Shōgun
James Clavell
An English pilot is shipwrecked into the deadly politics of feudal Japan.
Early modern · Adventure & epic · Biographical
Early modern · Biographical · ~1500–1789
Early modern biographical historical fiction books
Looking for historical fiction in the biographical lane set during the Early modern (~1500–1789)? Early modern biographical historical fiction books collects historical novels that match both filters—Tudors, exploration, Reformation, revolutions brewing. Novels based on real historical figures HisFic is a free historical fiction discovery app: open a full reading journey with the same era and story-type filters, then add region, themes, or audience. Shelves mix curated historical fiction picks with Open Library titles so even thin combinations still have books to explore.
Shelf · 16 titles
Curated HisFic picks first, plus Open Library fills for this era + story type.
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel
Thomas Cromwell, now Master Secretary, engineers the fall of Anne Boleyn as Henry VIII turns toward Jane Seymour. The middle novel of Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy is court politics at close range—cool, lethal, and intimate.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
Musashi
Eiji Yoshikawa
In 1600, after the Battle of Sekigahara, a village youth called Takezo is left among the dead and hunted as an outlaw until the monk Takuan shuts him up with the books that turn him into Miyamoto Musashi. Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel, serialized from 1935 and read in English in Charles Terry’s translation, is early-modern adventure historical fiction of the years that follow—the road to Kyoto, the Yoshioka swordsmen, and the 1612 duel with Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryu Island.
Early modern · Adventure & epic · Biographical
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Thomas Cromwell rises through Tudor England’s deadly court, told in close, modern-feeling prose.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell
The plague, a marriage, and the death of Shakespeare’s son—told with intimate, luminous focus.
Early modern · Literary · Biographical
The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
Margaret George
Henry VIII’s manuscript, glossed in the margins by his fool Will Somers, runs from a 1491 childhood through six wives, the break with Rome, and the dissolution of the monasteries, with Cromwell, Wolsey, More, and Anne Boleyn on the same pages as the king who signs their fates. Margaret George’s 1986 novel is early-modern biographical historical fiction of Tudor England told from the throne, not from the minister’s rooms.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
The House of Boleyn
Tracy Borman
Tudor historian Tracy Borman tells the Boleyn family's rise and fall from Hever Castle—Anne, Mary, Thomas, and the household watching Henry VIII's court close in.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
The Mirror & the Light
Hilary Mantel
The final act of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and ruin (Walter Scott Prize 2021).
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
A servant in Vermeer’s household becomes entangled in the making of a famous portrait.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Irving Stone
Apprenticed in Medici Florence, Michelangelo Buonarroti wrestles marble, popes, and his own fury from the David through the Sistine ceiling to the dome of St. Peter’s—while Renaissance Italy tears through poisoning princes and warring pontiffs. Irving Stone’s 1961 novel is early-modern biographical historical fiction of genius and patronage: the artist’s life at the center of sixteenth-century Florence and Rome.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
The Marriage Portrait
Maggie O'Farrell
Lucrezia de’ Medici is married at fifteen to the Duke of Ferrara, then isolated in a court where a duchess can be painted, praised, and quietly discarded. O’Farrell turns a famous rumor—that Lucrezia was murdered—into close, tense biographical historical fiction of Renaissance Italy.
Early modern · Biographical · Literary
The Other Boleyn Girl
Philippa Gregory
Mary Boleyn’s perspective on the rise of Anne Boleyn and the dangerous theater of Henry VIII’s court.
Early modern · Biographical · Romance
Abundance
Sena Jeter Naslund
Biographical fiction · Fiction · Women rulers · Historical Fiction
Biographical · Open Library
The countess
Rebecca Johns
Countesses · Historical fiction · History · Fiction
Biographical · Open Library
The scarlet contessa
Jeanne Kalogridis
Biographical fiction · Fiction · Renaissance · Historical fiction
Early modern · Biographical · Open Library
Imagining the age of Goethe in German literature, 1970-2010
John David Pizer
German literature · History and criticism · German Biographical fiction · Appreciation
Late 20th century · Biographical · Open Library
Other story types in Early modern
Looking for a broader list? See Early modern historical fiction or biographical historical fiction.