Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
Aging Texas Rangers drive cattle north in an epic, funny, heartbreaking Western.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Adventure & epic · Family saga
Historical fiction · story type
Adventure & epic historical fiction
Adventure & epic historical fiction: Sweeping quests, voyages, and large-canvas history. Adventure and epic historical fiction favors voyages, quests, and large-canvas history—Follett-scale storytelling and beyond.
Curated on HisFic (42)
Hand-picked historical fiction tagged as adventure & epic.
Shōgun
James Clavell
An English pilot is shipwrecked into the deadly politics of feudal Japan.
Early modern · Adventure & epic · Biographical
The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett
Cathedral-building, civil war, and intertwined lives in twelfth-century England.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Family saga
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
A blind French girl and a German boy’s paths converge in occupied Saint-Malo during World War II.
World War II era · Interwar · Literary · Adventure & epic
Circe
Madeline Miller
The witch Circe tells her own story—exile, gods, monsters, and the making of a legend.
Ancient world · Literary · Biographical
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
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
A WWII nurse walks through standing stones into Jacobite Scotland—and a complicated love story.
Early modern · World War II era · Time-slip · Romance
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
An enslaved woman’s escape reimagines the Underground Railroad as a literal train—and faces America’s brutal history.
Civil War · Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Adventure & epic
City of Thieves
David Benioff
In the starving winter of the Leningrad siege, seventeen-year-old Lev Beniov is caught looting a dead German and spared only if he and Kolya, a deserting private with a story for every checkpoint, can bring a colonel a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake. David Benioff’s 2008 novel is World War II military historical fiction of a frozen city, cannibals on the road, and two young men sent behind the lines for a feast nobody can afford.
World War II era · Military & war · Adventure & epic
The Alice Network
Kate Quinn
In 1947 a pregnant American college student hunts for a missing Frenchwoman and collides with Eve Gardiner, a damaged veteran of a real World War I spy ring. Dual timelines braid the Alice Network’s 1915 missions in occupied France with a postwar reckoning.
World War I era · Cold War · Time-slip · Military & war
The Count of Monte Cristo
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
The Last Kingdom
Bernard Cornwell
Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a Saxon earl’s son raised by Danes, is pulled between a pagan war-band and Alfred’s Wessex as ninth-century England is carved up. Cornwell’s opening Saxon novel is medieval military historical fiction: shield walls, divided loyalty, and the making of England.
Medieval · Military & war · Adventure & epic
The Long Ships
Frans G. Bengtsson
In the 980s red-haired Orm is taken off his father’s Scanian farm onto a Viking ship, then rowed through al-Andalus, the court of Harald Bluetooth, and Ethelred’s England, with his friend Toke beside him as Scandinavia is pressed to convert. Frans G. Bengtsson’s novel (Swedish parts 1941 and 1945; one English volume, 1954) is medieval adventure historical fiction of the late Viking Age, from a boy at the oar to a chieftain who has served Al-Mansur and outlived the year 1000.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Family saga
The Physician
Noah Gordon
Orphaned in eleventh-century London, Rob Cole learns the barber-surgeon’s trade on the road, then walks east—through Europe and the Islamic world—to study medicine at Isfahan, where Christians are barred and he must travel as a Jew to sit under Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Noah Gordon’s novel is medieval historical adventure of a healer’s apprenticeship: plague, faith, and a journey from Dark Ages England to the best medical school on earth.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Family saga
The Winter King
Bernard Cornwell
After High King Uther dies, infant Mordred is left exposed and Arthur—the exiled bastard—returns from Armorica to hold a crumbling Britain against Saxons, Irish raiders, and rival kings, while Derfel Cadarn, a Saxon-born warrior sworn to him, watches honor and Guinevere pull the warlord toward ruin. Bernard Cornwell’s 1995 novel is Dark Age military historical fiction: mud, shield walls, and an Arthur who is a soldier, not a romance-cycle king.
