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Original poster

Historical fiction, Victorian era?

38 replies

treaclesoda · 13/06/2015 22:02

I enjoy a bit of historical fiction (and read a fair bit of actual history too) but seem to have read an awful lot that is set in 16th century and thereabouts and fancied something different.

I quite fancy something set in the Victorian era, or even the very early 20th century at a push.

Can anyone suggest anything?
Thanks Smile

OP posts:
TheGirlOnTheLanding · 14/06/2015 17:46

Another fan of Sarah Waters and Michel Faber. Also Emma Donaghue's The sealed letter and Sarah Moss Bodies of Light - both excellent.

Sansarya · 14/06/2015 17:37

Oh yes, definitely Susan Howatch. Also Reay Tannanill who wrote historical epics mainly set in Scotland in Victorian times.

jeee · 14/06/2015 14:10

Susan Howatch, Cashelmara (famine, Ireland), Penmarric (late nineteenth/early twentieth century Cornwall).

ImperialBlether · 14/06/2015 14:03

Start with Sarah Waters' Fingersmith. It's beautifully written with a fantastic twist.

highlandcoo · 14/06/2015 14:01

Yy to Michel Faber, Sarah Waters and particularly Jane Harris - The Observations is one of my favourite books. Came on to thread to recommend all three.

Arnold Bennett is a great Edwardian writer who deserves to be more widely known. He wrote family sagas set in the Potteries which are very readable. The Old Wives' Tale and Clayhanger are particularly good.

Original poster
treaclesoda · 14/06/2015 08:45

Thanks for the suggestions, loads for me to investigate.

Embarassingly when I was thinking about this last night I had a bit of a blank and could only think of Dickens and I knew he wasn't the only writer of his era. Blush

But yes, interested both in books written at that time and in more modern authors who have written books set in that era. Smile

OP posts:
agoodbook · 13/06/2015 22:39

forgot Ken Follett- love his books!

SoljaBonita · 13/06/2015 22:27

Water Music by t.c Boyle, which is my favourite book ever,

Sansarya · 13/06/2015 22:25

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty series has several volumes that span the Victorian age, although it helps if you've read the preceding books too.

agoodbook · 13/06/2015 22:22

Tracy Chevalier

Linda Holeman
Jaqueline Winspear writes crime novels set just after the 1st world war,

MamaMary · 13/06/2015 22:13

Recommend all the three Sarah Waters mentioned above, as well as Gillespie and I by Jane Harris and The Observations also by Jane Harris.

whitershadeofpale · 13/06/2015 22:08

Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. Also Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith and Affinity are all Victorian, her latest The Paying Guests is set in 1922.

MamaMary · 13/06/2015 22:08

Well there were a lot of novels actually written and published in the Victorian era - do they count? Pretty much anything by the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Wilkie Collins - all fairly easy to read. More of a challenge (at least some of their works): Dickens, George Eliot.

If you mean fiction written much more recently I've also read a few of those - I'll have a think.

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