This list is for the most well known Historical Fiction books on Goodreads.

For purposes of this list, only include books with over 100,000 ratings and shelved at least 1000 times as historical fiction.

Anything with less than 100,000 ratings or shelved less than 1000 times as historical fiction will be removed and without comment.

A book that was set in the time it was written like say Pride and Prejudice is not historical fiction. Please avoid putting these on the list and call them out in comments to discourage people. But librarians shouldn't remove such books from these lists as long as its been tagged incorrectly at least 1000 times.

See also:
Best Historical Fiction
Best Historical Fiction of the 21st Century
Best Historical Mystery
Recommended Historical Fiction
Teen Historical Fiction

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1

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4.31 avg rating — 2,030,100 ratings
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4.47 avg rating — 3,061,277 ratings
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4.27 avg rating — 1,171,520 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 3,556,815 ratings
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4.65 avg rating — 2,264,326 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 788,919 ratings
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4.41 avg rating — 217,347 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 1,265,196 ratings
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4.46 avg rating — 1,779,621 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 3,720,494 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 2,129,226 ratings
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4.14 avg rating — 401,845 ratings
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3.89 avg rating — 2,236,931 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 159,730 ratings
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3.91 avg rating — 237,658 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 737,802 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 229,652 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 2,374,189 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 1,715,996 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 2,935,365 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,898,050 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 333,848 ratings
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25

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4.33 avg rating — 280,783 ratings
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4.19 avg rating — 822,640 ratings
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27

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4.11 avg rating — 285,794 ratings
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28

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4.39 avg rating — 334,787 ratings
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29

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3.78 avg rating — 245,778 ratings
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30

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4.09 avg rating — 516,952 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 803,594 ratings
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32

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4.33 avg rating — 352,135 ratings
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33

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3.87 avg rating — 259,596 ratings
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34

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4.36 avg rating — 283,101 ratings
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35

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4.03 avg rating — 1,011,814 ratings
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36

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4.34 avg rating — 390,510 ratings
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36

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4.14 avg rating — 373,879 ratings
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38

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3.62 avg rating — 154,454 ratings
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39

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4.44 avg rating — 194,062 ratings
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40

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4.13 avg rating — 214,183 ratings
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41

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4.35 avg rating — 264,118 ratings
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42

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4.12 avg rating — 531,506 ratings
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4.02 avg rating — 180,358 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 272,425 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 279,336 ratings
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4.10 avg rating — 1,507,381 ratings
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4.44 avg rating — 167,891 ratings
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48

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3.92 avg rating — 1,370,435 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 318,160 ratings
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50

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4.34 avg rating — 188,432 ratings
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51

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3.88 avg rating — 1,024,836 ratings
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52

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3.93 avg rating — 167,980 ratings
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53

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3.99 avg rating — 896,769 ratings
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53

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4.10 avg rating — 351,174 ratings
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55

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3.75 avg rating — 420,426 ratings
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56

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4.31 avg rating — 688,532 ratings
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57

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4.01 avg rating — 177,998 ratings
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58

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3.80 avg rating — 226,053 ratings
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58

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3.97 avg rating — 714,846 ratings
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60

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4.31 avg rating — 284,473 ratings
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61

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4.25 avg rating — 367,934 ratings
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62

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4.04 avg rating — 668,858 ratings
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62

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4.07 avg rating — 143,134 ratings
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64

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4.17 avg rating — 1,319,688 ratings
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65

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4.16 avg rating — 242,164 ratings
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66

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4.30 avg rating — 281,918 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 180,752 ratings
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68

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4.05 avg rating — 486,623 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 158,645 ratings
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3.83 avg rating — 620,313 ratings
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4.34 avg rating — 433,990 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 571,714 ratings
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4.08 avg rating — 275,776 ratings
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3.79 avg rating — 235,303 ratings
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76

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3.82 avg rating — 180,666 ratings
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77

