Bookshop: Historical novels

As an inveterate reader of historical fiction, mostly about the ancient world, here are six of my all-time favourites, which I never tire of re-reading. We're offering them through our partnership with a new online bookshop -- History Bookshop.com. Just click on a title to see more details or to order.

The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault

No list of great historical novels would be complete without at least one title by Mary Renault. All her novels are worth reading, but this is one of my favourites, the story of "beautiful Alexias" growing to manhood in Athens with his lover and mentor Lysis at the time of the Pelopponesian war. Mary Renault creates the ancient world in such vivid detail that she must have lived there in a former life, and creates characters the reader can empathise with, yet who are of their own time, not ours -- a rare achievement. The whole novel is imbued with the basic tenets of Greek philosophy -- "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess".

Of course her Alexander Trilogy is also a must -- some people have criticised it as virtual hagiography, but her Alexander is utterly compelling, and believable. A masterpiece.

The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw (available from Amazon UK)

In contrast, Gillan Bradshaw writes historical novels with a thoroughly modern, even feminist, sensibility -- and gets away with it by means of excellent writing, great page-turning plots, and likeable characters. The story of Charis, who leaves her well-to-to Ephesan family disguised as a boy to avoid an arranged marriage and fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor in Alexandria, is implausible, to say the least. But the book is impeccably researched, and creates a convincing portrait of daily life in 4th-century Egypt and Asia while also conveying a lot of information about ancient medical science and religious controversies. A really enjoyable read, only slightly spoilt by the over-romantic ending.

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain

This is a symphony of a book, a richly interwoven tale of life in and around the royal court of 17th-century Denmark. Rose Tremain writes unfashionably beautiful, sensuous prose, and her characters' voices are their own, speaking to us across the centuries. The tormented, claustrophobic atmosphere reminded me irresistibly of Mervyn Peake's fantasy Gormenghast. Guilt, fear, lust, faith, greed, charity, and true love all play a part in the story, and in the end chaos is vanquished by harmony. One of those books you force yourself to read slowly, because you don't want it to end.

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett

Another thoroughly researched narrative, this time about 19th-century Arctic exploration. Andrea Barrett manages to combine 19th-century concerns (emancipation of slaves, theories of evolution, an obsession with the Arctic) with more modern ones -- the role of women (who have to stay at home and wait), personal growth, cultural imperialism, and how 'truth' is relative. She reminds me of George Eliot in the way that she takes a generous view even of the least admirable characters. Early in the novel, her main character, Erasmus Wells, a repressed and unsuccessful 40-something naturalist, writes:

"If I drew that scene I'd show everything happening at once ... But when I describe it in words one thing follows another and everything's shaped by my single pair of eyes, my single voice. I wish I could show it as if through a fan of eyes. Widening out from my single perspective to several viewpoints, then many, so the whole picture might appear and not just my version of it."

This is how the novel is written -- it doesn't always work (notably in the case of trying to put across the experience of an Eskimo woman transplanted to Philadelphia). But it does give you a sense of the many different versions of reality, and it is beautifully written.

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

A Booker Prize-winning blockbuster of a novel about the slave trade in the eighteenth century. Vividly written, with some really horrible descriptions of casual cruelty, but also philosophical and historical meditations on the effects the trade had on the slaves, and on the people who made money from them. It can a bit too didactic at times, with passages that wouldn't be out of place in a history book. But it's a great story as well, with convincingly complex and imperfect characters. Like many of the best historical novels, it causes the reader to reflect on parallels with our own times (this story of untramelled greed, the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, was written when Thatcherism was at its height).

The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff

This story about the aftermath of the Romans' departure from Britain does duty here for all of Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels. It's my favourite of the ones she wrote for children/young adults, although The Mark of the Horse Lord runs it a close second. Her novels are populated with richly drawn, believable characters and share certain leitmotifs -- a flawed signet ring carved with a dolphin is passed down through the ages and reflects the flaw in her main character, who is often a solitary outsider with some trait that marks him as different. Her stories are full of minutely observed descriptions of landscape, food, homes -- even the dogs are individuals. Unusually for a children's writer at that time, Sutcliff doesn't pull her punches. Bad things happen in her stories -- people die or are lost to each other, battles are lost, and things don't always end happily ever after (name another children's writer who kills off her hero as she does in the Horse Lord!). As a teenager I found her stories were not pure escapism -- they helped me to make sense of life's many confusions.

Sutcliff wrote novels for adults as well, with less success -- although The Flowers of Adonis (covering the same events as The Last of the Wine) would definitely have made it into this list if it were not long out of print -- try searching for it on AbeBooks.

Any comments about or suggestions for the site? Please email Webmaster@archetype-it.com

These pages were conceived, written and designed by Archetype IT.