Historical fiction · ~1789–1837
Regency / Napoleonic historical fiction (~1789–1837): Balls, war, empire, Austen-adjacent and beyond. Regency and Napoleonic historical fiction is more than ballrooms—war, empire, and social change sit beside romance and wit. Filter by story type when you open a journey.
Hand-picked titles from HisFic's catalog tagged for this era.
Jane Austen
When wealthy bachelor Mr. Bingley takes Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet is determined to marry off a daughter—but it is the proud Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth Bennet’s first impression of him, that turns a Hertfordshire season into the most famous courtship in English fiction. Jane Austen’s 1813 novel is Regency historical romance of manners, money, and a woman who will not marry without respect.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
Tessa Dare
The Duke of Ashbury comes home from war needing an heir, not a wife he has to look at in the light—until seamstress Emma Gladstone arrives in his library wearing a wedding gown and he decides on the spot that she will do. Tessa Dare’s Girl Meets Duke opener is steamy Regency historical romance: a marriage of convenience, unlimited teasing, and a happily-ever-after.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Ariel Lawhon
In the winter of 1789, Maine midwife Martha Ballard is called to a body trapped in the frozen Kennebec River, then drawn into a rape accusation the town’s powerful men want buried. Drawn from Ballard’s real diary, it is historical mystery with a working woman’s eye for birth, ice, and justice.
Regency / Napoleonic · Mystery · Biographical
Eloisa James
Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, has never made a fool of himself over a woman until he meets Lady Yasmin Régnier—too French, too gossipy, and entirely ineligible—and still finds himself proposing. Eloisa James’s Would-Be Wallflowers novel is steamy Regency historical romance: enemies-to-lovers, a scandalous love affair, and a happily-ever-after.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Octavia E. Butler
On her twenty-sixth birthday in 1976 Los Angeles, Dana Franklin is yanked to a Maryland plantation whenever Rufus Weylin, a red-haired boy who will grow up to enslave her ancestors, is about to die—and she has to keep him alive or never be born. Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 novel is time-slip historical fiction of the early nineteenth-century South: each stay is longer, her white husband Kevin is stranded with her, and the past does not return her whole.
Regency / Napoleonic · Late 20th century · Time-slip · Literary
Alexandre Dumas
In 1815, sailor Edmond Dantès is framed for Bonapartist treason and locked in the Château d’If; he escapes, claims a hidden fortune, and returns to Restoration France as the Count of Monte Cristo to ruin the men who stole his life. Dumas’s novel is Napoleonic-aftermath historical adventure—prisons, treasure, and a revenge plotted across Marseille, Rome, and Paris.
Regency / Napoleonic · Adventure & epic · Literary
Leo Tolstoy
Five Russian families move through court, love, and the Napoleonic invasion as 1805 becomes Borodino and Moscow burns. Tolstoy’s epic is Napoleonic historical fiction on a national scale—ballrooms and battlefields, Pierre and Natasha, and the question of who makes history.
Regency / Napoleonic · Family saga · Literary
Annemarie Selinko
In 1794 a Marseille silk merchant’s daughter opens a diary the day her brother is arrested, and the pages follow an engagement to Napoleon Bonaparte, marriage to General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, and his election as Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810, through to her coronation as Queen Desideria in 1829. Annemarie Selinko’s 1951 novel (English 1953) is Regency romance historical fiction of the Napoleonic years as a merchant’s daughter lived them, from the Terror to a Stockholm crown.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Biographical
Charlotte Brontë
Orphaned Jane Eyre survives Gateshead and Lowood, then takes a governess post at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with the brooding Edward Rochester—and discovers the secret locked on the third floor that makes their wedding impossible. Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel is Regency gothic historical romance: a woman who will not be owned, and the most famous governess courtship in English fiction.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
Victor Hugo
In 1815, convict Jean Valjean is released from the galleys and tries to live honestly under a stolen name, while Inspector Javert hunts him through Restoration and July-Monarchy France. Hugo’s novel follows Fantine, Cosette, Marius, and the 1832 Paris barricades—crime, mercy, and a social epic that still defines French historical fiction after Waterloo.
