Complete reading orders for popular historical fiction series.
There is no other character in historical fiction quite like Harry Flashman. A coward, a liar, a bully, and a shameless self-promoter, he is also one of the most entertaining narrators in the entire genre. Over the course of twelve…
Few detective series in Victorian fiction can match the emotional depth and psychological complexity of Anne Perry’s William Monk novels. Spanning 28 years and 24 books, this is a series that does something genuinely unusual: it turns the question of…
Elizabeth Chadwick’s William Marshal series brings to life one of the most extraordinary careers in medieval history. William Marshal rose from near-obscurity as the younger son of a minor lord to become the most powerful man in England: tournament champion,…
Few Victorian mystery series have matched the staying power of Anne Perry’s Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels. Thirty-two books spanning nearly four decades, all set in the fog-drenched streets and drawing rooms of late nineteenth-century London. This is a series…
Colleen McCullough spent seventeen years and seven novels recreating the fall of the Roman Republic in one of the most ambitious works of historical fiction ever written. The Masters of Rome series is enormous in every sense: in scope, in…
Simon Scarrow’s Eagles of the Empire series is one of the longest-running and most beloved Roman military fiction series in print. With 24 novels and counting, it follows two Roman soldiers, Centurion Macro and his young subordinate Cato, across the…
Behind every Tudor history book stands the same six women, and yet their stories are almost always told through the lens of the man they married. Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series sets out to change that entirely. Six novels,…
If you love historical mysteries packed with conspiracy, religious intrigue, and razor-sharp wit, the Giordano Bruno series by S.J. Parris belongs at the top of your reading list. Set in the dangerous political landscape of Elizabethan England, these novels follow…
The Grail Quest series by Bernard Cornwell brings the brutal reality of 14th-century warfare to life through the eyes of Thomas of Hookton, an English archer whose skill with the longbow makes him both a deadly warrior and a reluctant…
The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell offers a dark, gritty, and historically grounded reimagining of the Arthurian legend. Stripping away the medieval romance and magic, Cornwell presents Arthur as a pragmatic British warlord fighting to preserve Roman civilization against Saxon…