Medieval · Military & war · Adventure & epic
Cathedral of the Sea
Ildefonso Falcones
In 1320 a lord breaks a serf’s wedding at Navarcles, and Bernat Estanyol flees to Barcelona with his infant son Arnau, who grows up carrying stone for Santa Maria del Mar, lives through famine and plague, and rises from bastaix to merchant while the church is still unfinished. Ildefonso Falcones’s 2006 novel (English translation) is medieval saga historical fiction of fourteenth-century Barcelona, from a boy on the quarry road to the consecration of the church in 1384.
Medieval · Family saga · Adventure & epic
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
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
Scaramouche
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
The Crystal Cave
Mary Stewart
Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, Myrddin Emrys—Merlin—grows from a watched child of visions to the prophet who faces High King Vortigern, crowns Uther Pendragon, and engineers the night that will conceive Arthur. Mary Stewart’s novel is medieval biographical historical adventure: a fifth-century Britain after Rome, told as Merlin’s own youth.
Medieval · Biographical · Adventure & epic
The Far Pavilions
M. M. Kaye
Orphaned in the Himalayan foothills and raised as a Hindu, Ashton Pelham-Martyn is later claimed by British India as an officer—then falls in love with an Indian princess promised to another man, as the Raj and the Second Anglo-Afghan War tear his loyalties in two. M. M. Kaye’s novel is Victorian historical romance of nineteenth-century India: identity, empire, and a love story on the scale of the old panoramic sagas.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance · Adventure & epic
True Grit
Charles Portis
In the winter of 1878, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross leaves Yell County for Fort Smith after Tom Chaney shoots her father, Frank, and rides off into Indian Territory with his horse and his money. Charles Portis’s 1968 novel is Victorian adventure historical fiction of the hunt she will not delegate—one-eyed deputy marshal Rooster Cogburn, Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and Ned Pepper’s gang in the Winding Stair Mountains.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Adventure & epic · Literary
Bone by Bone
Peter Matthiessen
Edgar Watson’s Florida frontier legend completed (SAH Prize co-winner 2001).
World War I era · Literary · Adventure & epic
Shaman
Noah Gordon
A doctor’s life on the American frontier (SAH / Cooper Prize 1993).
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Adventure & epic
The East Indian
Brinda Charry
A boy from India arrives in colonial Virginia—America’s earliest Asian immigrant story (SAH Prize 2025).
Early modern · Literary · Adventure & epic
The Gallows Pole
Ben Myers
Coin-clippers in 18th-century Yorkshire defy king and crown (Walter Scott Prize 2018).
Early modern · Literary · Adventure & epic
A Town Like Alice
Nevil Shute
Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman working in Malaya when the Japanese invade, is marched for months with a party of women and children, and an Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, is punished for helping them. Nevil Shute’s 1950 novel is World War II romance historical fiction of the years after—an inheritance in 1948, the news that Joe survived, and the outback settlement she sets out to turn into a town like Alice Springs.
World War II era · Cold War · Romance · Adventure & epic
Aztec
Gary Jennings
In 1529 Bishop Juan de Zumárraga has the elderly Mexica Mixtli—born on the island of Xaltocan in 1466—dictate his life for King Carlos: a stonemason’s son who becomes a scribe, a trader, a warrior, and a councilor to Moctezuma, then watches Hernán Cortés bring down the Triple Alliance. Gary Jennings’s 1980 novel is adventure historical fiction of the Aztec world from a fifteenth-century childhood to the fall of Tenochtitlan, told by a man the bishop will prosecute for heresy once the chronicle is finished.
Medieval · Early modern · Adventure & epic · Family saga
Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier
Wounded Confederate soldier Inman walks home across North Carolina toward Ada, who is learning to keep a mountain farm alive as the Civil War wrecks the Blue Ridge. Frazier’s National Book Award winner is Civil War historical fiction of desertion, survival, and a love story paced to the land.