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4.30 avg rating — 884,260 ratings
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78

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3.96 avg rating — 184,174 ratings
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4.42 avg rating — 591,027 ratings
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80

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3.86 avg rating — 195,979 ratings
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81

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4.34 avg rating — 660,474 ratings
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82

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4.47 avg rating — 417,294 ratings
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83

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4.55 avg rating — 482,509 ratings
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84

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4.33 avg rating — 1,136,934 ratings
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4.18 avg rating — 499,278 ratings
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86

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4.59 avg rating — 263,241 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 886,043 ratings
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3.99 avg rating — 129,851 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 165,767 ratings
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4.01 avg rating — 272,271 ratings
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91

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4.06 avg rating — 453,184 ratings
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92

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4.06 avg rating — 183,039 ratings
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93

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4.29 avg rating — 523,823 ratings
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94

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3.83 avg rating — 1,346,313 ratings
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95

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4.05 avg rating — 491,492 ratings
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96

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3.94 avg rating — 554,889 ratings
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3.92 avg rating — 1,033,624 ratings
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98

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4.09 avg rating — 390,667 ratings
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99

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4.19 avg rating — 215,085 ratings
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4.35 avg rating — 684,575 ratings
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176 books · 31 voters · list created December 21st, 2020 by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
6 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Mitchell 11154 books
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Fiona 1699 books
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Charlotte Igelkott 3166 books
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Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

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message 1: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Dec 22, 2020 01:01AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set).


message 2: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set)."

The fun thing about an arbitrary rule - like must be tagged a particular way - is it doesn't have to be right.

I thought about this exact instance when creating this list and I'll put something in the list description.


Charlotte Igelkott Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set)."

The f..."


Other weird effects of the number of shelvings rule:
The Name of the Rose qualifies for the classics list, but not for the historical fiction list. (Still not sure I can trust my eyes on that one but I've checked and double checked and...nope)
The House of the Spirits qualifies for the historical fiction list, but not for the classics list.
Surely I can't be the only one who thinks the reverse would make more sense? (Not trying to suggest any changes, just genuinely astonished)


message 4: by Emrys (last edited Jan 18, 2021 10:24AM) (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it ..."

I suspect with the The Name of the Rose probably did previously qualify for this list but somehow the genre shelf totals have been been reinterpreted/misinterpreted by Goodreads - e.g. the 4000 or so shelvings it has for “Fiction” is similar to the number of shelvings Fall of Giants has for “historical fiction” (the two books both have about 300,000 ratings).


Charlotte Igelkott Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it ..."

Oh. Sounds a bit odd to me, but then I'm not very tech savvy. Is this the sort of thing that would be likely to flip back and forth at random or will it be stable until someone notices and changes it back? (Assuming the current numbers are wrong, of course) How can one tell if tNotR is the only book this has happened to or if it's a widespread phenomenon? Would it be likely to have affected other shelves as well? And from a librarian point of view, should I stop deleting books for insufficient shelvings for now?
(Sorry if I'm being too inquisitive - would be better to contact support, perhaps?)


message 6: by Emrys (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for in..."

I have a spreadsheet of books that records 4000+ shelvings for the genre “Historical Fiction” - I used this tool to get the genre data: https://github.com/PaulKlinger/Enhanc... , but I can’t be sure if the discrepancy is because of an error made by the tool, or because of Goodreads changing things.

Yes, I’ll try asking Support about it later. I don’t get the impression that it’s a widespread problem (just this book actually).


Charlotte Igelkott Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... ([book:Pride..."

That sounds reassuring. Thank you for answering :)


message 8: by Emrys (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction....."

I raised this issue with Support and they said they’d get the developers to look into it.

If it’s not sorted in a week or two I guess the book can be removed from the list.


message 9: by Emrys (new)

Emrys The Name of the Rose now has 4300 shelvings as "Historical Fiction" so it seems the issue has been fixed.


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