Historical Fiction

The chance discovery by a young peasant woman that she is a descendant of the noble family of d'Urbervilles is to change the course of her life. Tess Durbeyfield leaves home on the first of her fateful journeys, and meets the ruthless Alec d'Urberville. Thomas Hardy's impassioned story tells of hope and disappointment, rejection and enduring love.

Phil Brent was plodding through the snow in the direction of the house where he lived with his step-mother and her son, when a snow-ball, moist and hard, struck him just below his ear with stinging emphasis. The pain was considerable, and Phil’s anger rose.

On an afternoon late in April Feuerstein left his boarding-house in East Sixteenth Street, in the block just beyond the eastern gates of Stuyvesant Square, and paraded down Second Avenue.

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Lady Anselman stood in the centre of the lounge at the Ritz Hotel and with a delicately-poised forefinger counted her guests. There was the great French actress who had every charm but youth, chatting vivaciously with a tall, pale-faced man whose French seemed to be as perfect as his attitude was correct. The popular wife of a great actor was discussing her husband’s latest play with a Cabinet Minister who had the air of a school-boy present at an illicit feast. A very beautiful young woman... more info>>

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This short story by military correspondent, urbane fiction writer and playright Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) is part of the PDM Classics series.

Emily Bronte's only novel appeared to mixed reviews in 1847, a year before her death at the age of thirty. In the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, and in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors of its setting, Wuthering Heights creates a world of its own, conceived with a disregard for convention, an instinct for poetry and for the dark depths of human psychology that make it one of the greatest novels of passion ever written.

The Nazi treatment of the Gypsies and other people during World War II is a matter of fact. Although mention is made of certain events and political and military leaders within the historical context of the period, this is a work of fiction and no reference is intended to living persons. The treatment of the Jews and the numbers imprisoned and exterminated as a result of the Nazi Holocaust is well documented, but little has been recorded regarding the fate of Gypsy captives. It is estimated, how... more info>>

Historical accounts of tragedies such as the Holocaust often allow readers and students a certain detachment in the formidable but impersonal catalogue of numbers, events, policies and processes. Gerald Green's novel Holocaust, which is based on his teleplay for the 1978 NBC miniseries, seeks to put faces on the tragedy by telling the story of the experience of two German families whose lives intersect at certain points. The Dorfs are "good" Germans, loyal to the new Nazi regime, and their son E... more info>>

The Holocaust becomes a breathtaking personal drama, in the midst of a vast cataclysm, in William Styron's Sophie's Choice, a big and questing novel with autobiographical elements and a fearless determination to explore a particular human dimension of a historical nightmare. The novel speaks through the voice of Styron's alter ego, a polite young Tidewater Virginian called Stingo who comes to New York in 1947 in the hopes of being a writer. With a small legacy that will enable him to devote hims... more info>>

Posing as a respectable vicar in Dymchurch at the turn of the 18th century, Dr. Syn is actually the retired pirate Captain Clegg. Clegg, believed hanged in Rye, is no longer being sought by the authorities. However, country life proves too tame for Syn, and his attention turns to smuggling. He takes on a secret identity, The Scarecrow, and returns to his criminal ways.

Seeking gold, the new white settlers block all Indian access to the Bozeman Trail; they are determined to kill any Indian who comes anywhere near the trail that leads to the gold fields. Red Cloud is not afraid. A Sioux leader, he moves toward the Bozeman Trail, determined to take back the gold fields for his people. A fierce fighter, Red Cloud is ready to stand up to anyone and anything. The settler's primary concern is no longer gold, but escaping death. The Pony Soldiers, their only hope, hav... more info>>

Skilled at war and bloodthirsty in the heat of battle, the Cheyenne, led by Bear Claw, seek revenge on the white settlers. Having killed every member of the regular cavalry, they prepared to roam the territory raping and plundering the white settlers. Only one group can stop them: the Pony Soldiers, just as fierce and three times more bloodthirsty. The Cheyenne couldn't possibly withstand the bloodshed.

