Novels of Nineteenth Century America

The nineteenth century saw the continued development of two new nations in North America: the United States and Canada. Early in the century, Britain and France fought the War of 1812 on a North American battleground using the newly independent United States and colonial Canada as proxies. Canadian rebellions against British rule in 1837 and 1838 were unsuccessful. Canada's independence from Great Britain was not formally completed until the twentieth century.

In the United States, tensions between the industrial North and the slave-owning South increased throughout the first part of the century until the South seceded in 1861, beginning the Civil War. With the South's defeat in 1865 slavery ended, but white-black tensions and systematic discrimination against black citizens did not. Novels set in the latter part of the century deal with this problem, among others.

Throughout the century, immigration from Europe swelled the population of both the U.S. and Canada, beginning a great westward movement and causing conflict between Native Americans and Americans of European descent. Novels of the American West are listed on the Old West page.

Novels are listed alphabetically by author within the following categories:

The U.S. and Canada Before 1861
Mysteries: Early 19th Century America
The U.S. Civil War
Civil War Mysteries
Late 19th Century America
Mysteries: Late 19th Century America

The U.S. and Canada before 1861

Sidney Allinson, Jeremy Kane, about the 1837 revolt in Upper Canada and subsequent exile of the rebels to an Australian penal colony

Kurt Anderson, Heyday, about the United States in the year 1848

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace, about a young Canadian immigrant who worked as a housekeeper and was convicted of murdering her employer

Gwen Bristow, Deep Summer (1937), about a wealthy plantation family and a poor white family in Louisiana before the Civil War; #1 in the Plantation Trilogy (#2 is set during the Civil War)

Taylor Caldwell, Captains and the Kings: The Story of an American Dynasty, about an Irish immigrant and his family in the nineteenth century United States

Caleb Carr, The Devil Soldier: The Story of Frederick Townsend Ward, a biographical novel about a Massachusetts adventurer who went to China and fought to defend the Chinese government during the Taiping Rebellion.

Willa Cather, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, about the conflict between a slave-owner and her abolitionist-leaning daughter in the decade before the Civil War

Barbara Chase-Riboud, The President's Daughter, about the daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson; sequel to Sally Hemings

Barbara Chase-Riboud, Echo of Lions, about the 1839 revolt of slaves aboard the Amistad

Jon Clinch, Finn: A Novel, about the father of Mark Twain’s character Huckleberry Finn

Jacqueline Cook, Sunrise, about the couple who built a famous mansion in Macon, Georgia

Michael Crummy, River Thieves, about conflicts between white settlers and the few remaining Native Americans in early nineteenth century Newfoundland

Anita Diamant, The Last Days of Dogtown, about a declining town in rural Massachusetts in the early nineteenth century

Sara Donati, Into the Wilderness, about nineteenth century Englishwoman in frontier New York, #1 in the Wilderness series

Sara Donati, Dawn on a Distant Shore, about nineteenth century Englishwoman in frontier New York, #2 in the Wilderness series

Sara Donati, Lake in the Clouds, about a woman and her family in frontier New York, #3 in the Wilderness series

Sara Donati, Fire Along the Sky, about a woman and her family in frontier New York during the War of 1812, #4 in the Wilderness series

Sara Donati, Queen of Swords, about a woman and her family in Florida and New Orleans during the War of 1812, #5 in the Wilderness series

David Anthony Durham, Walk Through Darkness, about a fugitive slave and the man hired to track him.

William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom! , a literary novel about the son of a poor white man in the South and his counterproductive struggle to win respect

Ann H. Gabhart, The Outsider (2008), about a clairvoyant young woman in a Shaker community who questions whether she should stay after she becomes attracted to an outsider; Christian message

Elizabeth Gaffney, Metropolis, about a German immigrant and an Irish woman in nineteenth century New York City

Kathleen O'Neal Gear, This Widowed Land, about the Huron Indians and the French missionaries who came to convert them to Christianity

Janice Holt Giles, The Believers, about a nineteenth century woman and her husband who become involved with a community of Shakers; #4 in the Kentuckians series

Janice Holt Giles, Johnny Osage, about the nineteenth century Creek-Osage wars

Marcy Heidish, A Woman Called Moses, about Harriet Tubman who led slaves to freedom on the Underground Railway

Pauline Holdstock, The Burial Ground, a novella set in 1860 Canada, on the coast of British Columbia

Frances Hunter, To the Ends of the Earth (2006), about a traitorous conspiracy to put celebrated explorers Merriwether Lewis and William Clark at the head of a new American empire, and the two men's efforts to escape this dishonorable fate

