18 books like The deluge
Ogniem i mieczem
Goodwill in the seventeenth century Polish Commonwealth has been stretched thin due to the nobility’s perceived and real oppression of the less well-off members. When the situation reaches its inevitable breaking point, it sparks the taking up of arms by the Cossacks against the Polish nobility and a spiral of violence that engulfs the entire state. This background provides the canvas for vividly…
Shares: Poland, Historical Fiction, History
Lilac Girls
Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this debut novel reveals a story of love, redemption, and secrets that were hidden for decades.
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on…
Shares: Poland, History
The Gadfly
The Gadfly was published in 1897, and its original publishers feared a hostile public reaction to its theme of revolution. Instead, it quickly became a classic of socialism, one of the very first politically aware novels. A story of love and conspiracy, it was based in part on the early life of Sidney Rosenblum, better known as "Reilly Ace of Spies" -- Voynich's boyfriend at the time.
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
Pan Michael An historical novel
The third and final book of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy takes a closer and more intimate look at one of the series’ protagonists: Pan Michael Volodyovski. The Polish Commonwealth has been through intense periods of war, and the peace that follows leaves one of its greatest heroes, Pan Michael, finally free to marry his beloved Panna Anusia. But in a twist of fate, she falls ill and dies, leaving…
Shares: Historical Fiction, History
St. George and St. Michael
It was the middle of autumn, and had rained all day. Through the lozenge-panes of the wide oriel window the world appeared in the slowly gathering dusk not a little dismal. The drops that clung trickling to the dim glass added rain and gloom to the landscape beyond, whither the eye passed, as if vaguely seeking that help in the distance, which the dripping hollyhocks and sodden sunflowers…
Shares: Historical Fiction, History
Home as found
"No society, dear!--Why you were at the Henderson's, and the Morgan's, and the Drewett's; three of the greatest _réunions_ that we have had in two winters!"'
"I did not know that you meant those unpleasant crowds, by society".
"Unpleasant crowds! Why, child, that is society, is it not?'
"Not what I have been taught to consider such; I rather think it would be better to call it company".
"And is…
Shares: Historical Fiction
The Border Empire
Wes Stone was a lawman—until the Sandlin gang gunned down his legendary father. Now, he's giving up his badge for vengeance...
Shares: Historical Fiction
Il barone rampante
Il romanzo racconta le vicende di Cosimo di Rondò, vissuto nella seconda metà del XVIII secolo in piccolo paese della Liguria. Cosimo, per sfuggire ad un punizione, decide di salire su un albero e non scenderne mai più: si costruisce un mondo aereo dove diversi personaggi della cultura e della politica (Napoleone compreso) lo vanno a trovare, testimoniandogli la loro ammirazione. Vive anche una…
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
White Nights
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a poignant short story about love, loneliness, and fleeting human connections. Set in St. Petersburg during the ethereal "white nights" of summer, it follows a dreamy, solitary narrator who meets a young woman named Nastenka. Over four nights, he shares his fantasies and feelings, while she confides her longing for a lost lover.
As the narrator falls in love…
Shares: Continental european fiction, History
Kristin Lavransdatter III
In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally's award-winning definitive…
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
Seven Gothic tales
Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic. Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and…
Shares: Continental european fiction, History
La tulipe noire
On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees, spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like large mirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Eastern cupolas are reflected, - the city of the Hague, the capital of the Seven United Provinces, was swelling…
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
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Shares: Historical Fiction, History
A Bitter Cut
Lady Kiera Darby plans to spend the summer reconnecting with friends and family in anticipation of the betrothal of her beloved brother. But when a future in-law is implicated in a murder, the party takes a deadly turn. . . .July 1833. Lady Darby and her dashing husband, Sebastian Gage, are settling into their newly renovated home at Bevington Park in Warkwickshire with their young daughter. With…
Shares: Historical Fiction
Satanstoe ; or, The littlepage manuscripts, a tale of the colony
Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world.
Shares: Historical Fiction, History
Le vicomte de Bragelonne, ou, dix ans plus tard
In the months of March-July in 1844, in the magazine Le Siecle, the first portion of a story appeared, penned by the celebrated playwright Alexandre Dumas. It was based, he claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. They chronicled the adventures of a young man named D'Artagnan who, upon…
Shares: Historical Fiction, History
Les Misérables
In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean--a man unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert--Hugo achieves the sort of rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre.
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
Vingt ans apres̀
Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, and in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. The quartet of musketeers come out of retirement to cross swords with time,…
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History