Once again I’m stealing from electoral-vote.com. 

On Saturday they had their usual Q&A along with their Reader Question of the Week which involved historical fiction. A lot of the Q’s and A’s are worth a read, if you have the time, so click here, but I want to concentrate on the some of the readers’ responses to the reader historical fiction question.

I’m going to pick and choose among their answers; time is short, and I’m already overloaded with books I don’t have time to read. So here are some of the responses of those books that I’ve already read and can recommend along with a few more that sound like ones I think I’d like to read. The complete list of historical fiction responses can be found here.

C.J. in Redondo Beach, CA: I’ve been thinking about the question of the week off and on for a few days. I guess it sort of boils down to how far back a book has to go to be considered “historical fiction” and/or how recent a book are we talking about.

One of the obvious candidates is Huckleberry Finn, published in 1884, but set 40 years prior. In the same way, there’s also A Tale of Two Cities, set around 60 years before the novel was released. Is that amount of time satisfactory?

Then the other question remains. I assume the request implied something more recent (say, written in the last handful of decades). I’m not super well versed since I tend to read nonfiction nowadays, but I’ll throw out Lonesome Dove. Amazing book, even if a bit soap opera-like at times. The miniseries was aces too.

I think everybody ought to read Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn at least once, though I admit it can be a difficult slog for a modern reader because of the frequent references to “nigger Jim”. According to Ernest Hemingway: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” It’s written in Huck’s first person voice, and he’s completely a child of his time and believes in the slave system. When he decides to help Jim escape to his freedom, he firmly believes he’s doing something evil. 

A Tale of Two Cities is probably the most tightly plotted of all the Dickens novels. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. He could almost have been writing about today… 

E.R. in Padova, Italy: A large portion of world’s literature can be classified as “historical fiction”, so it’s very difficult to find a “best” book.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (published in 1869; the story of a few Russian families during the Napoleonic wars) is perhaps my #1 candidate. I also like Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (published in 1957… in Italy, because the Soviet regime blocked its publication in the USSR; it’s about a Muscovite physician during the Russian Revolution), and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (published in 1980; sort of a detective story in a medieval monastery… but it’s much more than that!).

My abortive attempt to read the Tolstoy opus notwithstanding, I hope to try again one of these days, and I also tried to read the Pasternak novel, but to no avail, after seeing the movie as a class outing in high school. But that Umberto Eco novel! I actually made it through that one. Recommended!

J.D. in Sydney, NSW, Australia: The best modern historical fiction is obviously and unquestionably Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, about Tudor politcian and fixer Thomas Cromwell and his rise and fall under Henry VIII. Absolutely masterful writing that melds politics, history, religion and emotion. And if it’s not Wolf Hall, then it would definitely be Bring Up the Bodies, which is the sequel. And if it’s not that, then The Mirror and the Light, which concludes the trilogy. Those three are pretty much head and shoulders above all the competition.

If you want something about more recent history, Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong, about the First World War, is another lyrical piece of work that absolutely transfixes the reader with its emotional cargo.

For children, I would without hesitation recommend The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe. In Roman Britain, the Ninth Legion disappeared into Caledonia (Scotland) and was never heard of again. In the novel, the son of one of the centurions goes to try and recover the legion’s eagle standard. It is a wonderful adventure story with a well researched background, and links in to a whole series of novels she wrote covering the end of Roman Britain and the beginning of the “Dark Ages,” up to and including Arthur.

Finally, your suggested e-mail subject line hints at maybe alternate history. For that, I’d recommend the somewhat weird, but intensely enjoyable, Ash by Mary Gentle. I won’t even try to explain it, but it’s worth a look—the Duchy of Burgundy has survived, there is a Visigothic kingdom of Carthage, and the Pyramids of Egypt play a significant part. From Wikipedia, I have just learned that in the U.S., this was published as four separate books: A Secret History, Carthage Ascendant, Wild Machines and Lost Burgundy.

And finally, another alt history. I am currently halfway through Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. A police procedural set in an alternative U.S. in a Jazz Age where native American cultures (some of them at least) have survived with some success, Cahokia is a state, and the clash of cultures is reaching an ignition point. Very enjoyable and very believable.

I’ve had the Hilary Mantel novels on my to-do list for years. Some of those others sound worthwhile as well. 

D.R. in Chicago, IL: I have two suggestions: (1) I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. As a retired teacher, I often used this work and the BBC television series as an introduction to Roman history for my senior high school history class; (2) Not a novel, but Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. This is also a fun introduction to Roman history for both history and language arts students. My challenging essay question was: “How does this work differ from the actual history?”

