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Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set mainly in the 19th Century.

19th Century

Recommended books found: 322

19th Century is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!.

The Original

A Novel

by Nell Stevens

Hardcover: Jul 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

How to Dodge a Cannonball

A Novel

by Dennard Dayle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride.

Land

A Novel

by Maggie O'Farrell

Hardcover: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The award-winning, bestselling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, returns with a soaring historical novel set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Hunger.

The Foursome

A Novel

by Christina Baker Kline

Hardcover: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of the astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina — Kline's own distant relatives — who married world-...

James

A Novel

by Percival Everett

Hardcover: Mar 2024 | Paperback: Apr 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily) and Pulitzer Prize Finalist whose novel Erasure is the ...

The Demon of Unrest

A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

Hardcover: Apr 2024 | Paperback: Mar 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a simmering crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in ...

The Austen Affair

A Novel

by Madeline Bell

Paperback: Sep 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut.

Season of the Swamp

A Novel

by Yuri Herrera

Hardcover: Oct 2024 | Paperback: Sep 2025

Critics' Consensus:

A major new novel set in nineteenth-century New Orleans by the author of Signs Preceding the End of the World.

Amity

A Novel

by Nathan Harris

Hardcover: Sep 2025 | Paperback: Sep 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A gripping story about a brother and sister, emancipated from slavery but still searching for true freedom, and their odyssey across the deserts of Mexico to finally reunite, all while escaping a former master still intent on their bondage.

White Lies

How the South Lost the Civil War, Then Rewrote the History

by Ann Bausum

Hardcover: Aug 2025

Critics' Consensus:

This powerful and unflinching examination of racism in America by award-winning historian Ann Bausum deconstructs the warped history of the Civil War for teen readers, perfect for fans of Stamped, Just Mercy, and Accountable.

The Invention of Charlotte Brontë

A New Life

by Graham Watson

Hardcover: Aug 2025

Critics' Consensus:

A profoundly moving, ground-breaking biography that challenges the established narrative to reveal the Brontë family as they've never been seen before.

The Heart in Winter

A Novel

by Kevin Barry

Hardcover: Jul 2024 | Paperback: Jun 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry's first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

19th Century is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!

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