The books start with the American Revolution and end during the first part of World War II in England.The Williamsburg series of historical novels by Elswyth Thane (1900-1981) consists of seven books spanning almost 170 years of the fictional Day and Sprague families. The books, starting with the American Revolution and ending during the first part of World War II, are as follows: Dawn's Early Light Yankee Stranger Ever After The Light Heart Kissing Kin This Was Tomorrow Homing Though named for Williamsburg, only the first two stories center around Williamsburg (or even greater Virginia), a Williamsburg in its hey-day at the time of the American Revolution (Dawn's Early Light) but already relegated to a lesser status by the time of the Civil War (Yankee Stranger), where much of the action takes place in Richmond, the new Confederate capitol.The last five books begin a generation after Yankee Stranger, in 1897, and continue uninterrupted through 1941, with recurring characters from one book to the next while new, younger characters are introduced along the way. These books depart sharply from the first two, in that the books are continuous from one to the next without generation gaps, and, more importantly, most of the action takes place in England, with some events in New York City. Only a few family members, in the background, remain in Williamsburg, while others take root in England. Also, given the definition of historical fiction as fiction set during times before the author's lifetime, and that Elswyth Thane was born in 1900, technically the last four books do not qualify as historical fiction. Indeed, since Thane was writing during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the last few books were written from a fairly recent time-perspective. Of course, to today's readers the books stand as real historical fiction, about times now at least 60 years ago, without the familiarity the books undoubtedly had to Thane's contemporaries.