List of historical fiction by time period

Novels

Set in [Prehistory] (c. 30,000 BC – 3000 BC)

• Earth's Children by Jean Auel
• Ember of a New World by Tom Watson
• Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell
• Pillar of the Sky by Cecelia Holland
• Mammoth Trilogy by Stephen Baxter
• The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone
• Song of the Axe and Song of the Earth by John R. Dann
• Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver
• First North Americans by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear
• The Temporary Zare series by Semyon Karatov et al.
• The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault
• The Inheritors by William Golding
• The Quest for Fire by J.-H. Rosny

  Set in [Classical Greece], [Ancient Egypt], the [Roman Empire], etc. (c. 2000 BC – 500 AD)

• I, Claudius, King Jesus, Homer's Daughter and Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
• Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games by Mary Renault
• Emperor series by Conn Iggulden
• A Struggle for Rome by Felix Dahn
• Men of Bronze and Memnon by Scott Oden
• The Scourge of God by William Dietrich
• Pharaoh by Bolesław Prus
• Julian and Creation by Gore Vidal
• The Sword of Attila by Petar Bobev
• The Death of Attila by Cecelia Holland
• Uard, Homo Sum, Die Schwester, Der Kaiser by Georg Ebers
• Carthage Trilogy by Ross Leckie
• Kleopatra Pharaoh by Karen Essex
• Gaius Valerius Verrens series by Douglas Jackson
• The Ramses Series and The Queen of Freedom Trilogy by Christian Jacq
• The Empress of Silk and The Jade Disc by José Frèches
• The War at Troy and The Return from Troy by Lindsay Clarke
• Marcus Corvinus series by David Wishart
• Roma Sub Rosa by Steven Saylor
• The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
• Hannibal Chronicles, Spartacus Chronicles and Forgotten Legion Chronicles by Ben Kane
• Vespasian series by Robert Fabbri
• Cicero Trilogy and Pompeii by Robert Harris
• The Egyptian and The Secret of the Kingdom by Mika Waltari
• The Alexander Trilogy by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
• Eagle Series and Gladiator Series by Simon Scarrow
• Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk Sienkiewicz
• Lion of Sparta and Darius by Viktor Porotnikov
• Troy Series by David Gemmel
• The Walled Orchard, Olympiad, Song for Nero, Meadowland and Alexander: At World's End by Tom Holt
• Judge Dee by Robert Van Gulik
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong and retold by Eiji Yoshikawa
• Gates of Fire, Last of the Amazons, The Virtues of War, The Afghan Campaign and Tides of War by Steven Pressfield
• Hay luz en casa de Publio Fama by Juan Miñana
• Scipio trilogy and Trajan trilogy by Santiago Posteguillo
• El lazo de púrpura by Alejandro Núñez Alonso
• The Unconquered Sun by Ralph Dulin
• Helena by Evelyn Waugh
• ' and ' by Anne Rice
• by Lew Wallace
• The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
• The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
• The Gospel According to the Son by Norman Mailer
• The Source by James A. Michener
• Raptor by Gary Jennings
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough
• The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder
• Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
• Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert
• The Gospel According to Lazarus by Richard Zimler

  Set in the [Middle Ages] (c. 500 AD – 1500)

• Les Rois maudits by Maurice Druon
• The Saxon Stories and The Grail Quest by Bernard Cornwell
• The Conquest Trilogy and Passing Under Heaven by Justin Hill
• Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden
• Oathsworn Series by Robert Low
• Matthew Bartholomew series by Susanna Gregory
• Brethren Trilogy and The Insurrection Trilogy by Robyn Young
• Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte
• Kings of Albion and The Last English King by Julian Rathbone
• Minstrel Dick. A Tale of the XIVth Century by Christabel R. Coleridge
• King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
• The Knights of the Cross by Henryk Sienkiewicz
• New Tale of the Heike by Eiji Yoshikawa
• The Viking Series and Saxon by Tim Severin
• Nama miko monogatari by Fumiko Enchi
• The Plantagenet Series, The Welsh Princes Series, The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
• The Cadfael Chronicles and A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury by Edith Pargeter
• The Corban Loosestrife series and Great Maria by Cecelia Holland
• El Doncel de don Enrique el Doliente by Mariano José de Larra
• Sancho Saldaña o el castellano de Cuellar by José de Espronceda
• Svetoslav Terter, Two against hell and Black Rider by Tsoncho Rodev
• Il cavaliere invisibile by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
• Telling of Khan Asparoukh, knyaz Slav and votari Terez, Telling of the time of Samuil, Odd knight of Holy book by Anton Donchev
• Los bandos de Castilla by Ramón López Soler
• Los malos años and Corazón oscuro by León Arsenal
• El camino mozarabe by Jesús Sánchez Adalid
• Pre-Aztec Series, The Rise of the Aztecs Series, The Peacemaker Series, The People of the Longhouse Series by Zoe Saadia
• The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Porphyry and Ash by Peter Sandham
• Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
• The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End by Ken Follett
• Poland by James A. Michener
• The Journeyer by Gary Jennings
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