Regency / Napoleonic · Family saga · Literary
C. S. Forester
In 1793, seventeen-year-old Horatio Hornblower is dumped aboard HMS Justinian, seasick and untried, then wins his sea legs through prize crews, a duel, fire ships, and a stretch as a prisoner in Spain on the way to lieutenant. C. S. Forester’s novel is Napoleonic naval historical adventure: the first chronological Hornblower, and the making of a Royal Navy legend.
Regency / Napoleonic · Military & war · Adventure & epic
Rafael Sabatini
In Brittany on the eve of the Revolution, lawyer André-Louis Moreau watches a marquis kill his closest friend, then goes from a Rennes courtroom to a traveling theater—where he plays the clown Scaramouche—and on to a Paris fencing hall as France turns on its nobles. Rafael Sabatini’s 1921 novel is French Revolution historical adventure of disguise, the sword, and a man born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
Regency / Napoleonic · Early modern · Adventure & epic · Romance
Georgette Heyer
When diplomat Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is posted to South America, he parks his high-handed daughter Sophy on her aunt in Berkeley Square, where cousin Charles is engaged to a grim bluestocking, Cecelia is in love with a useless poet, and the younger Ombersleys are starved of fun. Georgette Heyer’s 1816 novel is Regency historical romance: a managing heroine, a furious hero, and the London season rearranged at pistol-point and on horseback.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Kathleen Grissom
In the spring of 1791, seven-year-old Lavinia, an Irish orphan who cannot remember the voyage that killed her parents, is indentured to the kitchen house at Tall Oaks, Captain James Pyke’s tobacco plantation in Tidewater Virginia. Kathleen Grissom’s 2010 novel is Regency saga historical fiction of the years she is raised by Belle and the kitchen family, then drawn up into the big house, where the captain is away and the mistress is lost to opium.
Regency / Napoleonic · Family saga
Andrea Levy
A Jamaican woman narrates slavery’s last years and emancipation with wit and steel (Walter Scott Prize 2011).
Regency / Napoleonic · Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Family saga
Patrick O'Brian
In 1800, luck and patronage put Jack Aubrey in command of the brig Sophie, with ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin as friend, naturalist, and intelligence officer. The first Aubrey–Maturin novel is Napoleonic naval historical fiction: prize-taking, seamanship, and a friendship that carries a twenty-book series.
Regency / Napoleonic · Adventure & epic · Military & war
Jane Austen
When Henry Dashwood dies, his widow and daughters are turned out of Norland: Elinor conceals her attachment to Edward Ferrars, while Marianne throws her heart at the dashing John Willoughby—until secret engagements, a broken ankle at Cleveland, and the marriage market of Barton and London test both sisters. Jane Austen’s 1811 novel is Regency historical romance of sense mixed with sensibility, and of two women who will not be saved by feeling alone.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
Julia Quinn
In the 1813 London season, Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, fake a courtship to solve their marriage-market problems—then the performance becomes real. The first Bridgerton novel is Regency historical romance: ballrooms, gossip sheets, and a marriage of convenience that refuses to stay convenient.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Baroness Orczy
In 1792, as the Terror’s guillotine claims French aristocrats, a foppish English baronet named Percy Blakeney leads a league that smuggles the condemned out of Paris under the sign of a small red flower. Baroness Orczy’s novel is French Revolution historical adventure: double identity, a Channel chase, and the template for the masked rescuer.
Regency / Napoleonic · Adventure & epic · Romance
Hannah Kent
In 1829, in the north of Iceland, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is sent to wait for execution at Kornsá, a district officer’s farm, because the valley has no prison for the servant convicted of murdering Natan Ketilsson. Hannah Kent’s 2013 novel is Regency biographical historical fiction of that winter—and of Tóti, the young priest she asks for, who hears a story the court record does not contain.
Regency / Napoleonic · Biographical · Literary
Daphne du Maurier
On a November night Mary Yellan crosses Bodmin Moor to keep a promise to her dying mother, and finds Jamaica Inn shuttered to honest travelers: her Aunt Patience cowers, Uncle Joss Merlyn runs wreckers, and Mary is drawn to Joss’s brother Jem—a horse thief she dares not trust. Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 novel is Regency mystery historical fiction of Cornish smugglers, a haunted inn, and a young woman who will not look away.