I have read and re-read those Robert Graves novels several times. Highly recommended. I can’t count how many times I’ve watched the BBC series made from them. Ought to be required reading and viewing—especially for anybody in politics. No wait. They already know enough dirty tricks, no need to add poisoning to their repertoire. I think the Shakespeare play was the first one I ever studied in high school. Friends, Romans, countrymen! Beware the Ides of March! Of course, I love anything Roman.

However, is D.R. in Chicago serious when they claim they taught those works “as a retired teacher”? I know, I’m terrible, so sue me. Or pick apart my grammar.

M.M. in San Diego, CA: I’ve not read many historical novels because: (1) there’s no such thing as “the good old days” and (2) novelists tend to romanticize the past. Also, capturing the cultural mindset of an era is difficult, and inevitably the protagonist will have suspiciously Enlightenment-influenced ideas and values, regardless of the period. That said, I did enjoy Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels as a good piece of fiction (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1975). Whether or not it is an accurate account of the Battle of Gettysburg and its main players, I really couldn’t say…

Worth reading.

B.W. in West Hartford, CT: My favorite historical novel is Drums Along the Mohawk. Even though I’m from the little village in which the very real battle at the center of the book was fought (“the bloodiest battle of the American Revolution”) ,I never read the book until recently and was blown away by its character development and by the storylines. Very exciting read about a very important place and period during the American Revolution. Colonist against colonist, each side with their own set of native allies, in an early frontier setting in which anything goes in terms of violence. It was not a simple time, and this novel examines the period in ways I did not expect from a book written in 1935 (and a best seller for years). And it was made into a motion picture featuring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert that threw away the historical complexity for a simplistic embrace of a mythic American past.

A very familiar sounding title but I’ve never read it nor have I seen the movie. After reading this take, I think I’ll skip the film but the book sounds like it’s worth a look. Added to my ever growing must read list.

L.S. in Greensboro, NC: I wouldn’t pretend to be able to select the best historical novel, since there are thousands that I haven’t read. However, I feel that the first three (chronologically, not in order of publication) of Gore Vidal’s Narratives of Empire series, namely Burr, Lincoln, and 1876 were all excellent. The fourth one, Empire, wasn’t too bad, either. The two more modern volumes were somewhat lacking in my opinion.

While perhaps not completely historically accurate, I thought Allen Drury’s Akhenaten duology, A God Against the Gods and Return to Thebes were quite entertaining.

For those who like a dose of murder mystery along with their ancient Egyptian historical fiction, Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End was quite good, too. Because she was married to a renowned archaeologist and actively participated on his digs, she is quite good on archaeological details. It is also interesting, as it gives the perspective of somewhat ordinary Egyptians, and has a lot of details of daily life at that time.

And I can’t close without mentioning one of my all-time favorite authors, and arguably one of the greatest authors ever in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, Gene Wolfe, and his wonderful pair of novels about Ancient Greece, Soldier in the Mist and Soldier of Arete. They feature a soldier who has been robbed of his memory by an injury and therefore writes a meticulous accounting of his daily activities so that he can read and remember. While including fantasy aspects of magic and gods, they actually reflect the likely beliefs of people of that time.

Almost anything by Vidal is worth reading methinks, though I tend to agree with L.S.’s assessment of those history novels. Meanwhile, I love, love, love the Christie whodunit set in ancient Egypt. I’ve read it at least twice. It’s terrific as a detective novel and as a historical novel. If you like either genre you’ll probably enjoy it.

M.A. in Park Ridge, IL: The greatest historical novel was written by the greatest writer of my lifetime: Gore Vidal. Which novel, you ask? Well, I prefer Lincoln, but a case could be made for Burr or 1876.

A bit over-the-top in his praise of the author, but as I said before, you really can’t go wrong with Gore.

P.D.N. in Boardman, OH: Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. The other four books in the Kingsbridge series, The Evening and The Morning, A Column of Fire, The Armour of Light, and World Without End are just as good.

All seven of S.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake Tudor mysteries: Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, Lamentation, and Tombland. Winter in Madrid, about the British need to keep Franco from siding with the Nazis, is equally good.

I enjoyed the Pillars mini-series and have been meaning to read the books, as well as the Shardlake mysteries. They’re supposed to be quite good.

P.M. in Port Angeles, WA: I’ll offer two stories by Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey, both renowned over millennia. And, of course, Virgil’s The Aeneid, which I once read in the original language. We might also include the Eddas of Norse mythology and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Closer to home, time-wise might be the Arthurian legend, or Beowulf.

I’ve read parts of Homer but I don’t think I’ve ever read either of his works in full. My loss, I’m sure. Maybe one of these days…