Nonfiction
Agnes Lake Hickok: Queen of the Circus, Wife of a Legend
Agnes Lake Hickok must have been made of extraordinary stuff. She married circus performer Bill Lake in 1847 and made…
The Age of the Ship of the Line: The British and French Navies, 1650-1815
The “ship of the line” was the equivalent of the battleship in navies in the age of sail. While numerous…
Captivated: J. M. Barrie, Daphne du Maurier and the Dark Secret of Neverland
‘Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die.’ D. H. Lawrence. This fascinating and disturbing book unravels…
1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History
Students of the American Civil War have been blessed over the years by an astonishing number of truly talented scholarly…
Searching for Tamsen Donner
In 1846 Tamsen Donner and her family left Springfield, Illinois, in search of a new life in California. In 1977…
Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant
I first came across Archibald, Lord Wavell (1883-1950), through his popular poetry anthology Other Men’s Flowers. I knew little of…
Patrick Brontë: Father of Genius
Father of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, as well as their wastrel brother Branwell, Patrick Brontë had the misfortune to outlive…
The Gaol: The Story of Newgate, London’s Most Notorious Prison
Forget Alcatraz, the Bastille, or the Black Hole of Calcutta: the most notorious prison in history was surely Newgate. For…
A Voyage Long and Strange
This is a travelogue rather than a history book, written by a journalist, not an historian. The Voyage Long and…
The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English
This is not a history of the English language, despite the subtitle. There is little about grammar and syntax and…
About our Reviews
Over the last 15 years The Historical Novels Review (the society’s print magazine for our members) has published reviews of some 12,000 historical fiction books. We plan to upload them all and make them searchable here.