Civil War · Literary · Romance
Master and Commander
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
The Once and Future King
T. H. White
Wart the kitchen boy is trained by Merlyn—who lives backwards through time—then draws the sword, marries Guenever, and watches the Round Table crack under Lancelot, Orkney, and a war he cannot end. T. H. White’s 1958 Arthurian cycle is medieval historical adventure: the education of a king, and the legend behind Camelot and The Sword in the Stone.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Literary
The Scarlet Pimpernel
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
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas
In 1625, Gascon cadet d’Artagnan rides to Paris to join Louis XIII’s musketeers and falls in with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—then into Cardinal Richelieu’s war of spies, diamonds, and honor. Dumas’s novel is early-modern historical adventure: duels, the queen’s honour, and the friendship behind “all for one, one for all.”
Early modern · Adventure & epic · Military & war
Jamaica Inn
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
The Four Feathers
A. E. W. Mason
In 1882, before his regiment sails with Lord Wolseley’s expedition, Harry Feversham resigns his commission and is given three white feathers by his brother officers; at a dance in Ramelton, Ethne Eustace breaks a fourth from her fan. A. E. W. Mason’s 1902 novel is Victorian adventure historical fiction of the years he then spends disguised in Egypt and the Sudan, trying to win the feathers back in the Mahdist war.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Adventure & epic · Military & war
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Victor Hugo
In 1482 Paris, the cathedral of Notre-Dame watches over Quasimodo the bell-ringer, Esmeralda the street dancer, and Archdeacon Claude Frollo, whose desire pulls all three toward the towers, the Court of Miracles, and the gallows. Hugo’s novel is medieval historical adventure: a city, a cathedral, and a love story that made Notre-Dame itself a character.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Literary
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
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
Washington Black
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
Ivanhoe
Walter Scott
In 1194, disinherited knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades to an England split among Saxons, Normans, and the absent King Richard, with Rebecca of York and Rowena caught in the same violent pageant. Scott’s romance of tournament, outlaw woods, and Templar menace is the template later historical novels still copy.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Romance
Lorna Doone
R. D. Blackmore
On Exmoor in the 1670s, yeoman’s son John Ridd sees the Doone clan kill his father, then finds a child named Lorna in their hidden valley and grows up set on winning her out of that stronghold. R. D. Blackmore’s 1869 novel is early-modern romance historical fiction of the Doone Valley, the Great Winter, and Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685—a Somerset love story against an outlaw clan the law will not touch.
Early modern · Romance · Adventure & epic
Timeline
Michael Crichton
Yale historians reconstructing a fourteenth-century Dordogne fortress are sent by a quantum company into 1357 to rescue their professor—and land in the Hundred Years’ War among knights, a hidden crypt, and the siege of Castelgard and La Roque they had only studied in the dirt. Michael Crichton’s 1999 novel is medieval time-slip historical fiction of chivalry, quantum travel, and scholars who have to survive the past they came to map.
Medieval · Time-slip · Adventure & epic
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Mark Twain
Hartford mechanic Hank Morgan is knocked cold in 1879 and wakes in King Arthur’s Britain, where nineteenth-century know-how—and a timely eclipse—raise him from condemned outsider to the Boss of Camelot, until knights, the Church, and a war of the future tear the miracle apart. Mark Twain’s novel is medieval time-slip historical adventure: a Yankee’s satire of chivalry, progress, and the damage a modern mind can do in a legendary past.
Medieval · Victorian / Gilded Age · Time-slip · Adventure & epic
The Last of the Mohicans
James Fenimore Cooper
In 1757, during the French and Indian War, scout Hawkeye and the Mohican warriors Chingachgook and Uncas guide Cora and Alice Munro through the forests around Fort William Henry as the siege, a massacre, and a pursuit up the lakes close in. James Fenimore Cooper’s novel is early-American historical adventure: wilderness warfare, a famous frontier friendship, and the Leatherstocking tale readers still know by title.
Early modern · Adventure & epic · Military & war