Is it possible to read all the way from Prehistory to the end of the 20th Century in Historical Fict

For a while now I have been wondering about whether it is possible to have an unbroken(ish) reading experience all the way from prehistory to the end of the 20th Century in historical fiction.

Suggested rules:

• At least one book per age / century

• Any civilisation or country

• Any individual novel, graphic novel or a series by any author

Suggested time categories:

(Some of these could probably be split down a bit further or done in a different way as my knowledge of the historical timeline is not the best! – any suggestions?)

Pre Bronze Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Classical Antiquity

Centuries AD
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
11th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th

I do have some suggestions of my own but I shall post them at a later date.

Oh and if this question has been asked before let me know, I would love to look at the results.

Edited the stupid question away.

I'm not going to get all the way through, but here's a start:

Stone age: The Inheritors by William Golding
Bronze age: Gilgamesh
Iron age: The Iliad
Classical Greece/India/China: Creation by Gore Vidal
Rome 1st Century BC: Roman Blood by Steven Saylor
Rome 1st Century AD: I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Rome 2nd Century: Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Byzantium 4th Century: The Beekeeper's Daughter by Gillian Bradshaw
Europe 5th Century?: Beloved Exile by Parke Godwin
China 7th Century?: The Judge Dee mysteries by Robert Van Gulik
England 9th Century: Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay (some fantasy elements
England 11th Century: A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
England 12th Century: Becket by Jean Anouilh
England 13th Century: King John by William Shakespeare
England 14th Century: King Henry V by William Shakespeare
England 15th Century: Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

Okay, I have to go now. I'm sure others can pick up from here and fill in the blanks

Possibly Clan of the Cave Bear and the other titles in the "Earth's Children" series by Jean M. Auel for your Prehistoric-era reading? The author did an incredible amount of research for each book.

What about authors like Michener who write books that cover the whole gamut? eg Alaska, Hawaii, etc. Another is Rutherfurd eg Sarum, Russka

I second the Auel series for the stone age, although the first three were the best.

Steven Saylor did a Michner-like epic called Roma:The Novel of Ancient Rome which covers the first 1000 years of Rome (upto AD 1.)

Bronze Age Italy - Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Bronze Age Greece - The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault
Classical Greece - The Last of the Wine, The Mask of Apollo, and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault -- I'd read anything by Renault set in any time, any place!
Late Republican Rome 1C BC - The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough
Rome AD 1-2 C - Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome by Steven Saylor
Roman Egypt 5th C - Selene of Alexandria (my book)
Byzantium 6th C - Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

twiglet:

You said you'd chime in later with your own. I'm really interested in what you've got for those European "Dark Ages" centuries. There was stuff going on elsewhere. Surely someone has written fiction about it.

A few more...
Germany 16th century Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist
Turkey 16th century - My name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
France 17th century - The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Scotland 18th century - The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott
Everywhere 19th century Master and Commander et seq. by Patrick O'Brian

>5 MarysGirl:
Go on, I challenge you, read North face (English cottage hospital, 1930s) :-)

No one has laid claim to the 10th century yet, so:
The Long Ships by Frans G Bengtsson. Mostly set in Scandinavia, but also Spain, England, Russia and the Byzantine empire figures.

I forgot about the 9th Century "Dark Ages" book Pope Joan by Donna Cross. I think there's a movie coming out soon.

thorold--I'll have to see if my library has that one! Do you really think it's bad? I noticed there are no reviews on LT.

I read Pope Joan and found it entertaining. Cross did some research prior to writing the book so it is based on fact.

Bronze Age: Men of Bronze Very well written and it focuses on the period of Pharoah Ahmose's reign to his son, and the battle of Pelesium against Cyrses the Persian King. It is very historically accurate as well as I could find, in the back it has a historical outline, timeline of the events, and different periods and dynasties of Egypt, and it has a large dictionary of all the terms. Also a shorter book with a little humor is The King Must Die. This book takes place in the bronze age in Greece, and is the story of Theseus retold. Thesus is so arrogant that it is funny at times.