  Set in the [Early Modern Period] (c. 1500 – 1760)

• Sano Ichiro by Laura Joh Rowland
• Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett
• The Secrets of the Tudor Court and Face Down Mysteries by Kate Emerson
• Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
• Peter I by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy
• The White Devil by Hristo Kalchev
• The Waverley Novels by Walter Scott
• Amenable Women by Mavis Cheek
• The Cem Case by Vera Mutafchieva
• My Name is Red and The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
• Mathias Tannhauser trilogy by Tim Willocks
• d'Artagnan Romances and Valois Romances by Alexandre Dumas
• Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex
• Miyamoto Musashi and Taiko ki by Eiji Yoshikawa
• Imprimatur Secretum Veritas Mysterium... by Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti
• Leo Africanus, Samarkand, Balthasar's Odyssey by Amin Maalouf
• Shōgun by James Clavell
• Adventures of Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
• The Heretic: A Novel of the Inquisition by Miguel Delibes
• Ladrones de tinta by Alfonso Mateo-Sagasta
• El reino de los hombres sin amor by Alfonso Mateo-Sagasta
• The Heart of Jade by Salvador de Madariaga
• La aventura equinocial de Lope de Aguirre by Ramón José Sender Garcés
• Tlaloc Weeps for Mexico by László Passuth
• Centauros by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa
• The Last Crusader by Louis de Wohl
• Aztec by Gary Jennings
• Romola by George Eliot
• Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• Seek the Fair Land by Walter Macken
• The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Silence by Shūsaku Endō
• Hawaii, Chesapeake and Caribbean by James A. Michener
• The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
• The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon
• Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
• The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and Guardian of the Dawn by Richard Zimler

  Set during the [Industrial Revolution] and [Napoleonic era] (c.1760–1840)

• Money Power Love by Joss Sheldon
• Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell
• Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian
• Hornblower series by C. S. Forester
• Lord Ramage by Dudley Pope
• Saint Hermine series by Alexandre Dumas
• The Trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
• Ethan Cage by William Dietrich
• The Mutiny by Julian Rathbone
• Stealing Athena by Karen Essex
• Wellington and Napoleon Quartet by Simon Scarrow
• Beltrán Ochoa, capitán de Dragones series by Octavio Sánchez-Machuca
• El día que España derrotó a Inglaterra. De cómo Blas de Lezo, tuerto, manco y cojo, venció en Cartagena de Indias a la otra «Armada Invencible» by Pablo Victoria
• National Episodes by Benito Pérez Galdós)
• La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas
• Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós
• Un día de cólera, El húsar, The Siege and La sombra del águila by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
• Una saga marinera española by Luis Delgado Bañón
• Historical romances by Eleanor Hibbert
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• The Berrybender Narratives by Larry McMurtry
• The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes
• Narratives of America series by Allan W. Eckert
• The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
• The Revenant by Michael Punke
• The Awakening Land trilogy by Conrad Richter
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• Burr by Gore Vidal
• Poldark series by Winston Graham
• A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett
• Alaska by James A. Michener
• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
• Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds
• by Alex Haley
• April Morning by Howard Fast
• The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
• The Sergeant Lamb novels by Robert Graves
• The Revolution at Sea saga by James L. Nelson
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
• The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally
• The Bolitho novels by Alexander Kent
• Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler

  Set during recent history (c. 1850 – 1950)

