Call for historical fiction recommendations

Okay, you fans of historical novels out there: help me out! I've been reading in the history of 16th- and 17th-century England, especially along the lines of the Reformation, the English Civil War, the ups and down of the monarchy, and the like. And this is of course all rather complicated stuff, material with which I wish I were far more familiar and comfortable than I am. And I know that there are all sorts of wonderful, juicy stories about many of these figures, but I'm having to wade through so much historical context that I think I'm losing out on the good stuff.

So it occurred to me this evening: What I'd like is a really good historical novel! You know, a novel that is fairly historically accurate but also fun, about one or more of Henry VIII's wives. Or about Mary Queen of Scotts. Or Oliver Cromwell. I'm sure there are wonderful novels out there, but I'd love recommendations about novels you think are particularly good and informative.

I'll get our list started: Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. The prince in the novel is Edward VI, and if I were ever going to teach a class on the Reformation I would absolutely include this. Plus it's just a damn fine novel.

Please help me out. I'm eager for your recommendations!

Comments

[Laura]

Phillipa Gregory has some good novels in that era. I haven't read them all, but I've like the ones I have read. Robin Maxwell has several from this era, too. They're both pretty light reading. I was actually writing a book set in this time period when I started my dissertation. :)

[Jeannette]

This isn't quite the setting though roughly the right time. At any rate, worth a read for any occasion:

The Lymond Chronicles (a 6 or 7 book series) by Dorothy Dunnett. They are STUNNING!!! Absolutely the best historical fiction I have ever read. I was literally screaming out loud in my chair reading them, it was so good.

(Actually, the first book, _The Game of Kings_ does deal with mary queen of scotts/henry 8's successors a bit; and definitely gives good insight into some of the side players [esp. Margaret Lennox, who was SO close to being eligible for the throne]. Though the actual hero is fictitious.)

You know, the movie Elizabeth (with Cate Blanchett) is pretty good, too. I saw it right after I had a history class on England 1485-1688, so my historic sensibilities were high at the moment. And I remember being favorably impressed. (Though it was so long ago.)

[Laura]

I loved Elizabeth! I highly recommend that one.

[negativecapability]

Ian Pears' _An Instance of the Fingerpost_. LOVE it. A mystery told from four perspectives, each representing a different class/profession etc. from the period.

[Ancarett]

The movie, Elizabeth, gives me hives with some of the historical liberties it takes. That said, if you can handle a bit of a fantasy twist, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend an Elizabethan fantasy called "The Armor of Light" by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett. I wax rhapsodic over it: a very historical fantasy (start from the paradigm that the magic of Elizabethan alchemists work, and that there is real cross-over with the magic of religion, too).

For more straightforward historical novels of the Tudors, Margaret George has those intimidatingly large biographies which are pretty good for Henry and Mary, Queen of Scots.

[Medieval Woman]

Oh - I'm so glad you posted on this, WN - I've been thinking that I could be in the mood for some good historical novels (fiction or biography). I'm glad I can find a list here! In payment, I will offer something that is a medieval historical novel, but a good and entertaining one: _The Good Men: A Novel of Heresy_ by Charmaine Craig. It's about heresy in 14c France, but it's beautifully told and it's a great novel!

[Tiruncula]

Oh, yes, Dunnett Dunnett Dunnett! Novel 2 in the Lymond Chronicles, Queen's Play, is all about Mary Q of S as a child. It should be said that there's so much novel plot that the high-profile Tudor politics angle gets little screen time, and religious issues almost none. But you should read them anyway.

You could read (or watch) A Man for All Seasons!

Oh, and there's George Garrett's Death of the Fox.

For the 17th c., there's Rose Tremain's Restoration, and I think you'd really like Stevie Davies' Impassioned Clay, which is about early Quaker women. Stevie Davies is wonderful all around. (Hard to get in the US, though.)

[Miriam]

I wish that I could whole-heartedly recommend any of the Anne Boleyn novels, but...I can't :) I suppse that Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl was the most readable of the lot, although I'd hardly describe it as "accurate." Jean Plaidy's novels are also not bad.

H. F. M. Prescott's The Man on a Donkey, set during the Pilgrimage of Grace, is actually pretty good. Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, set during the plague, is also strong work. Ronan Bennett's Havoc, In Its Third Year is fine allegorical historical fiction in The Crucible mode. Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt has an interestingly unreliable narrator.

I also liked An Instance of the Fingerpost, although that novel tends to provoke violently negative responses from those who aren't so impressed...

[New Kid on the Hallway]

I have to confess that An Instance of the Fingerpost is one of the few novels I have been unable to finish. There were some striking moments, but I just put it down one day and never picked it up again!

I second the Dunnett recommendations, though.

The Elizabeth movie plays very fast and loose with the facts, but Cate Blanchett is so wonderful in it! I enjoy it, though I know it's wrong. ;-)

I haven't read any of Alison Weir's stuff, but she has a Henry VII/wives novel. Also, Tey's The Daughter of Time is earlier, but so much fun!

I have to confess that I'm drawing a blank otherwise. I find the Civil War especially incredibly dull! (sorry!)

[k8]

If you are at all interested in young adult literature, you might try Katherine Sturtevant's 'A True and Faithful Narrative.' It is a sequel to 'At The Sign of the Star.'