman escapes to Ohio but still is not safe.
A wrenching depiction of American slavery.
Cold Mountain. Charles Frazier. A Civil War deserter attempts
to get back to the woman he loves in the North Carolina mountains while
she struggles through a hardscrabble existence. Beautifully written depiction
of life and attitudes.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman. John Fowles. Wonderful exploration
of Victorian sexual mores.
Lonesome Dove. Larry McMurtry. Epic tale of life and death
on a cattle drive in late 19C Texas.
Possession. A.S. Byatt. The story shuttles between the secret
love affair between two 19C writers and the modern day scholars who discover
their correspondence. A brilliant recreation of 19C literary life.
TWENTIETH
CENTURY
The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Ernest J. Gaines. Her dramatic
and moving life story begins in slavery and spans to the Civil Rights
Movement in the South in the 1950s.
Charlotte Gray. Sebastian Faulks. A cracking adventure story
but also an unblinking look at life in occupied France during World War
II.
Gone to Soldiers. Marge Piercy. Follows the intertwined
lives of ten people, ranging from soldiers to codebreakers to factory
workers, during World War II.
Ragtime. E.L. Doctorow. The comfortable life of a middle
class family in pre-World War I upstate NY is shattered by outside forces
ranging from racism and terrorism to the beginnings of the motion picture
industry. The prose has a ragtime rhythm.
Raj Quartet [The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The
Towers of Silence, A Division of the Spoils]. Paul Scott. A huge,
multidimensional depiction of the British in India as they prepare to
give up their rule after WWII.
Rumors of Peace. Ella Leffland. A girl comes of age in California
as World War II begins.
Snow Falling on Cedars. David Guterson. Set in the Pacific
Northwest during WWII.
Spies. Michael Frayn. Set in an English village during WWII
from the point of view of a young boy. Brilliant depiction of home front
life at the time as the boy misinterprets the actions of adults around
him and decides his friend’s mother is a spy for the Germans.
Helene
Androski for the WLA Readers Section
April 2003
handroski@library.wisc.edu
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