The Greatest Historical Fiction Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
249 A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov 1840 Russian Russian
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
273 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni 1827 Italian Italian
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
302 The Lost Estate Henri Alain-Fournier 1913 French French
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
338 Effi Briest Theodor Fontane 1895 German German
339 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
346 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole 1764 British English
351 Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe 1722 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
358 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
422 Ramayana Valmiki -200 Indian Sanskrit
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
432 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac 1837 French French
437 Passing Nella Larsen 1929 American English
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
468 Daniel Deronda George Eliot 1876 British English
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
476 The Monk Matthew Lewis 1796 British English
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
486 Adam Bede George Eliot 1859 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
489 Manon Lescaut Abbe Prevost 1731 French French
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
523 Fortunata and Jacinta Benito Pérez Galdós 1887 Spanish Spanish