HISTORICAL FICTION

 

  Included are fiction and graphic novels that are set in the past.

  Each book includes title, author, call number (where to find it at Uni!),

  and a short description from NoveList. Click on the headings to jump

  to a particular section.

 

Fiction | Graphic Novels

 

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Fiction

 

  In the Time of the Butterflies.

  Alvarez, Julia.

  Fiction Al86in1995

  Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican

  Republica in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story the Mirabal sisters,

  three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their

  jailed husbands.

 

 

  Shirley

  Bronte, Charlotte.

  Fiction B78s1998

  When Shirley Keeldar, an heiress, marries a tutor whose brother owns a

  mill introducing labor-saving devices, she helps the brother's campaign.

 

 

 

  Jack Maggs

  Carey, Peter

  Fiction C1892j

  After a young thief makes friends in a wealthy London household in the

  mid-19th century, he meets an author interested in the criminal mind.

 

 

 

  Girl With a Pearl Earring.

  Chevalier, Tracy

  Fiction C4271g2000

  A poor seventeenth-century servant girl knows her place in the household

  of the painter Johannes Vermeer, but when he begins to paint her, nasty

  whispers and rumors circulate throughout the town.

 

 

  Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

  Clarke, Susan

  Fiction C556j

  All is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the

  power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan

  Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil, in a witty fantasy set

  against the backdrop of nineteenth-century England.

 

 

  Gai-Jin: A Novel of Japan

  Clavell, James

  Fiction C573g1994

  In 1860, Gai-Jin, foreigners, have arrived to do business with the Japanese.

  The mighty Struan shipping empire, Noble House, has built a base in

  Yokohama and the new Tai-Pan stands ready to take over. He finds he

  must fight Japanese and foreigners, to keep and build his family's fortune.

 

 

  My Brother Sam is Dead

  Collier, James Lincoln

  Fiction C691M

  Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution

  when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay

  neutral in a Tory town.

 

 

 

  The Last of the Mohicans

  Cooper, James Fenimore

  Fiction C78L1980

  The classic tale of a disillusioned man who exiles himself from a society

  whose values he abhors. Despite this exile, he agrees to take two sisters

  through hostile Indian country with the help of a Mohican scout.

 

 

 

  The Pathfinder: or, The Inland Sea

  Cooper, James Fenimore

  Fiction C78p1980

  In the sequel to The Last of the Mohicans, Natty Bumppo tries to help a

  small outpost on Lake Ontario.

 

 

 

 

  The Red Badge of Courage and Four Stories

  Crane, Stephen

  Fiction C848r1997

  Henry Fleming, a young Union soldier, struggles with his conflicting emotions

  about violence, death, and the nature of bravery in this ironic, skeptical

  account of the Civil War.

 

 

 

  Pope Joan: A Novel

  Cross, Donna Woolfolk

  Fiction C8847p1997

  Berated for being intelligent and scholarly, Joan dons her dead brother's

  clothes, assumes a man's identity, and gains respect and authority as well as

  the title of pope.

 

 

 

  The Idiot

  Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

  Fiction D74oi:c1980

  Prince Myshkin suffers from epilepsy but maintains a keen insight about humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

  The Three Musketeers

  Dumas, Alexandre

  Fiction D890t:E 1991

  A young Gascon nobleman, d’Artagnan, sets off for Paris in hopes of joining

  the Musketeers. He proves himself fighting with them and earns a place in

  their ranks. With d’Artagnan the three preserve the honor of the king and

  thwart the schemes of Cardinal Richelieu.

 

 

 

  The Man in the Iron Mask

  Dumas, Alexandre

  Fiction D890ma:E 1992

  The last segment of The Three Musketeers involves the unsolved identity

  of the man in the iron mask, Raoul de Bragelonne.

 

 

 

 

  The Birth of Venus

  Dunant, Sarah

  Fiction D9122b2003

  Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous

  cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to

  decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of

  the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing,

  Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

 

 

 

  Love Medicine

  Erdrich, Louise

  Fiction Er29L1998

  The members of the Chippewa Kaspaw and Lamartine families describe

  their simple existence as they both deny and discover their native heritages.

 

 

 

 

  A Dangerous Fortune

  Follett, Ken

  Fiction F721d1994

  In 1866, after a young student drowns at Wakefield School, several boys

  who seem to have been involved in the incident continue their duplicity

  as adults.

 

 

 

 

  People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America

  Gear, Kathleen O'Neal

  Fiction G261pe2004

  Recounts the story of the trading empire of Poverty Port, Louisiana, of

  3500 years ago, during which warrior and shaman Salamander experiences

  a vision that shapes the destiny of his people.

 

 

 

  The Scarlet Letter: A Romance

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel

  Fiction H31s1986a

  In early colonial Massachusetts, a young woman endures the consequences

  of her sin of adultery and spends the rest of her life in atonement.

 

 

 

 

 

  The House of Seven Gables

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel

  Fiction H31h2001

  This is a classic tale of a house cursed through the centuries by a man

  hung for witchcraft, and haunted by the ghosts of its sinful dead.

 

 

 

 

 

  Death on the Mississippi: A Mark Twain Mystery

  Heck, Peter J.

