Free summaries
Historical Novels — page 5
387 public-domain historical novels books, summarised. Page 5 of 9.
Marietta: A Maid of Venice
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A gifted Dalmatian glass-worker finds himself caught between the dangerous political conspiracies of noblemen and the burning ambition of a master craftsman. In fifteenth-century Venice, talent and love are both perilous liabilities.
No Defense, Complete
Gilbert Parker
A spirited Irish gentleman finds his life shattered by a murder accusation he refuses to contest, leading him from the depths of a prison cell to the turbulent decks of a mutinous warship and finally to colonial Jamaica.
A Struggle for Rome, v. 3
Felix Dahn
This final volume of an epic cycle captures the twilight of the Gothic Kingdom, tracing the collapse of a noble, doomed people against the shifting tides of the Byzantine Empire. It is a sweeping historical tragedy that balances the cold calculations of power with the desperate courage of those facing an inevitable…
A Tale of Red Pekin
Constancia Serjeant
This story of faith under duress captures the lived experience of a missionary family during the volatile unrest of the Boxer Rebellion. It explores how deep-seated spiritual conviction can provide both a compass and a refuge when the world descends into sudden, violent chaos.
The Lion's Brood
Duffield Osborne
This historical drama captures the high-stakes friction of the Second Punic War, mapping the collision between Roman tradition and the terrifying, charismatic genius of Hannibal. It is a tale of shifting loyalties, where the fate of a republic balances upon the choices of individuals caught in the machinery of…
The Princess Tarakanova: A Dark Chapter of Russian History
G. P. (Grigorii Petrovich) Danilevskii
Trapped between imperial ambition and a forged identity, a mysterious pretender discovers that challenging Catherine the Great’s crown carries a death sentence in the frozen dark of a St. Petersburg fortress.
The Wild Geese
Stanley John Weyman
A stoic soldier returns to his ancestral Irish home to secure an inheritance, only to find himself trapped in a dangerous web of local treason and family betrayal.
Antonio
Ernest Oldmeadow
A young Portuguese monk loses his abbey to state anti-clerical laws, then laboriously rebuilds its entire fortune through decades of wine trading to reclaim it for his exiled Order.
Berlin and Sans-Souci
L. (Luise) Mühlbach
An ideal king tries to rule by pure reason, only to discover that his courtiers, his family, and his intellectuals are governed by their own unreasoning passions.
A Golden Book of Venice
Turnbull, Lawrence, Mrs.
A high-born noble and a glassmaker's daughter marry in Renaissance Venice, only to be torn apart when papal interdicts, religious devotion, and state politics force a tragic conflict between faith and country.
Majesty: A Novel
Louis Couperus
A reluctant heir sits beneath the crushing weight of an ancient empire, torn between the demands of absolute majesty and the agonizing pull of human empathy.
The Pobratim: A Slav Novel
P. Jones
Two young coastal sailors swear a sacred oath of adopted brotherhood, only to be swept into a dark vortex of murder, ancient folk superstitions, bitter blood feuds, and long-sought vengeance across the nineteenth-century Balkan landscape.
Eastern Shame Girl
G. (Georges) Soulié de Morant
Desire and deceit continuously unravel the lives of scholars, courtezans, and corrupt officials across seventeenth-century imperial China.
The Black Cross
Olive M. (Olive Mary) Briggs
A violent political struggle in St. Petersburg drives a famed Polish violinist and an aristocratic revolutionary into a desperate, covert escape across snowy borders.
The Bravo of Venice: A Romance
Heinrich Zschokke
A mysterious figure terrorizes the Venetian republic while winning the heart of its most coveted maiden.
The German Lieutenant, and Other Stories
August Strindberg
A man's duty to his country collapses when he realizes war is only a shared delusion.
The Yellow Poppy
D. K. (Dorothy Kathleen) Broster
Courage, sacrifice, and the quiet persistence of devotion illuminate D. K. Broster’s gripping tale of war, hidden treasure, and rekindled love set against the twilight of the French Revolution.
Saint Patrick: 1887
Heman White Chaplin
Desperate streets breed unconventional mercy, but on a cold March evening in a waterfront mission, two Protestant ministers discover that even competing claims to doing good can end in silent, comical defeat.
The Coming of the King
Bernie Babcock
A young Jewish woman’s romantic devotion to the Galilean prophet transforms her understanding of kingdom, power, and sacrificial love.
The Midnight Queen
May Agnes Fleming
In a city suffocated by pestilence, two men discover a beautiful dead bride in the street, only for her face to begin appearing everywhere—alive, disguised, and hunted.
Philothea: A Grecian Romance
Lydia Maria Child
An ancient Athenian world of marble temples and philosophical inquiry serves as the backdrop for this story, which finds the quiet beauty of human devotion amidst a landscape of political upheaval and fading gods.
Pimpernel and Rosemary
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
Coupled with the ghost of an ancestral legend, a post-war romance swept up in European political crosscurrents turns on an agonizing choice between personal honor and human life.