• The Starbuck Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
• Enigma by Robert Harris
• Cézanne’s Quarry by Barbara Corrado Pope
• The Blood of Lorraine by Barbara Corrado Pope
• The Missing Italian Girl by Barbara Corrado Pope
• Lonesome Dove series by Larry McMurtry
• The Sackett series by Louis L'Amour
• North and South trilogy by John Jakes
• The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
• Shiloh by Shelby Foote
• Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
• Narratives of Empire series by Gore Vidal
• The novels of E. L. Doctorow
• Fall of Giants, Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett
• Centennial, The Covenant, Texas, and Journey by James A. Michener
• Tai-Pan and Gai-Jin by James Clavell
• The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
• The Kreizler series by Caleb Carr
• The L.A. Quartet and the Underworld USA Trilogy by James Ellroy
• The James Reasoner Civil War Series by James Reasoner
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Emigrants series by Vilhelm Moberg
• The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle
• Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
• The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Exodus by Leon Uris
• The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
• Drood by Dan Simmons
• The Flashman Papers series by George MacDonald Fraser
• The Warsaw Anagrams and The Seventh Gate by Richard Zimler

  Theatre

Set 2000 BC – 600 AD

• Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
• Britannicus by Jean Racine
• Caligula by Albert Camus
• The Death of Pompey by Pierre Corneille
• Socrates on Trial by Andrew David Irvine
• Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw
• The Siege of Numantia by Miguel de Cervantes
• ''Salome by Oscar Wilde

  Set 600 AD – 1550

• St Joan by George Bernard Shaw
• William Shakespeare's English history plays
• Edward II, Tamburlaine, and The Massacre at Paris by Christopher Marlowe
• Henry IV by Luigi Pirandello
• In Extremis: The Story of Abelard & Heloise and Anne Boleyn by Howard Brenton
• The Jester's Supper by Sem Benelli
• Marie Tudor by Victor Hugo
• Götz von Berlichingen by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot

  Set after 1550

• Egmont and Torquato Tasso by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Mary Stuart and Demetrius by Friedrich Schiller
• Cross and Sword by Paul Green

  Opera

Set 3000 BC – 600 AD

• Aida and Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi
• Akhnaten by Philip Glass
• Cléopâtre and Hérodiade by Jules Massenet
• Mosè in Egitto by Gioachino Rossini
• Giulio Cesare by George Frideric Handel
• Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz
• Sapho by Charles Gounod
• L'Olimpiade by Metastasio
• Germanicus by Georg Philipp Telemann

  Set 600 AD – 1800

• Gustave III by Daniel Auber
• Henry VIII by Camille Saint-Saëns
• William Tell by Gioachino Rossini
• Les Huguenots and Le prophète by Giacomo Meyerbeer
• Fosca and Salvator Rosa by Antônio Carlos Gomes
• Fernand Cortez by Gaspare Spontini
• Thérèse by Jules Massenet
• Le roi l'a dit by Léo Delibes
• Tamerlano and Rodelinda by George Frideric Handel
• Les Abencérages by Luigi Cherubini
• Montezuma by Roger Sessions
• Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi

  Films and television

Poetry

• The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold: life of Gautama Buddha, 6th or 5th century BC
• The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: reign of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in Rome, 6th century BC
• ' by Thomas Babington Macaulay: Horatius Cocles vs Lars Porsena, Rome, 6th century BC
• Roderick the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey: reign of Roderic, 8th century Hispania
• King Alfred by John Fitchett: reign of Alfred the Great, 9th century England
• The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton: reign of Alfred the Great, 9th century England
• The Saga of King Olaf by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: reign of Olaf Tryggvason, 10th century Norway
• Madoc by Robert Southey: legend of Madoc, 12th century Wales
• Isabella, or the Pot of Basil and The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats: European Middle Ages
• Marmion by Sir Walter Scott: reign of Henry VIII of England & the Battle of Flodden, 1513
• ' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Battle of Flores, 1591
• Bonnie Dundee by Sir Walter Scott: Viscount Dundee and the Jacobite rising of 1689
• Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: the Expulsion of the Acadians
• Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: American Revolutionary War

  Comics

Prehistoric

• Rahan by Roger Lecureux and Jean-François Lecureux
• Akim by Roberto Renzi

  Ancient

• 300 by Frank Miller
• Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower

  Wuxia manhua

• Three Kingdoms by Yū Terashima
• Fung Wan by Ma Wing-shing
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by Andy Seto
• The Ravages of Time by Chan Mou
• Threads of Time by Noh Mi-young
• Ying Xiong Wu Lei by Ma Wing Shing

  Samurai manga

• Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki
• Azumi by Yū Koyama
• Path of the Assassin by Kazuo Koike