If you are anything like me, then you can’t get enough of historical novels. Some of my all-time favorite novels fall under this category. That is why we will be looking at The Guardian’s ten best historical novels of all time and see which books made their list!
The Guardian is a respected news organization that has been surpassed over the decades. But even then, it is still a trusted news source and they also curate book lists here and there. This list is from 2012 and lists the ten historical novels that The Guardian believes rank above all else. You can see the full list below.
The Guardian’s Ten Best Historical Novels of All Time
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
- Romola by George Eliot
- The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
- Pure by Andrew Miller
- The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
- I, Claudius by Robert Graves
- Property by Valerie Martin
- The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker
Lesser-Known Books
As expected from the Guardian, their list is interesting. Besides War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, none of these books are familiar to me. And that is fine. Lists such as these are refined for specific audiences.
While these may be unfamiliar to me, I imagine the saying that “this is your favorite author’s favorite author” may apply here. They are famous and critically acclaimed works of fiction after all.
Conclusion
What did you think of The Guardian’s ten best historical novels of all-time list? What books should they have included on their list? Let us know in the comments below!
Dorothy Dunnett’s 2 series, one set in 1409s Europe (mostly) and the Lymond Chronicles set in the known world of the 1500s are amazing works, both tour de force as well as really great stories each book in either series.
What about Mika Waltari’s “The Egyptian” or “The Etruscan”?
“Blood Meridian”
What about Birds Without Wings re history of Asia Minor up thru the early 1900s AM disaster
I would include Zoe Oldenbourg’s historical fiction novels set in the middle ages.like The World is Not Enough.
The best ever!
Beneath the Scarlett Sky is great!
Lymond series for sure!
I was about to mention DD – for me the superlative historical novelist
How could Kenneth Roberts’ novels about the French and Indian War and the American Revolution be overlooked?Particularly his masterpiece “Nothwest Passage”?
C S Forrester
Gone With the Wind??
Dunnett’s Lymond series and Niccolo series are the best historical fiction books ever written. Never boring. Emotionally engrossing. Historically fascinating. I first discovered her work when I was in college, and I still read them— 50 years later.
Cindy, like you I am a 50+ year Dunnett reader. Currently doing a second read of the Niccolo series via the online Outlander Book Club-Dorothy Dunnett Forum. We are reading TLWL now. Are you a member of the DD Society?
Have you read, A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, by Barbara Touchman?
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
Really?
Yeah, really , that is seriously good classic, not this Wolfe Hall rubbish. World is laughing at you guys when they read this kind of Anglo-Saxon “best of” list. What’s next, Gone With the Wind?!
Mary Renaults Alexander trilogy
1984
Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series and Niccolo series.
Absolutely!
Sharon Kay Penman’s masterpieces.
No Walter Scott??!!!!
“The Leopard” is a pleasant surprise to such a prestigious list. Its evocative depictions of the people, places, culture, and point in time of Sicily provide a glimpse of what the ancestors of many Italian-Americans experienced just before the great wave of immigration.
The Town House by Norah Lofts. The best book you’ve never heard of. Ignore the cover!
Described by Alison Wier as “book of a lifetime: An outstanding historical novel”
I think it’s a bit arch. Why Romola instead of Middlemarch, by Eliot? Why Brooklyn instead of The Master, by Toibin?
“The Guardian has been surpassed”?! Come off it – by which newspaper?
Wolf Hall is shit
I am reading Wolf Hall now and find it captivating.
OK… what about the great C J Samson’s Shardlake series? Phillipa Gregory is often overlooked on these lists through snobbery but has made Tudor history far more palatable and accessible than the highly stylised Wolf Hall. Similarly, Georgette Heyer for the Regency period. Am certainly going to look up a few of the others on the list I’ve not heard of. Thanks to reader’s suggestions too. I Claudius is a brilliant inclusion. Prefer Anna Karenina to War and Peace, a slog…and did enjoy Middlemarch but have not read Romola.
Yes for Georgette Heyer!
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. A very special, unforgettablel novel
You can’t be serious about Brooklyn. A fluffy chicklit mixed with The Sopranos. Where is Bring Up The Bodies?
No Dorothy Dunnett?! Her ‘Lymond’ and ‘House Of Niccolo’ Chronicles both contain novels which should have been included. Also ‘King Hereafter’ her novel about the ‘real’ Macbeth.
Any book by Marguerite Yourcenar or Mary Renault. I write this as an unwoke cis-everything liberal of a certain age – 76.
We could now use AI to cross reference all the parameters we need to use to see sociological, psychological, historical, and the big question of “why we think to how we think?”.
Where are The Flashman books by George Macdonald Fraser?
Some of the best and most entertaining historical books ever!
What about Barbara Tuchman’s Call to Arms? Churchill, David McCullough and Doris Kearny Goodwin should be on there too.
“The Luminaries”. By Eleanor Catton. The gold rush in New Zealand in 1899.
On my all time list too. Also PILLARS OF THE EARTH
I like to add Gary Jennings ”Aztec” in a list of best historical romans.
“The Year of the French” by Thomas Flanagan
Rembrandt by Gladys Schmidt is superb
I cant believe you overlooked Dorothy Dunnett’s two series, The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo, and King Hereafter. It should be noted that Hillady Mantel was a big fan of Dunnett, but Dunnett is much, much better. Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army should be considered as it is considered one of the best accounts of Waterloo and not just another Regency romance.
Who writes these lists. Dear oh dear. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman must be the greatest novel written about Stalingrad, ironically, Grossman was Ukranian.
Is Germinal, Zola’s epic disection of French working class conditions in 19th C. France not historical? One of greatest novels ever written!
Troubles, J.G. Farrell is another I could go on but…..
Agree on Grossman’s Life and Fate. Perhaps the greatest postwar historical novel.
No Colleen McCullough??
I’m just glad the vomitous “All the Light We Cannot See” … can’t be seen here 😉
The Leopard & Pure are both so well written, and describe fascinating times and places. Barker’s trilogy is an interesting take on WWI, though personally I’m lukewarm of her style. Brooklyn is top-notch but given its subject, perhaps a little surprising to see its inclusion here.
Albatross Journals by TG Haraldsson is a great read
The American Tragedy and Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser
The Jewel in the Crown!!
I would have included, THE GUNS OF AUGUST, by Barbara Tuchman.
Not a novel, but rather good op history
My definition of an historical novel is one set ion a period before the author’s birth. Thus I would not include Grossman’s Stalingrad in this category.
I cannot believe that there is no mention of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels — the finest roman uufleuve since Proust