16th Century: Angels in Iron about the Knights of St. John's Hospital vs. the Turkish Empire.

18th Century: Fever: 1793 is about yellow fever a good, shorter read.

20th Century: Flanders by Patricia Anthony is about a young man during WWI. It is told through letters he writes home. The letters are graphic about life in the trenches.

Fun idea!

I would stick with the centuries breakdown at least through the first five centuries BC, because there's plenty written about those periods. I'll be back with more thoughts later.

> 3 I second Clan of the Cave Bear. I read all her books. You know the next one is set to appear in 2011? I have already asked it for Mother's Day.

Corrie, thanks for the heads up about the new Jean Auel! I'll have to reread the series to be ready-- has it been 30 years?!

> 15 Yes, you're right: 30 years ago Jean Auel 's first book appeared! I know I read part 4 (or was it part 3?) in 1990. And part 5 appeared in 2002. Then I also got the book for Mother's Day.
We had to wait twelve years between part 4 and part 5, so this is relatively fast. :)

Oh, my...this is a challenge to note! I can't contribute much but I will star this thread and dip in from time to time to pick out some interesting titles. Thanks to you all for thinking this one up and filling in the spots! Wow, just wow!

It might be interesting to make a wiki of this, where everyone could recommend books under the various time periods and we could easily see what had been suggested.

The Bible. It covers about four centuries: from the beginning of the world (according to Wikipedia 4046 BC) until the first century AD.

> 18 I put the list in an Excel file. If you want to make a Wiki, Zoe, I can forward it to you.
Or, if someone can explain me how to make a wiki, I could do it myself.

Oh, I'm glad you've been compiling!

Here's a super-preliminary wiki page: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Groups:Historicalfiction/readingthrou...

Thank you very much, Zoe and Corrie57.

Well, I forgot Wiki is a together thing. So when I tried to save the page, someone else already had done so.
Luckily, our editing had a lot in common.
Is anyone else editing now?
I will try to save more often this time.

Well, for now I am done editing.

Prehistoric: For the real thing, skip The Clan of the Cave Bear crap and read Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's two fine books, Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife. The daughter of two anthropologists and trained in Anthropology herself, she and her family lived with African bushmen in the 50s when she was a teenager. She knows preliterate people.

Rosemary Sutcliffe has several books set in prehistoric England, and all of hers are very fine. Though generally listed as Young Adult, the themes are powerful and very adult.

4th/5th century AD--Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem. It will haunt you.

3rd/2nd century B.C - the Corn King and the Spring Queen by Naomi Mitchison.

14th century AD Kristen Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset; make sure you get the Nunnally translation.

11th century AD: King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett; The Fourteenth of October and This January Tale by Bryher (Battle of Hastings and its aftermath).

8th century AD Awen by Susan Mayse

I think these titles deserve to be added:

Ancient Egypt: Sinuhe the Egyptian by Mika Waltari
Ancient Egypt: Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
Ancient Greece: The Athenian Murders by José Carlos Somoza
Etruria: The Etruscan by Mika Waltari
Rome/Middle East 4th century CE: Julian by Gore Vidal
Italy 14th century: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Spain 14th century: Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones
Mexico 15th century: Aztec by Gary Jennings
Sicily 19th century: The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Sub-saharan Africa early 20th century: Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

I certainly appreciate all these great recommendations. So, we don't have to read in order...or do we. I've started reading King Hereafter and also see others here I will try. Thanks for all your efforts and knowledge.

If you like historical mysteries and thrillers, check out this huge list of titles, conveniently arranged by time periods:

http://www.crimethrutime.com/series.htm

This site also provides reviews for most titles in the list.

28> Oh, I love you for that link, I really, really do!

29: You're welcome. That list ought to keep you in books awhile. Knock yourself out. :-). Crime Thru Time also has a discussion list on Yahoo composed of authors and readers. Last time I looked, there was a link to the discussion list from the web site. I'm subscribed as an author.