Deborah: A tale of the times of Judas Maccabaeus
James M. (James Meeker) Ludlow
Set against the backdrop of the Maccabean Revolt, this historical novel follows a spirited Jewish woman and a conflicted Greek soldier whose lives collide during the struggle to save Jerusalem. It serves as a vivid dramatization of a pivotal moment in ancient history, balancing political intrigue with personal…
A Clerk of Oxford, and His Adventures in the Barons' War
Evelyn Everett-Green
A young student finds his quiet life of scholarship irrevocably upended by the violent political tremors of thirteenth-century England. Through the eyes of a humble scholar, the great clash between King Henry III and his rebellious barons comes alive.
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 04
Unknown
These collected narratives preserve the fading echoes of the Scottish Borders, weaving history, folklore, and personal struggle into a tapestry of life at the edge of the Highlands.
The Bride of Mission San José: A Tale of Early California
John Augustine Cull
Amidst the political machinations of pre-statehood California, a young woman’s marriage becomes the stage for a high-stakes struggle between competing empires.
An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada
G. Mercer (Graeme Mercer) Adam
In the untamed, burgeoning landscape of early nineteenth-century Upper Canada, a tangled web of colonial ambition and heartfelt longing binds together disparate souls. This is a tale of love’s endurance against the rigid currents of social hierarchy.
Caesar Dies
Talbot Mundy
A desperate political gamble unfolds in the shadow of a dying empire, where the line between a hero and a traitor is drawn by the edge of a blade.
Leonora D'Orco: A Historical Romance
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
This sweeping historical drama follows the fortunes of a noble house caught in the treacherous machinery of 16th-century Italian power politics. It is a story of long-simmering vendettas, shifting loyalties, and the persistent, quiet endurance of love amid the ruinous ambitions of kings and cardinals.
The collected works of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. 05 (of 11)
Henrik Ibsen
This expansive, dual-part historical drama chronicles the doomed spiritual and political quest of Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor, as he attempts to dismantle Christianity and restore the ancient gods to a world that has already moved on.
The Sisters
Georg Ebers
The lives of two sisters, bound by duty to the gods, unravel in the shadow of imperial ambition and the shifting sands of ancient Egypt. This tale follows their quiet devotion as it is suddenly thrust into the center of a Roman struggle for power and royal intrigue.
Homo Sum
Georg Ebers
HOOK A deeply flawed man seeks redemption among the desert anchorites of fourth-century Sinai, only to discover that the heaviest burdens are those we choose to carry for others.
The Long Night
Stanley John Weyman
A young student arrives in Geneva on the eve of a treacherous siege, only to find himself trapped in a house where dark secrets and a desperate struggle for survival unfold.
The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria: A Drama of Early Christian Rome
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
The struggle between earthly desire and divine calling plays out across the backdrop of imperial Rome, where two souls discover a love that transcends mortality. This drama explores the collision of faith and pagan tradition through the lives of its titular saints.
Bessie's Fortune: A Novel
Mary Jane Holmes
A young woman’s journey from poverty to unexpected prosperity reveals the long-buried secrets of her ancestors, testing her resilience and the strength of the love she shares with a man of noble character.
Story of Aeneas
Michael Clarke
This retelling of an ancient epic follows a Trojan hero’s arduous journey to establish a new home, guided by destiny and hindered by divine wrath. It serves as an accessible gateway to the foundational myth of the Roman people.
The Garden of Swords
Max Pemberton
A young English bride in Alsace finds her newly wedded life shattered when the Franco-Prussian War erupts around her.
'Neath the Hoof of the Tartar
Jósika, Miklós, báró
The shadow of the Mongol horde descends upon a fractured medieval Hungary, forcing a noble family to choose between the safety of their ancestral walls and the uncertain fate of a kingdom in disarray.
The Prince of India
Lew Wallace
A man cursed with an unending life of wandering seeks his final, grand vengeance against the civilization that rejected him. This sprawling historical epic reimagines the fall of Constantinople as the ultimate collision of faith, ambition, and ancient grievances.
The Strange Story of Rab Ráby
Mór Jókai
A principled reformer challenges a corrupt provincial administration in 18th-century Hungary, only to find himself ensnared in a labyrinth of state-sanctioned malice and orchestrated injustice.
Mohammed Ali and His House
L. (Luise) Mühlbach
This historical novel traces the transformation of an ambitious youth into the absolute ruler of Egypt, driven by a singular, cold-blooded obsession for power and a thirst for vengeance.
The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
The tide of war rolls north toward Pennsylvania, where the lives of young men and the fate of a nation converge on a single, bloody field. Through the eyes of a Confederate scout, the brutal reality of the American Civil War unfolds with sweeping intensity.
Philip Augustus
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
A king’s forbidden love tore France from the Church, setting knights, popes, and rival monarchs against each other in a fierce struggle for throne and soul.
In the Palace of the King: A Love Story of Old Madrid
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A tale of love, intrigue, and honor set in the court of King Philip II of Spain.
The Secret Witness
George Gibbs
A young woman's flight through an empire in collapse.
An outlaw's diary: revolution
Cécile Tormay
A world shatters overnight when a aristocratic order collapses into chaotic street violence. Out of the wreckage of an empire, a writer records the desperate final hours of her homeland.
Masters of the Guild
Louise Lamprey
Courageous apprentices and wandering artisans journey through medieval Europe, shaping stone, iron, glass, and song while uncovering secrets that build a changing world.
The Dawn and the Day
Henry Thayer Niles
All souls seek the same loving center, though they walk through different creeds to find it.