  Fiction H448d1995

  Writer Mark Twain turns sleuth to solve the murder of a riverboat gambler

  who was his friend. Lots of riverboat lore. A first novel.

 

 

 

 

  Stones from the River

  Hegi, Ursula

  Fiction H362s1995

  Trudi, a dwarf librarian, tells about the lives of people in the small German

  town of Burgdorf from World War I and into the 1950s.

 

 

 

 

  Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You

  Jansen, Hanna

  Fiction J266u:E

  The only survivor of her family’s massacre, Jeanne witnessed unspeakable

  acts. But through courage, wits, and sheer force of will, she survived.

  Based on a true story, this haunting novel by Jeanne’s adoptive mother

  makes unforgettably real the events of the 1994 Rwandan genocide as

  one family experienced it.

 

 

 

  The First Man in Rome

  McCullough, Colleen

  Fiction M1393fi1991

  A story tracing the creation of Republican Rome presents those who

  founded an empire, including Marius and Sulla, each determined to

  become the First Man of Rome.

 

 

 

 

 

  The Moon and The Sun

  McIntyre, Vonda N.

  Fiction M1896mo1998

  While King Louis XIV of France believes that the sea monster he has

  obtained holds the key to immortality, Marie Josephe de la Croix finds

  herself challenging her most fundamental loyalties, in a story of

  alternate history.

 

 

 

  Gwyneth and the Thief

  Moore, Margaret

  Fiction M78512gw2002

  Fifteen-year-old, Gwyneth, the Lady of Haverleigh, enlists the aid of

  a wounded bandit in warding off the advances of a local baron who has

  designs on both her hand-in-marriage and her family's estate.

 

 

 

 

  Paradise

  Morrison, Toni

  Fiction M8345p

  Tells the story of Ruby, Oklahoma, an all Black town settled by a dozen

  families in the 1890s when they were turned away from other communities.

  But now it's the 1970s and the men of the town blame the women and

  the women's shelter for the change in their community's character.

 

 

 

  Beloved

  Morrison, Toni

  Fiction M8345be2004

  After the Civil War ends, Sethe longingly recalls the two-year-old daughter

  whom she killed when threatened with recapture after escaping from

  slavery 18 years before.

 

 

  Post Captain

  O'Brian, Patrick

  Fiction Ob6po1990

  Captain Jack Aubrey escapes from debtors' prison in France, in the sequel

  to Master and Commander, and afterward, he and Stephen Maturin, a

  surgeon and a spy, avoid a mutiny as they pursue their enemies into a

  French harbor.

 

 

  H.M.S. Surprise

  O'Brian, Patrick

  Fiction Ob69hm1991

  Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin save themselves from a local

  pirate in the Indian Ocean during the days of Lord Nelson, in the sequel to

  Post Captain.

 

 

 

 

  Rob Roy

  Scott, Walter, Sir.

  Fiction Sco8ro1995

  After a young Englishman becomes involved in Jacobite affairs, he escapes

  into Scotland with Rob Roy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Rose

  Smith, Martin Cruz

  Fiction Sm627ro1997

  In 1872, Jonathan Blair wants only to return to Africa, but his employer

  demands that he go to Lancashire to find out about a missing minister,

  which leads to information on a recent mining disaster.

 

 

 

 

  The Grapes ofWrath

  Steinbeck, John

  Fiction St346g1992

  The Joad family, Okie farmers forced from their dustbowl home during

  the Depression, try to find work as migrant fruitpickers in California.

 

 

 

 

  The Ramsay Scallop

  Temple, Frances

  Fiction T247ra1995

  At the turn of the fourteenth century in England, fourteen-year-old Elenor

  finds her betrothal to an ambitious lord’s son launching her on a memorable

  pilgrimage to far-off Spain.

 

 

 

 

  War and Peace

  Tolstoy, Leo

  Fiction T58ovo:Ee1978

  People from diverse social strata respond to Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

 

 

 

 

 

  The Passion of Artemesia

  Vreeland, Susan

  Fiction V957p

  From extraordinary highs--the creation of outstandingly original paintings,

  patronage by the Medici, Galileo's friendship--to rape, torture by the Inquisition,

  struggles for professional acceptance, and betrayal by the men she loved,

  Artemisia was a bold and brilliant woman who lived as she wanted, and paid

  a high price.

 

 

  The House of Mirth

  Wharton, Edith

  Fiction W55h1964

  A young woman struggles to maintain her integrity in a society based on

  greed and vulgarity.

 

 

 

 

 

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Graphic Novels

 

 

 

 

 

  Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science

  of the Atomic Bomb.

  Ottaviani, Jim

  GN Ot82f

  A story of the Manhattan Project and the price J. Robert Oppenheimer,

  Leo Szilard, and we all paid for the atomic bomb.

 

 

 

 

  Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

  Satrapi, Marjane

  GN SA83p

  After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, a free-spirited teenager is sent to

  school in Austria and eventually makes the decision to return to Iran despite

  the tyrannical powers that rule her country.

 

 

 

  Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

  Satrapi, Marjane

  GN Sa83p2 

  The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of

  ardent Marxists continues her description of growing up in Tehran--a

  country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions between

  public and private life.