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 — 2,010,643 ratings
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4.27 avg rating — 1,165,027 ratings
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4.47 avg rating — 3,047,696 ratings
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4.65 avg rating — 2,213,901 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 786,024 ratings
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4.41 avg rating — 215,738 ratings
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4.46 avg rating — 1,764,783 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 2,122,838 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 1,262,282 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,205,708 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 158,743 ratings
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3.91 avg rating — 235,967 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 3,690,617 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 228,644 ratings
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4.14 avg rating — 399,455 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 1,711,083 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 2,916,426 ratings
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4.35 avg rating — 840,711 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,876,763 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 327,746 ratings
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4.33 avg rating — 279,156 ratings
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4.19 avg rating — 818,941 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 284,752 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 333,365 ratings
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3.79 avg rating — 243,802 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 731,806 ratings
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4.09 avg rating — 515,845 ratings
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30

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4.11 avg rating — 800,076 ratings
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31

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4.33 avg rating — 350,566 ratings
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32

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4.16 avg rating — 2,356,706 ratings
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32

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3.87 avg rating — 257,817 ratings
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34

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4.36 avg rating — 280,989 ratings
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35

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4.03 avg rating — 1,005,500 ratings
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36

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4.34 avg rating — 388,536 ratings
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36

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4.14 avg rating — 368,960 ratings
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38

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3.62 avg rating — 153,859 ratings
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39

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4.44 avg rating — 193,181 ratings
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40

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4.13 avg rating — 213,790 ratings
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4.35 avg rating — 261,196 ratings
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4.12 avg rating — 527,291 ratings
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4.02 avg rating — 179,038 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 271,200 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 278,169 ratings
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4.10 avg rating — 1,498,730 ratings
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4.44 avg rating — 167,121 ratings
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3.92 avg rating — 1,365,930 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 317,155 ratings
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50

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4.34 avg rating — 186,749 ratings
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51

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3.88 avg rating — 1,020,603 ratings
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52

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3.93 avg rating — 167,716 ratings
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53

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3.99 avg rating — 893,147 ratings
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53

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4.10 avg rating — 349,387 ratings
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55

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3.75 avg rating — 417,789 ratings
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56

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4.32 avg rating — 681,554 ratings
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57

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4.01 avg rating — 177,057 ratings
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58

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3.80 avg rating — 225,897 ratings
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58

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3.97 avg rating — 712,859 ratings
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60

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4.31 avg rating — 280,545 ratings
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61

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4.25 avg rating — 366,850 ratings
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62

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4.04 avg rating — 666,872 ratings
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62

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4.07 avg rating — 142,631 ratings
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64

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4.17 avg rating — 1,311,408 ratings
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65

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4.16 avg rating — 240,959 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 279,419 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 179,710 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 484,289 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 157,977 ratings
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4.03 avg rating — 161,116 ratings
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3.83 avg rating — 617,092 ratings
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4.34 avg rating — 431,632 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 565,877 ratings
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4.08 avg rating — 274,460 ratings
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3.79 avg rating — 234,007 ratings
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3.82 avg rating — 180,016 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 881,545 ratings
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78

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3.96 avg rating — 183,703 ratings
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4.42 avg rating — 588,934 ratings
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3.86 avg rating — 195,439 ratings
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81

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4.34 avg rating — 647,341 ratings
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4.47 avg rating — 412,657 ratings
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4.55 avg rating — 480,568 ratings
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84

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4.33 avg rating — 1,129,214 ratings
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4.18 avg rating — 497,834 ratings
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4.59 avg rating — 254,429 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 881,893 ratings
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 129,320 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 165,457 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 450,627 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 182,450 ratings
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92

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4.29 avg rating — 518,431 ratings
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3.83 avg rating — 1,344,362 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 483,429 ratings
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3.94 avg rating — 552,149 ratings
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3.92 avg rating — 1,028,680 ratings
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4.09 avg rating — 389,632 ratings
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98

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4.19 avg rating — 214,246 ratings
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4.35 avg rating — 674,272 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 124,586 ratings
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176 books · 30 voters · list created December 21st, 2020 by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
6 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Mitchell 11076 books
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Fiona 1693 books
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Rebecca 5585 books
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Willow Anne 1672 books
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Rich 85376 books
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Charlotte Igelkott 3160 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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