Historical Fiction in America
Explore the best American historical fiction books, featuring captivating stories set in pivotal moments of U.S. history. Discover must-read novels that bring America's past to life.
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Sons of Yocahu
by Gloria Bond
"When Christopher Columbus landed on the island known as Hispaniola, he discovered the magnificent culture of the Tainan people, a people who believed in peace because of the teachings of their great zemie, Yocahu. Many of the arriving Europeans brought with them brutal assumptions of superiority. Would the Taino tradition of peace be destroyed by that brutality? Or would the Europeans who claimed to worship the 'Prince of Peace' learn from those they conquered?"--P. [4] of cover.
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Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad's finest, most enigmatic story.
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The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad
One of the great detective novels of all time, "The Secret Agent", written in 1903, is a magisterial thriller of terrorists and police in London in the early years of the 20th century.
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The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics. This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him. "A thriller, a gripping tale . . . that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick." —The New York Times
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East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors, in a deluxe Centennial edition In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century. This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translato
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America and Americans, and Selected Nonfiction
by John Steinbeck
This is a unique selection of nonfiction work by the quintessential American writer.
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Journal of a Novel
by John Steinbeck
Each working day from January 29 to November 1, 1951, John Steinbeck warmed up to the work of writing East of Eden with a letter to the late Pascal Covici, his friend and editor at The Viking Press. It was his way, he said, of "getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game." Steinbeck's letters were written on the left-hand pages of a notebook in which the facing pages would be filled with the test of East of Eden. They touched on many subjects—story arguments, trial flights of workmanship, concern for his sons. Part autobiography, part writer's workshop, these letters offer an illuminating perspective on Steinbeck's creative process, and a fascinating glimpse of Steinbeck, the private man.
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Elizabeth and After
by Matt Cohen
Two love stories, one past, one present, mirror each other in this highly acclaimed story of ambition, sex, memory and marriage. Set in small-town Ontario -- vintage Matt Cohen territory -- Elizabeth and After is rich in insights about human foibles and aspirations, and an unforgettable portrait of a place and the people who live there.
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The Bookseller
by Matt Cohen
A roman a trois in Toronto on a woman and two brothers, one a garage mechanic, the other a bookseller. By chance the bookseller meets Judith, a heroin addict and friend of the brother, and through her he discovers who his brother really is.
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The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo.
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Jamaica Inn
by Daphne Du Maurier
After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. There she finds Patience a changed woman, downtrodden by her domineering, vicious husband Joss Merlyn. The inn is a front for a lawless gang of criminals, and Mary is unwillingly dragged into their dangerous world of smuggling and murder. Before long she will be forced to cross her own moral line to save herself.
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In the Company of the Courtesan
by Sarah Dunant
1527. While the Papal city of Rome burns - brutally sacked by an invading army including Protestant heretics - two of her most interesting and wily citizens slip away, their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed as the enemy breaks down their doors. Though almost as damaged as their beloved city, Fiammetta Bianchini and Bucino Teodoldi - a fabulous courtesan and her dwarf companion - are already planning their future. They head for the shimmering beauty of Venice, a honey pot of wealth and trade where they start to rebuild their business. As a partnership they are invincible: Bucino, clever with a sharp eye and a wicked tongue and Fiammetta, beautiful and shrewd, trained from birth to charm, entertain and satisfy men who have the money to support her. Venice, however, is a city which holds its own temptations. From the admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his Sultan's court, to the searing passion of a young lover who wants more than his allotted nights. But the greatest challenge comes from a young blind woman, a purveyor of health and beauty, who insinuates her way into their lives with devastating consequences for them all.
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The Smell of Apples
by Mark Behr
The story of an affluent white South African family during apartheid. Its narrator is the son of an Afrikaner general and he describes his growing disillusion with the cruelty and arrogance of the whites. Set in the 1970s, the novel follows him from boyhood to soldiering in Angola, fighting the blacks.
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Embrace
by Mark Behr
EMBRACE is the story of the awakening of Karl De Man a thirteen-year-old student at the Berg, an exclusive academy for boys in South Africa in the 1970s. Interwoven with the storyline about Karl at school are memories from Karl's childhood and first years at the Berg, presented as an ever-growing patchwork of the many influences on his development: growing up on a game reserve in East Africa, intensely aware of landscape and wildlife; a loving and close family, but a traditional one that will never easily accept Karl's true self: being sent away to school and the formation of new friendships and relationships. But, after threats and punishments handed out after casual sexual games in the dorm, Karl falls in love. He simultaneously has secret affairs with his best friend, Dominic, who is the son of liberal parents, and his choirmaster, Jacques Cilliers. The great strength of the novel is that it places Karl's passions on a wider canvas, focusing on his raw passions and elemental drives against the landscapes of Africa. It is a staggering follow-up to Mark Behr's award-winning first novel, THE SMELL OF APPLES.
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The Physician
by Noah Gordon
"Populated by engaging characters, rich in incicdent, and vivid in historical detail." THE NEW YORKTIMES BOOK REVIEW In the eleventh-century London, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling, juggling, peddling cures to the sick--and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing--a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever....
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Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann David Wyss
A simplified, abridged version of the fortunes of a shipwrecked family as they imaginatively adapt to life on an island with abundant animal and plant life.
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Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate's fortune.
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Chamán
by Noah Gordon
En esta saga familiar, Robert Jacobson Cole huye de Escocia para AmĂ©rica con su hijo Robert Jefferson Cole, conocido como Chamán, para practicar medicina y estudiar las artes curativas de los Indios Sauk. Mientras las tensiones entre el Norte y Sur se elevan, padre e hijo llegan a involucrarse en la Guerra Civil de AmĂ©rica. Esta representaciĂłn vĂvida de dos hombres y las mujeres que aman es tambiĂ©n la historia de la medicina surgiendo del mundo antiguo.
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Elizabeth et après
by Matt Cohen
On imagine assez bien Woody Allen dans le rôle de Carl McKelvey, héros calamiteux mais parfaitement émouvant de cette chronique désenchantée. Carl revient chez lui, à West Gull, une petite bourgade de l'Ontario, après trois ans d'absence : divorcé, plein de bonnes intentions (il va enfin pouvoir s'occuper de sa fille), mais tourmenté comme jamais par de méchants souvenirs - et par quelques remords. Pas facile d'oublier. Pas facile non plus de se faire oublier : chacun à West Gull croit savoir à quoi s'en tenir dès qu'il est question de Carl - son art de se mettre les gens à dos, le don qu'il a pour se fourrer toujours dans des situations inextricables. On se méfie de lui, et lui a vite fait de se réabonner à toutes les guignes. Difficile d'habiter cette planète, où tout est perpétuellement à recommencer - et où il est si tentant de céder au pire. Surtout quand on vient après Elizabeth... et qu'il faut bien en prendre son parti.