Best of
Historical-Fiction

1950

The Wall


John Hersey - 1950
    John Hersey's novel documents the Warsaw ghetto both as an emblem of Nazi persecution & as a personal confrontation with torture, starvation, humiliation & cruelty--a gripping, visceral story, impossible to put down.

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower


C.S. Forester - 1950
    Bullied and forced into a duel, he takes an even chance. And then he has many more chances to show his skills and ingenuities - from sailing a ship full of wetted and swelling rice to imprisonment and saving the lives of shipwrecked sailors. And along the way, he fights galleys, feeds cattle, stays out of the way of the guillotine, and makes friends with a Duchess. Here Hornblower becomes a man and develops the strength of character which will make him a hero to his men, and to all England.

The Grand Sophy


Georgette Heyer - 1950
    Newly arrived from her tour of the Continent, Sophy invites herself into the circle of her relatives. When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy, who sweeps in and immediately takes the town by storm. Beautiful, gay, impulsive, shockingly direct, Sophy sweeps into elegant London society and scatters conventions and traditions before her like wisps in a windstorm. Resourceful, adventurous and utterly indefatigable, Sophy is hardly the mild-mannered girl that the Rivenhalls expect when they agree to take her in. Kind-hearted Aunt Lizzy is shocked, and her arrogant stern cousin Charles Rivenhall, the Ombersley heir, vows to rid his family of her meddlesome ways by marrying her off.But vibrant and irrepressible Sophy was no stranger to managing delicate situations. After all, she'd been keeping opportunistic females away from her widowed father for years. Staying with her relatives could be her biggest challenge yet. But Sophy discovers that her aunt's family is in desperate need of her talent for setting everything right: her aunt's husband is of no use at all, her ruthlessly handsome cousin Charles has tyrannical tendencies that are being aggravated by his pedantic bluestocking fiancee Eugenia Wraxton; her lovely cousin Cecelia is smitten with an utterly unsuitable suitor, a beautiful but feather-brained poet; her cousin Herbert is in dire financial straits and has fallen foul of a money-lender; and the younger children are in desperate need of some fun and freedom, and Sophy's arrived just in time to save them all. With her inimitable mixture of exuberance and grace, Sophy becomes the mainstay of her hilariously bedeviled family, as a horsewoman, social leader and above all, as an ingenious match-maker. Using her signature unorthodox methods, Sophy sets out to solve all of their problems. By the time she's done, Sophy has commandeered household and Charles's horses, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to her eldest cousin. Could it be that the Grand Sophy had finally met her match? Can she really be falling in love with him, and he with her? And what of his betrothal to grim Eugenia?

A Town Like Alice


Nevil Shute - 1950
    A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life. Jean's travels leads her to a desolate Australian outpost called Willstown, where she finds a challenge that will draw on all the resourcefulness and spirit that carried her through her war-time ordeals.

The Quiet Light: A Novel About Thomas Aquinas


Louis de Wohl - 1950
    Thomas Aquinas, set against the violent background of the Italy of the Crusades. He tells the intriguing story of St. Thomas who - by taking a vow of poverty and joining the Dominicans - defied his illustrious, prominent family's ambition for him to have great power in the Church. The battles and Crusades of the 13th century and the ruthlessness of the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II play a big part in the story, but it is Thomas of Aquino who dominates this book. De Wohl succeeds notably in portraying the exceptional quality of this man, a fusion of mighty intellect and childlike simplicity. A pupil of St. Albert the Great, the humble Thomas - through an intense life of study, writing, prayer, preaching and contemplation - ironically rose to become the influential figure of his age, and he later was proclaimed by the Church as the Angelic Doctor.

Jubilee Trail


Gwen Bristow - 1950
    Garnet Cameron, a fashionable young lady of New York, is leading a neat, proper life, full of elegant parties and polite young men, yet the prospect of actually marrying any of them appalls her. Yearning for adventure, she instead marries Oliver Hale, a wild trader who is about to cross the mountains and deserts to an unheard-of land called California. During Garnet and Oliver's honeymoon in New Orleans, she meets a dance-hall performer on the lam who calls herself Florinda Grove and is also traveling to California. Along the Jubilee Trail, Garnet and Florinda meet kinds of men never known to them before, and together they make their painstaking way over the harsh trail to Los Angeles, learning how to live without compromise and discover both true friendship and true love.

The Enduring Hills


Janice Holt Giles - 1950
    It is based in part on her own courtship and introduction to the Kentucky mountain country. Here, Giles introduces Hod and Mary Pierce and begins her Appalachian trilogy. Hod Pierce, a boy not unlike Henry Giles, who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from the stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs also for wider horizons, for more education, and for th

Son of a Hundred Kings


Thomas B. Costain - 1950
    Fortunately, some kind citizens stepped in and he was offered a home. Never quite fitting in, he lived with them until adulthood where he is determined to find out who he is.

Each Bright River


Mildred Masterson McNeilly - 1950
    Along the way, she met Curt Fletcher, an arrogant and passionate trailblazer who vowed that no other man would possess her. And Sunset Lee, a gentle mountain man whose kindness would drastically change her outlook on life. As the trio faced hunger, poverty, and death, their battle for survival was not the only war they waged, for the two pioneers wanted Kitty - at any cost!

The King's Cavalier


Samuel Shellabarger - 1950
    With rich imagination, excellent scholarship and his rare gift for narrative, Samuel Shellabarger tells here the story of a young Frenchman and a young Englishwoman who were caught in the wild plots and counterplots surrounding the Bourbon conspiracy against Francis I.

The Edge of Time


Loula Grace Erdman - 1950
    

Esther


Norah Lofts - 1950
    A novel about Esther of the Old Testament, maiden, friend, wife, counselor, and queen.

First the Blade


Drayton Mayrant - 1950
    Although I have used in this story numerous legends, I have tried all through it to picture a woman revealed to us in that brief but urgent message by which she tried to save Our Lord from crucifixion. -Drayton Mayrant

The Hepburn


Jan Westcott - 1950
    When Jamie won, he granted The Hepburn lands that made Patrick the match of any Lord.But not even the King could give to this mighty conqueror the one thing he wanted most - the love of Lady Jane Gordon. Her body, yes, and Jamie arranged their marriage. But Patrick Hepburn had to fight alone the battle of conflicting passions that finally tamed her violent pride and earned her tumultuous love.

The Secret of the Swamp


Piet Prins - 1950
    During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, a young Dutch boy's German shepherd proves himself invaluable when his tracking ability saves his young owner's life.

The Chronicles of Robin Hood


Rosemary Sutcliff - 1950
    Join Robin and his band of Merry Men as they battle injustice and seek to defeat the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne.

The Queen Elizabeth Story


Rosemary Sutcliff - 1950