Travels in Time: Best Historical Fiction

I’m a great big history geek and I love reading historical fiction. I’ve found myself pulled into the past more and more over this past year and a half, looking for escapist reads to transport me from the present. Here are a handful of my favourite historical novels. (I have so many, this will probably spill over into at least another blog post… I haven’t even mentioned my boy Thomas Cromwell or Rose Nicolson here!)

The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

I loved this stylish and energetic novel: the magnificent Restoration settings, the clever way the writing has a period feel, and the lively, formidable Ursula herself. Born under an ill-fated comet, Ursula yearns for a glittering career as a playwright but the seventeenth century is a tough time for a woman to forge a literary life. Nothing daunted, Ursula embarks on her artistic adventures and it’s a pure pleasure for the reader to follow her.

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal

I loved both this book and Elizabeth’s debut, The Doll Factory – it’s hard for me to choose a favourite between them. She’s excellent on obsession and the setting – in this case a Victorian travelling circus that pitches up in Vauxhall’s gaudy pleasure gardens – is transporting, atmospheric and colourful. The tension ratchets up brilliantly and I absolutely gobbled the second half.

Ophelia Swam by Kelley Swain

Ophelia Swam is dreamlike, poetic and beautiful, threaded through with the music of the turning seasons, rooted in sixteenth century Oxfordshire and perfumed by Sister Grace’s herbs and healing plants. Kelley asks: what if Ophelia swam? What if she washed up at an English nunnery, and had time to mend and rest and forge a new path? I love anything that peers around the corners of Hamlet, I love a Tudor setting, I love English pastoral, I love books about religious houses and women forging their own paths through a world that wants to clip their wings. So I loved this!

The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West

Handsome, headstrong Sebastian is heir to a vast and beautiful English country estate, but he wrestles with his fate as a feature in the eternal round of lavish parties, intrigues and traditions at the cold, decadent heart of Edwardian high society. This book, like Virginia Woolf’s glorious Orlando, holds a special place in my heart for being based on Knole, Vita’s childhood home, which is near where I grew up. As a woman, Vita couldn’t inherit Knole and she pours her feelings about its loss into this sparky novel that satirises the empty glamour and high society scandals of the turn-of-the-century aristocracy.

Cecily by Annie Garthwaite

I loved this novel, in which the formidable Cecily Neville steers her house of York through the turbulent reign of god-besotted Henry VI. The female characters were brilliant, from smug, slippery Jacquetta to icy warrior queen Marguerite and of course Cecily herself. Henry – weak and vacillating, easy manipulated by his magnates with his rheumy eyes trained dreamily on God – is also fantastically well drawn. A hugely satisfying slice of historical fiction, and although I’m excellent on the Tudors I’m hazier on this period so I felt like I learned a lot, too.

The Heavens by Sandra Newman

Half of this excellent novel is historical, and the other half set in a dystopian near-future New York, with a mad time-travel plot zipping the reader between the two. It sounds and is quite bonkers but it works spectacularly well. In the sixteenth century sections, poet Emilia Lanyer (a real and fascinating historical figure) embarks on a love affair with up and coming playwright Sad Will Shakespeare. The writing is utterly luminous. This was one of my favourite reads of recent years.

Little by Edward Carey

I really enjoyed this strange, beautifully written fictionalised history of Madam Tussaud, following her from the eerie workshop of lonely Doctor Curtius to the Monkey House in Revolutionary Paris and even a cupboard at Versailles. It’s fascinating, often gruesome (the horrifying heft of a head!), frequently moving and always intriguing.

Dark Water by Elizabeth Lowry

This is a book I publicised and fell so hard for! Elizabeth is a sensational writer, with whole paragraphs I had to reread just to properly savour them. Set partly on board a ship in 1833 and partly in the asylum the ship’s doctor runs in Boston after that ill-fated voyage, it is freighted with gothic atmosphere, simmering tensions and unfolding mysteries. Anyone who loved Francis Spufford’s equally excellent Golden Hill will adore this. Elizabeth has a new novel out next year so it’s a brilliant time to join her fan club.

Want more…?

If you’re hungry for more recommendations for historical fiction, I have also blogged about my some of my favourite World War Two books here.

Please note that this article includes affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you buy through them. I only link to books I really love.