HISTORICAL FICTION : Great Popular Best - Sellers ( 1930 - 1960 )
Explore the greatest historical fiction best-sellers from 1930 to 1960! Discover classic novels that captivated readers with rich storytelling, vivid eras, and unforgettable characters. Perfect for fans of timeless literary masterpieces.
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The Robe
by Lloyd Cassel Douglas
Christ's robe has a strange effect on the pagan soldier who wins it in a dice game after the Crucifixion.
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Anthony Adverse
by Hervey Allen
Publié aux Etats-Unis en 1933, Anthony Adverse passe aux yeux d'une franc-maçonnerie de lecteurs inconditionnels pour le classique absolu du roman-fleuve, même si sa tonalité ombreuse, mélancolique presque, nous entraîne fort loin des conventions du genre. Ainsi rivalisera-t-il avec Autant en emporte le vent auprès de quelques centaines de milliers de lecteurs, juste avant et après la guerre - et ce même dans la collection aventureuse inaugurée à l'époque par les Editions Gallimard, où parurent en traduction les deux livres. Le roman de Hervey Allen (1889-1949), qui ne cesse mille pages durant de dérouter superbement, et jusqu'à la toute fin, l'attente du lecteur, s'attira à l'époque les reproches de la critique bien-pensante, inspira un grand film signé Mervyn LeRoy - puis se laissa oublier dans la plupart des pays où il avait été traduit : il n'est jamais facile de réimprimer un récit de cette ampleur, même s'il a pour lui d'assez rares mérites. Enfant trouvé, jouet d'un destin en forme d'énigme qu'il aura toutes les peines à débrouiller, le jeune Anthony comme son époque (celle de la Révolution et de l'Empire) cherche son identité par vents contraires - et désespère de jamais la trouver. Tout l'art d'Allen consiste, au gré d'une action à rebondissements dont le fil court entre l'ancien monde et le nouveau, à saper une à une nos certitudes les mieux établies et à insinuer en nous ce soupçon : pouvons-nous jamais être autre chose que des bâtards de la vie, laquelle ne saurait être elle-même que beaux mensonges, poursuite du vent, exil ? Conclusion péremptoire des aficionados de ce livre très seul dans son genre : " Si vous ne devez lire qu'un seul roman-fleuve dans votre vie, lisez Anthony Adverse, et si vous tenez absolument à en lire encore un ensuite, relisez Anthony Adverse. "
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Drums Along the Mohawk
by Walter Dumaux Edmonds
Gilbert Martin and his new bride Lana, pioneers in the Mohawk Valley, live and protect their land through weather disasters, love and hate and Indian attacks.
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Forever Amber
by Kathleen Winsor
The adventures of Amber St. Clare, the willful and beautiful illegitimate daughter of noble parents who was raised on a farm by people she knew as her aunt and uncle.
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The Quiet Light
by Louis De Wohl
Louis de Wohl presents a stimulating historical novel about the great St. Thomas, set against the violent background of the Italy during the Crusades. The author weaves an intricate tapestry of love, violence and piety as he brings the saint to life.
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Dear and Glorious Physician
by Taylor Caldwell
Today St. Luke is known as the author of the third Gospel of the New Testament, but two thousand years ago he was Lucanus, a Greek, a man who loved, knew the emptiness of bereavement, and later traveled through the hills and wastes of Judea asking, "What manner of man was my Lord?" And it is of this Lucanus that Taylor Caldwell tells here in one of the most stirring stories ever lived or written.
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The Egyptian
by Mika Waltari
Set in Egypt, more than a thousand years before Christ, it encompasses all of the then-known world. It is told by Sinhue, physician to the Pharaoh Akhenaton, and is the story of his life. Through his eyes are seen innumerable characters, fully drawn and covering the whole panorama of the ancient world.
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The Ides of March
by Thornton Wilder
Drawing on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, journals, and selections from the extensive annotations Wilder made years later in the margins of the book, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this internationally acclaimed novel. The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities. In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar -- Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero, and others. All Rome comes crowding through these pages -- the Rome of villas and slums, beautiful women and brawling youths, spies and assassins.
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Spartacus
by Howard Fast
"Spartacus" is a fictionalization of a slave revolt in Rome in 71 BC, well known today because of the 1960 film version. It was originally published by Fast after being turned down by every mainstream publisher of the day. This is a reprinting of the title with a special introduction by the author.