Regency / Napoleonic · Mystery · Adventure & epic
George Eliot
In a Midlands town on the eve of the 1832 Reform Act, idealistic Dorothea Brooke marries the dry scholar Casaubon, while ambitious doctor Tertius Lydgate is drawn to beautiful, expensive Rosamond Vincy—two marriages, and a whole province of clergy, bankers, and gossips, testing what a life is for. George Eliot’s novel is Reform-era historical fiction of vocation, money, and the unhistoric acts that shape an English town.
Regency / Napoleonic · Literary · Family saga
William Styron
In the autumn of 1831, Nat Turner waits in a Southampton County jail to be hanged for the August rising he led, and tells the life that brought him there. William Styron’s 1967 novel is Regency biographical historical fiction of that confession—an enslaved preacher’s life in southeastern Virginia, and the revolt he believed he was called to begin.
Regency / Napoleonic · Biographical · Literary
Anne Brontë
In the autumn of 1827, gentleman farmer Gilbert Markham watches a woman calling herself Helen Graham take ruined Wildfell Hall with her small son, shut the door on the neighborhood, and paint for a living. Anne Brontë’s 1848 novel is Regency romance historical fiction of the diary she finally lets him read—a marriage to Arthur Huntingdon she has fled, and a woman the law of the 1820s still counts as her husband’s property.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
David Mitchell
In 1799, Dutch clerk Jacob de Zoet arrives on Dejima, the fan-shaped island that is Japan’s only window to the West, to make a fortune and sail home—until the midwife Orito Aibagawa, a magistrate’s bargain, and a mountain nunnery’s secrets pull him into the closed country’s dangers. David Mitchell’s 2010 novel is Napoleonic-era historical fiction of translation, love, and power at the edge of the shogunate, longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Regency / Napoleonic · Literary · Adventure & epic
Esi Edugyan
In 1830 on Faith Plantation in Barbados, eleven-year-old George Washington Black is taken from the cane fields to serve Christopher “Titch” Wilde, who is building a hydrogen balloon he calls the Cloud-cutter—and when a death puts a bounty on Wash, the two cut the tether and flee. Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel is adventure historical fiction of the 1830s, from an enslaved boy’s escape out of Barbados through Virginia, the Arctic, Nova Scotia, London, and Morocco.
Regency / Napoleonic · Adventure & epic · Literary
Emily Brontë
Lockwood, new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, takes shelter at Wuthering Heights and hears how the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw loved each other on the Yorkshire moors—until Cathy married Edgar Linton, died in childbirth, and Heathcliff’s revenge closed on the next generation at both houses. Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel is eighteenth-century gothic literary historical fiction of obsessive love, class, and a house that will not let the dead go.
Early modern · Regency / Napoleonic · Literary · Romance
Charles Dickens
After eighteen years in the Bastille, Dr Manette is restored to his daughter Lucie in London—then the French Revolution draws an exiled aristocrat, a wasted English lawyer, and the Manettes back to Paris and the shadow of the Guillotine. Dickens’s novel is historical fiction of 1775–1793 London and Paris: sacrifice, revenge, and the best and worst of times.
Regency / Napoleonic · Early modern · Family saga · Literary
Sarah Penner
On a February night in 1791, in a hidden London shop, the apothecary Nella waits for a customer who wants a poison the register will record, and twelve-year-old Eliza Fanning arrives with an errand that breaks Nella’s rules. Sarah Penner’s 2021 novel is Regency time-slip historical fiction of that book of names—and of Caroline Parcewell, who centuries later finds a small vial mudlarking on the Thames and follows it back to the shop.
Regency / Napoleonic · Time-slip · Mystery
William Makepeace Thackeray
Becky Sharp leaves finishing school with nothing but wit and climbs Regency England beside gentle Amelia Sedley—through London drawing rooms, a disastrous marriage, and the chaos of Waterloo. Thackeray’s novel without a hero is Napoleonic-era historical fiction of class, hypocrisy, and a social war fought as fiercely as the one on the Belgian field.
Regency / Napoleonic · Family saga · Literary
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