Earth's Children is a decent enough series, but it strikes me as a soft-porn read. There is a lot of sex in the series, which I got tired of, so I end up skimming over those parts. It kinda detracts from the story, in my opinion.

You might find more titles, some fiction and some nonfiction, over at the Reading Through Time LibraryThing group. Their wiki includes listing by historical period. The link is on the group's main page.

Oh what a good idea...now this is what I call a challenge.

#32 cbfiske: Thanks for the tip!

1st c. BC Roman Empire: An Imaginary Life by David Malouf
1st century AD Rome: Ides of March by Thornton Wilder
7th-10th c. Caucasus: Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic
Medieval Germany: Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
15th c. France: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
15th -16th c. Southern Europe, North Africa, Middle East: Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf
15th-17th c. Ottoman Empire (Bosnia): The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
16th c. Flanders: The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar
16th c. Portugal: The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler
17th c. Caribbean (Guadeloupe): A Woman Named Solitude by André Schwartz-Bart
17th-19th c. Haiti: The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier
18th c. Portugal: Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago
Early 19th c. Bosnia: The Days of the Consuls/The Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric
19th c. France: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
19th c. Brazil: The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

Yes, I love the Clan of the Cave Bear series and there is a new one coming out this spring finally.

Just passing on information I found about a website that lists novels by historical period:
www.historicalnovels.info

Thanks for the link CbFiske, that is very useful.

Thanks for the link and all the other info. The Painted Caves by Auel was good and not as many scenes as the last one

#38, #39 You're welcome. Love the idea of reading from prehistoric times to present day.

What a great thread.

Here's some of my top of the head suggestions:

Stone Age
The Inheritors, Golding
Bronze Age
Stonehenge by Rutherford
Roman
Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
I Claudius, Robert Graves
Simon Scarrow
Ben Kane
Dark Ages
The Once and Future King, TH White
The Long Ships - Bengtsson
Sword at Sunset, Sutcliff
Alfred books, Bernard Cornwell
Vikings Dawn series, Henry Treece (brilliant children's books)
Medieval
The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle
Azincourt, Bernard Cornwell
Labyrinth, Kate Mosse
18th Century
Sharpe, Bernard Cornwall
Richard Bolitho series, Alexander Kent
A Respactable Trade, Philippa Gregory
19th Century
Flashman, MacDonald Fraser
Sarah Waters

I realise how Euro-centric this is. With the advent of e-books I'm able to read about other cultures more easily.

Thanks to everyone for their lists.

I'm glad someone has mentioned Bernard Cornwall for his Alfred and Sharp books, at last! I would add his "Starbuck" chronicles as well.
Other authors to consider are:
Conn Iggulden for his "Emperor" series on Rome and his "Conqueror" series on Genghis Khan;
and James Clavel for the European (and American) engagement with China (Taipan) and Japan (Shogun).
Meanwhile I would substitute C S Forester for Alexander Kent, if only because he invented the genre.

Great idea! It almost seems unfair to go only by time period, though, when different parts of the world could be so different. It would be fun to trace a subject through time as it was carried out of and into different cultures and transmuted by them. For example:

Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine (Socrates)
Annabel Lyon, The Golden Mean (Aristotle and Alexander the Great)
Marguerite Yourcenar The Memoirs of Hadrian (Rome before Christianity)
Paul Waters Cast Not the Day (the Roman world during the rise of Christianity)
Ghalib Lakhnavi & Abdullah Bilgrami, The Adventures of Amir Hamza (Arabia before Islam)
Kamran Pasha, Mother of the Believers (Arabia during the rise of Islam)
Mika Waltari, Dark Angel (the 1453 fall of Constantinople)
Linda Proud, A Tabernacle for the Sun and its sequels (rediscovery of Greek philosophy at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance)
Cecelia Holland, The Lords of Vaumartin (Paris during the heyday of the medieval university)
Brenda Rickman Vantrease The Heretic's Wife (controversy over translating the Bible into English)
John Banville, Doctor Copernicus and Kepler (pioneering European astronomers)
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (the rocky road to Protestantism in England)
Phil Rickman, The Bones of Avalon (a mystery set during Elizabeth I's early reign and turning on resistance to the dissolution of the monasteries)
Lion Feuchtwanger, 'Tis Folly to Be Wise: Or, Death and Transfiguration of Jean Jacques Rousseau (the Enlightenment in France
Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver (alchemy, Puritanism, the New World)
and so on

