aListofBooks

Ultimate Best Books

Genre: Historical Fiction (183 books)

The best classic books from the Historical Fiction genre.

The Power and the Glory

The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene

4.0 (2)

Mr. Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder, into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust.

#393
RANK
1,246
POINTS
War and Remembrance

War and Remembrance

Herman Wouk

4.0 (1)

A liberty boat full of sleep hung-over sailors came clanging alongside the U.S.S. Northhampton, and a stocky captain in dress whites jumped out to the accommodation ladder.

#396
RANK
1,237
POINTS
Germinal

Germinal

Émile Zola

4.0 (2)

Dans la plaine rase, sous la nuit sans étoiles, d’une obscurité et d’une épaisseur d’encre, un homme suivait seul la grande route de Marchiennes à Montsou, dix kilomètres de pavé coupant tout droit, à travers les champs de betteraves.[translation by Havelock Ellis, 1894] Over the open plain, beneath a starless sky as dark and thick as ink, a man walked alone along the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, a straight paved road ten kilometers in length, intersecting the beetroot-fields.

#401
RANK
1,176
POINTS
A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry

4.67 (3)

The morning express bloated with passengers slowed to a crawl, then lurched forward suddenly, as though to resume full speed.

#402
RANK
1,172
POINTS
Oscar and Lucinda

Oscar and Lucinda

Peter Carey

3.5 (2)

If there was a bishop, my mother would have him to tea.

#403
RANK
1,170
POINTS
Buddenbrooks

Buddenbrooks

Thomas Mann

3.67 (3)

#404
RANK
1,162
POINTS
The Wings of the Dove

The Wings of the Dove

Henry James

3.0 (2)

She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face postiively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without the sight of him.

#407
RANK
1,149
POINTS
Cranford

Cranford

Elizabeth Gaskell

3.33 (3)

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.

#409
RANK
1,117
POINTS
Angle of Repose

Angle of Repose

Wallace Stegner

3.67 (3)

Now I believe they will leave me alone.

#410
RANK
1,105
POINTS
Austerlitz

Austerlitz

W.G. Sebald

4.33 (3)

In the second half of the 1960s I traveled repeatedly from England to Belgium, partly for study purposes, partly for other reasons which were never entirely clear to me, staying sometimes for just one or two days, sometimes for several weeks.

#417
RANK
1,023
POINTS