Free summaries
Historical Novels — page 7
697 public-domain historical novels books, summarised. Page 7 of 15.
The Italians: A Novel
Frances Minto Dickinson Elliot
The bells of Lucca ring for a miracle, but in the shadow of the cathedral, the real drama involves the desperate marriages and debts of the old aristocracy. A young man caught between his own desires and the machinations of others must navigate a web of secrets to secure his future.
A Struggle for Rome, v. 2
Felix Dahn
The sun sets on the grandeur of the Gothic kingdom, where the iron weight of inevitable fate presses against the desperate courage of a people fighting for their very existence.
The Czar
Deborah Alcock
The nineteenth century begins with a young Russian boyar, his life forever changed by a glimpse of the enigmatic Czar Alexander. This sweeping narrative captures the tumultuous intersection of personal growth and imperial history.
The Fortunes of Garin
Mary Johnston
A young man finds his destiny in the crucible of medieval conflict, rising from a squire to a knight and, eventually, the husband of a sovereign princess. This sweeping, atmospheric chronicle captures the pageantry and brutality of the Capetian era in France.
The Mercy of the Lord
Flora Annie Webster Steel
This collection of short stories captures the vast, often contradictory spirit of colonial India, where the weight of ancient tradition frequently crashes into the rigid demands of British bureaucracy.
The King's Highway
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
The King's Highway is a sprawling, earnest historical novel set in the late 17th century, where the shifting loyalties following the Glorious Revolution entangle the fates of rebels, statesmen, and star-crossed lovers.
The Princess Virginia
C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson
This is a lighthearted, Edwardian-era romance of royal intrigue, centered on a spirited princess who pursues an unconventional courtship with a reclusive emperor. It remains a charming artifact of a time when "Ruritanian" tales of European monarchs were the height of popular escapism.
The quenchless light
Agnes C. Laut
The early disciples of a new faith navigate a decaying Roman Empire, their lives caught between the relentless march of imperial power and the quiet, disruptive promise of a kingdom not made with hands.
Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland
Henryk Sienkiewicz
This portrait of a fracturing society captures the intimate lives of Polish landowners as they drift toward a volatile, uncertain future. It explores the tension between personal happiness and national duty during a period of profound social upheaval.
A mirror for witches : in which is reflected the life, machinations, and death of famous Doll Bilby, who, with a more than feminine perversity, preferred a demon to a mortal lover
Esther Forbes
HOOK A lonely, misunderstood girl in the unforgiving Massachusetts Bay Colony finds a dark, forbidden solace in the arms of a demon lover.
Pictures of Hellas: Five Tales of Ancient Greece
Peder Mariager
These five tales reconstruct the private lives of ancient Greeks, focusing on the human experiences that formal history—with its obsession for wars and politics—leaves behind. They offer an intimate, often intense look at the daily anxieties and passions of the Hellenic world.
The Militants: Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
These stories explore the quiet, internal battles of men and women who must reconcile their public roles with the private, demanding realities of love and conscience.
A Woman of the Ice Age
L. P. (Louis Pope) Gratacap
Two lovers navigate the receding glaciers of North America, discovering that human emotion matches the grand, unforgiving scale of the prehistoric world.
The flame-gatherers
Margaret Horton Potter
A soul cursed by passion and betrayal seeks redemption across the span of centuries and reincarnations in medieval India.
The Infidel
Robert Montgomery Bird
A young Castilian soldier finds himself caught between the ruthless ambitions of Hernan Cortes and the desperate resistance of the Aztec empire, forced to navigate betrayal, imprisonment, and forbidden alliances in a divided land.
The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century
Florence L. (Florence Louisa) Barclay
A twelfth-century prioress believes her early vows of love were broken by death, but the knight she once betrothed returns from the Crusades to claim her from behind convent walls.
Mad Barbara
Warwick Deeping
When Barbara Purcell’s father is found murdered in his private music-house, a web of Restoration deceit tightens around her, forcing a courageous young woman to fight for her sanity, her freedom, and the truth.
Monsieur Maurice
Amelia B. Edwards
A young girl’s tender, enduring friendship with a refined French political prisoner transforms her quiet childhood inside a quiet German château into a haunting, lifelong memory of loyalty, intrigue, and love.
The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans: Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol
Claude-Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
A royal youth surrenders his conscience to a calculating mentor, trading domestic peace for a revolving succession of ambitious mistresses while his kingdom pays the price.
The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir
A young English-educated republican unexpectedly inherits a miniature autocratic principality and attempts to institute radical modernizing reforms overnight, with disastrously hilarious results.
The Miracles of Antichrist: A Novel
Selma Lagerlöf
Earthly suffering and heavenly grace cross paths on the sun-baked slopes of Mount Etna.
Tor, a Street Boy of Jerusalem
Florence Morse Kingsley
A blind street child navigates the turbulent alleys of Jerusalem during the final days of Jesus, searching for belonging in a world of cruelty, betrayal, and sudden grace.
A Little House in War Time
Egerton Castle
An intimate chronicle of domestic life during the Great War, this narrative captures the quiet, persistent pulse of an English family as they navigate the anxieties and adjustments of 1914–1915.
A Sister of the Red Cross: A Tale of the South African War
L. T. Meade
A dedicated nurse and her impulsive younger sister navigate the dangers of the South African War, their lives inextricably bound by a shared affection for the same man. This Victorian-era drama explores duty, sacrifice, and the possibility of redemption amidst the backdrop of a brutal historical siege.