There are some gaps in this list. There ought to be something about the rise of scholarship in the Middle East - perhaps only a nonfiction book, The House of Wisdom by Jim Al-Khalili, can fill this particular gap. Also, I don't know of a really good novel about the Reformation in Germany - I found Q by Luther Blissett (a committee of 4 writers) to be unreadably boring and not all that focused on the Reformation, anyway.

I haven't read all of the books in the list - so can't completely vouch for them all as the most pertinent choices.

If you are interested in Scottish history, you can't beat Nigel Tranter. He has written books that cover Scotland all the way from the 5th century through the 20th century.

Late comer to the site. In perusing the messages it is noted there are a number of knowledgeable readers here. At to the premise, allow me to suggest Vardis Fisher Testament of Man series. This would take you from the late Stone Age through late Rome/early Middle Ages. A few of his might help fill in some gaps.

>41 MartinLake:

I can't find a Rutherfurd book called "Stonehenge". Did you mean Sarum?

Always on the lookout for another Rutherfurd hist. novel.
Os.

This is a brilliant brilliant idea I am going to have to give this a try!

For pre-Bronze Age I would suggest Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, I know they are YA but trust me they are really well written.

I've been thinking about doing this but specifically for British History, this seems to be easier as time goes on, but the early stuff is harder to find, does anyone have good recs for fiction set in Britain before the Middle Ages?

49> For prehistoric times: Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell is about the building of Stonehenge. Bending the Boyne by J.S. Dunn is set in Bronze Age Ireland before the arrival of the Celts (not exactly Britain, but I thought I'd throw it in there). Wolves of the Dawn by William Sarabande is set in Britain at the end of the Stone Age.

For Roman Britain, check out Gillian Bradshaw's books, Hadrian's Wall by William Dietrich, The Little Emperors by Alfred Duggan, White Mare, Red Stallion by Diana Paxson. Also, try the Empire series by Anthony Riches, starting with Wounds of Honour, and the Boudica series by Manda Scott, starting with Dreaming the Eagle. And last, but not least, The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff. That should give you enough variety, seeing things from all different sides and different time periods during that 400 year stretch.

Also, you could check out the Celtic series by Henry Treece. It's older (published in the 1950s), but the four books cover everything from the arrival of the celts until the leaving of the Romans, with a realistic story of King Arthur in the last book after the Roman's have left. The first book is The Golden Strangers, known as The Invaders in the US.

And if you still haven't had enough of that time period, you could try Farewell Britannia: A Family Saga of Roman Britain by Simon Young, which is a family saga of a Roman family that covers four centuries, from the invasion of Britian to the leaving of the legions.

I'm going to guess that with Middle Ages you meant everything after the Romans left, so I'll leave you with this. Hope this helped you find some good books.

#40 Thanks Samantha that is brilliant, I think I'm going to make this my reading challenge for the new year, it will give me time to do some research and try to write up a really good reading list :)

Europe (mostly England/Italy) from Roman Empire to WWI. For earlier material I second the recommendations of Clan of the Cave Bear and Creation.

*I, Claudius
*Julian
*Hun (120 story/novella in Burgess’ Devil’s Mode)
*The Physician
*Son of Charlemagne
*Pope Joan
*The Long Ships
*The Last Kingdom
*The Crusader (Eisner)
*The Book of Saladin (Tariq Ali)
*Pillars of the Earth
*World Without End
*Ivanhoe
*The Agony and the Ecstasy
*Elizabeth
*Nothing Like the Sun
*Galileo's Daughter
*Revolution (Donnelly)
*Song of Departure
*Sun of Austerlitz
*The Origin (by Stone)
*Fall of Giants
*All Quiet on the Western Front