What FICTION books would you recommend around the periods in GCSE History?

[LittleOwl153]

My DD is doing GCSE History. She likes to read around the history topics she is doing and is well read in the Tudor period (her favourite period!) through Phillippa Gregory, Anne O'Brien, Alison Weir, Susan Higginbotham.

Syllabus includes:

• British America 1713-1783: Empire and revolution
• Early Elizabethan England 1558-1588
• Weimer and Nazi Germany 1918-1939
• Whitechapel 1870-1900
• Crime and punishment c1500- present day!

She gets alot from historical context
through reading so looking for authors with a reasonable reputation for being historically correct.

She's 14, but reads very well and usually adult books these days. She has picked out some My Story books too which are children's level.

I don't like historical fiction so I'm clueless so hoping the hive mind will come up with some good materials for her!

Thank you!

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford is an excellent book set in New York in the mid 18th century. I'd recommend it to anyone.

A really good narrative non-fiction (reads like fiction) book is The Five by Halle Rubenhold. It's about the victims of Jack The Ripper.

That's perfect for the period, isn't it?

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor. Is a rip roaring tale (no sex) and has good descriptions of life at court and the theatre. I passed an exam on Elizabethan theatre because I’d read this book.

Wedding Station by David Downing is set in 1930s Berlin, if she likes spy stories. Very evocative of the period.

Zoo Station, by the same author, is also set in Berlin, early 1939, if she likes the first novel. Downing is a professor of English at a US University

It definitely is and she places the women front and centre of the narrative and puts their individual lives in the wider social context. She also deals robustly with the description of them as prostitutes. Highly recommend this book for the Victorian period of the syllabus.

Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy if your daughter’s up to it

This was my first thought too. It’s not about the murders but focuses on the lives the women lived, society at the time and the circumstances that led them to be thought of as ‘prostitutes’.

Munich by Robert Harris and March Violets are both set in 1930s Germany.

Thank you. She does have this one... but has found it a bit hard going. She keeps going back to it though!

@RainyReadingDay @CrossPurposes @MrsDanversGlidesAgain @TattiePants

Jack the Riper is definitely detailed on the syllabus so that sounds fab. Thanks.

The other books suggested are now on her book list. Thanks!

These kind of books are definitely what sparks her interest in the specific history periods!

This is not historically accurate , though. I know a history tutor who is in despair because students insist on parroting Mantel anti -Catholic views, which completely misrepresented the facts around this period, especially the character and writings of Thomas More.

Gregory is an enthralling writer, I find her insights into character very interesting, but again she is factually incorrect. For example, Mary Boleyn was the older sister, not the younger, and spent her formative years at the French Court…..

I think that books set in the periods, but which avoid dramatising actual historic characters are maybe safer.

Anne Perry! Two different London based historical crime fiction series. William Monk books are 1850’s to 1870’s, the Thomas Pitt series is probably 1880’s to 1900’s. I’d recommend Death in the Devil’s Acre as a good one to understand a bit about life in London slums.

And Mischling Second Degree is excellent for Nazi Germany- Ilse Koehn. It’s mostly autobiographical about growing up as a child in Germany with one Jewish grandparent .

My Dear Hamilton is an easy but fascinating read about colonial times and the American Revolution. Fictionalised version of the life of Eliza Hamilton, wife of the famous Alexander. Plus the musical is worth a watch (Disney+ I'd you can't get to see it live)

Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin is a great read

Agree! Didn't think of these, but they're spot on & easy to read

Ditto My Dear Hamilton

Thought I'd quoted the Anne Perry reco, sorry!

I love the Elizabethan bit of Orlando

This is a great thread! My DD is 13 and has similar interests, and will be doing the same history gcse syllabus, by the sounds of it. She is going to look into the list and has a couple of recommendations of her own. Some of these may be a bit young for your 14yo, but take a look:
Treason by Berlie Doherty
Once by Morris Gleitzman
The Executioner's Daughter by Jane Hardstaff.

I - and more importantly my dd - agree. She gets furious with inaccuracies in the historical detail! Tudor periods I'm not to worried about this as she knows the facts (too) well. Definitely an issue in other eras though.

This is not historically accurate , though. I know a history tutor who is in despair because students insist on parroting Mantel anti -Catholic views, which completely misrepresented the facts around this period, especially the character and writings of Thomas More.

That's true! It's not just students who take that as gospel. I can understand why they would, as the detail and research overall is excellent.

Are we talking about the Virgina Woolf biography? That might be right up her street.

The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor is a good and gripping murder mystery set in Manhattan during the 1770s.