Cedar Creek: From the Shanty to the Settlement. A Tale of Canadian Life
Elizabeth H. (Elizabeth Hely) Walshe
The path from wilderness to civilization is rarely straight, but for those with the grit to build, a forest of obstacles can become a home. This chronicle of pioneer resilience offers an intimate look at the transformation of the Canadian bush.
Naomi
Webb, J. B., Mrs. (Annie)
The fall of Jerusalem is not merely a political catastrophe but a profound trial of faith, testing the deepest convictions of those trapped within its walls. This historical narrative traces the spiritual awakening of a young woman amidst the ruin of her nation.
The Hour Will Come: A Tale of an Alpine Cloister. Volumes I and II
Wilhelmine von Hillern
A tragic Alpine legend of fate and faith, this narrative follows a cloistered youth navigating the collision between rigid, archaic duty and the irresistible call of human love.
For Sceptre and Crown: A Romance of the Present Time. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Gregor Samarow
This intricate historical mosaic dramatizes the tectonic shifts of 1866, capturing the final dissolution of the old German order and the inexorable rise of a unified Prussian state. It serves as a narrative bridge between the personal lives of the displaced and the cold, high-stakes maneuvering of the era’s most…
Oliver Ellis
James Grant
A young man, pressed into the unforgiving life of a naval recruit, discovers that the true test of courage lies not merely in the heat of battle, but in the enduring bonds of military brotherhood.
The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Lewis Wingfield
HOOK As the French Revolution brews, a beautiful young marquise is trapped in a decaying fortress with a duplicitous husband, his predatory brothers, and an enigmatic, iron-willed governess.
Australia Felix
Henry Handel Richardson
This is a searching, immersive portrait of a restless man seeking his place in the raw, gold-fevered landscape of mid-nineteenth-century Australia. It captures the psychological toll of migration and the quiet, persistent struggle to belong.
My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 2 (of 3): A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union
Lewis Wingfield
The shadows of the late eighteenth century loom large over an Ireland teetering on the brink of revolution, as personal loyalties collide with the cold, calculated machinery of statecraft.
The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge
Unknown
Civil war tears the Roman Republic apart as the ghosts of the fallen demand vengeance, turning the ambition of leaders into a cycle of slaughter that leaves no one unscathed.
The Great House
Stanley John Weyman
A young woman leaves the poverty of a Parisian attic for the mysteries of an ancestral English estate, only to find herself caught between a fading aristocracy and a nation on the brink of profound change.
The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville
A. L. O. E.
HOOK A young Spanish nobleman risks his life and family honor in the bullring, only to find true salvation through the clandestine pages of a forbidden book.
Cities of the Dawn: Naples - Athens - Pompeii - Constantinople - Smyrna - Jaffa - Jerusalem - Alexandria - Cairo - Marseilles - Avignon - Lyons - Dijon
J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie
The world is wide, and its ancient cities hold the echoes of empires long faded. This travelogue serves as a guide through the sun-drenched ruins and bustling streets of a Mediterranean world in transition.
One in a Thousand
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
A nobleman of simple heart and an ambitious count collide amidst the shifting loyalties and religious warfare of sixteenth-century France. This sweeping historical romance traces the struggle for a young woman’s hand against the backdrop of the rise of Henry IV.
Bertrand of Brittany
Warwick Deeping
A disfigured, underestimated youth rises from obscurity to become a paragon of chivalry, risking his reputation and his very soul to protect the honor of those who once spurned him.
Dust: A Novel
Julian Hawthorne
This narrative explores the intersection of ambition and identity in a bustling, post-Napoleonic London, where the sudden rise and fall of fortunes hinge on the shifting sands of social reputation and private morality.
In exitu Israel
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
The gathering storm of the French Revolution forces a young woman to trade the quiet of her Normandy home for the lethal chaos of Paris, seeking justice for a victim of the state.
ODTAA: A novel
John Masefield
The world is a web of absurd, perilous, and often fatal coincidences. To survive its indifference, one must decide whether to be the victim of one’s circumstances or the architect of one’s own desperate hope.
Attila: A Romance. Vol. II
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
A relentless conqueror’s destiny is inextricably bound to a young Roman whose life he must protect to ensure his own survival. Amidst the fall of empires, love struggles to endure against the tides of war.
Highland Legends
Lauder, Thomas Dick, Sir
HOOK Through the mist of the Scottish Highlands, these tales weave together the brutal realities of clan feuds, the weight of ancient superstitions, and the enduring power of historical memory.
Francezka
Molly Elliot Seawell
Amid the grand theater of eighteenth-century war and court intrigue, a fiery young actress and a noble soldier discover that true love's deadliest enemy is not distance or war, but deception.
My Lady Rotha: A Romance
Stanley John Weyman
In the shadow of the Thirty Years' War, a young Protestant noblewoman leaves her ancestral home, plunging directly into the chaos, lawlessness, and competing allegiances of a continent torn apart by religious conflict.
Robert Annys: Poor Priest. A Tale of the Great Uprising
Annie Nathan Meyer
A devoted fourteenth-century reformer finds his spirit torn between the quiet purity of the sanctuary, the fiery demands of a peasant uprising, and the agonizing call of human desire.
For Sceptre and Crown: A Romance of the Present Time. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Gregor Samarow
The chess match of nineteenth-century European power politics unfolds, where the shifting loyalties of monarchs and the calculated maneuvers of statesmen drive a continent toward the inevitable clash of the Austro-Prussian War.
The Year Nine: A Tale of the Tyrol
Anne Manning
A simple innkeeper becomes the unlikely heart of a mountain people’s desperate, tragic rebellion against Napoleonic rule. This stirring chronicle follows the 1809 Tyrolese uprising through the eyes of those who lived it.