The pioneers had come West to find homes and riches, instead they found a vast and lonely land, a land fraught with danger, fearsome creatures, and tamahnous, the primal magic no man could tame. As unknowable as the tumtum wawas, the spirit voices of things, the winter winds howled and cried and mourned. Born of fire, crowned in ice, the silent, brooding mountains kept the land's dread secrets. The nights were dark and long, and when the fires dwindled to ash and ember, the pioneers shivered, hu... more info>>

One of Harold Lamb's last uncollected works, this short novel--a thrilling adventure spanning Turkey and Afghanistan, set in the time of the Crusades--offers a glimpse into a time of barbarism and heroicism, when Christians and Muslims were locked in war and kingdoms could be won--and lost--on the battlefield. Features a new introduction by Lamb-scholar Howard Jones. This particular book was an influence on Fantasy author Robert E. Howard. A Wildside Fiction Classic.

Still in pursuit, the Pony Soldiers get closer and closer to White Eagle, the kidnapper. He put the noose around his own neck the minute he enslaved Major Harding's daughter. Now he is being hunted like a dog, and the Pony Soldiers have no intention of showing any mercy. They want to tear White Eagle apart and feed him to the buzzards. His death draws nearer as the unrelenting, unstoppable Pony Soldiers seek his head.

As the Great American Depression of the 1930's finally ends on the brink of World War II, Katie finds herself on the verge of womanhood. Ironically most of her male peers in this small Oklahoma oil town she calls "Deliria" are drafted into the military. As the vast deprovincialization of the country takes place in the sudden need for factory workers and the military, Katie puts her dreams of adventure on hold, takes on her first lover, keeps the most sophisticated company she can find among the ... more info>>

World War II helped to define Tristan Jones as an adventurous Welsh youth. After losing his parents, he spent much of his life working on sailing barges and so he is no stranger to the seas when he is called to fight for Britain during the Blitz in 1940. Tristan Jones is not only caught in the middle of arduous battles on board, but also the tragic battles he must fight in his heart. When the British Royal Navy commissions him to embark on transatlantic duties on the HMS Eclectic, HMS Hood and t... more info>>

Robert L. Hecker's, Rush to Glory, lays open the lives to two rival brothers, Hal and Luke Bailey, opposites in every way, one of a more gentle nature, and the other possessed of unrelenting ambition. Set against the backdrop of WW II with all of Europe aflame, Hal proves that failure is often in the eye of the beholder and that success to one man is often total devastation to another. Determined to do his duty for his country, Hal enlists in the Air Force, is trained as a bombardier, and finds ... more info>>

King of the Romans is satisfying as a historical novel and a tale of adventure, but it succeeds on other levels as well. We are shown unspeakable cruelty and corruption. We also are treated to deep friendship, love and courage, as Syagrius and his companions battle their own personal demons along with more prosaic enemies. Gorman does not provide easy answers or pat happy endings. Instead, he celebrates the power of love and the resilience of the human spirit."--Ilene Sirocca for The RunningRive... more info>>

William W. Johnstone, the powerhouse author of the acclaimed series The Mountain Man, has brought us a brand-new saga of western drama. The Last Gunfighter series continues to expand the reach of Johnstone's creative powers, placing the American frontier front and center with tales of down-and-out drifters, simple settlers, gregarious gunmen and loathing lawmen. In the Drifter, farmer Frank Morgan was an honest man with a future and a family before a barbarous baron pushed him off his hard-earne... more info>>

From one of the strongest voices in frontier fiction, The Border Men is a bold novel of revolution, adventure, and the spirit of the American pioneers. Cameron Judd tells the compelling story of proud men and women whose passion for liberty led them to fight for their freedom and tame the wilderness. Survival is at its most precarious, as Joshua Colter must defend the land he adopted in his youth, Tennessee. As a captain of the newly formed militia known as the Patriot Rangers, he leads the colo... more info>>

He was only a boy of ten when he survived a bloody massacre in Charles Town, but with Joshua Colter's survival came the will to fight and survive. On the land that has become his home, a mountain paradise the Cherokee call Tanisi, Joshua must face his destiny of being a leader in the bitter fight for land and power between the Cherokee, settlers and British royalty, or he will lose the only place he can call his own. In an age of revolution in the deep wilderness of the rugged frontier Joshua mu... more info>>