Karl Iagnemma, The Expeditions (2008), about a sixteen-year-old boy who joins an 1844 expedition to explore the American wilderness, and the estranged father who suddenly realizes he must find his son

Charles Richard Johnson, Oxherding Tale, a bawdy, humorous literary novel about nineteenth century relations between black and white Americans

Charles Richard Johnson, The Middle Passage, about a freed slave who goes to sea in 1830

Edward P. Jones, The Known World, about a family of nineteenth century black slaveowners

Stephen Marlowe, The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1995), a complex and dreamlike novel about the last days of the nineteenth century American author Edgar Allen Poe

Valerie Martin, Property, a literary novel about a woman in an oppressive marriage and her slave

James McBride, Song Yet Sung (2008), a literary novel about an escaped slave woman and visionary who becomes a leader in helping other slaves escape via the Underground Railroad

Bernice Morgan, Random Passage, about an English family who settles on the barren and remote Cape Random, Newfoundland, in the early 1800s

Bernice Morgan, Waiting for Time, about an English family struggling to make a life on Cape Random, Newfoundland; sequel to Random Passage

Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer, about the wife of Captain Ahab from the nineteenth century novel Moby Dick

Erika Nau, Angel in the Rigging, about the War of 1812

Anne Rice, The Feast of All Saints, about free people of color in early nineteenth century New Orleans

Kenneth Lewis Roberts, The Lively Lady, about a naval officer during the War of 1812; #3 in the Chronicles of Arundel series (See 18th Century U.S. for #1 and #2)

Kenneth Lewis Roberts, Captain Caution, about privateers during the War of 1812; #4 in the Chronicles of Arundel series

William Safire, Scandalmonger, about a journalist's incendiary attacks on Alexander Hamilton during the Presidential campaign between Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, which lead to controversy over freedom of the press

Christine Schaub, Finding Anna, about the Chicago fire of 1871; #1 in the Music of the Heart series

Anya Seton, Dragonwyck, a young woman visits her wealthy cousin and his wife in 1840s New York

Anya Seton, My Theodosia, about the daughter of Aaron Burr

Mary Lee Settle, Know Nothing, about West Virginia and the years before the Civil War; #3 in the Beulah Quintet

Jeff Shaara, Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War, about the 1847 war between the U.S. and Mexico

Jane Smiley, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, about a young Illinois woman who marries an abolitionist and moves to Kansas to ensure that it joins the Union as a free state

Patrick Smith, A Land Remembered, a family saga set in Florida

Annette Snyder, Albert's Rain, historical romance about two slaves, one of whom chose escape, the other of whom chose a life of sacrifice to save her people.

Irving Stone, The President’s Lady: A Novel about Rachel and Andrew Jackson, about President Andrew Jackson and his wife

William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia

Beverly Swerling, City of Glory: A Novel of War and Desire in Old Manhattan, about New York during the War of 1812

Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief (2008), about a twelve-year-old orphan in New England who lost his left hand in an accident he can't remember and the con man who claims to be his brother

Gore Vidal, Burr, a stereotype-puncturing political novel about Aaron Burr

Edmund White, Fanny, a novel about the U.S. activities of English abolitionist Fanny Wright, scathingly narrated by novelist Anthony Trollope’s mother (herself a novelist)

Sherley A. Williams, Dessa Rose, about a slave woman under a death sentence and a sympathetic white woman

Mysteries: Early 19th Century America

Tess Gerritsen, The Bone Garden (2007), a thriller about a serial killer in Boston in the 1830s

Barbara Hambly, Free Man of Color, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #1 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Fever Season, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #2 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Graveyard Dust, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #3 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Sold Down the River, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #4 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Die Upon A Kiss, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #5 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Wet Grave, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #6 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Days of the Dead, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #7 in the Benjamin January series

Barbara Hambly, Dead Water, a free man of color investigates a mystery in 1830s New Orleans; #8 in the Benjamin January series

Clyde Linsley, Death of a Mill Girl, about a retired lawyer and military hero who in 1836 discovers the body of a beautiful young woman on his farm; #1 in the Josiah Beede mystery series

Clyde Linsley, Saving Louisa, about a retired lawyer and military hero who in 1837 must find a runaway slave woman accused of a murder she did not commit and figure out who the real killer is; #2 in the Josiah Beede mystery series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, Seneca Falls Inheritance, a nineteenth century librarian solves mysteries in a small town in upstate New York; #1 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, North Star Conspiracy, a nineteenth century librarian solves mysteries in a small town in upstate New York; #2 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, Blackwater Spirits, a nineteenth century librarian solves mysteries in a small town in upstate New York; #3 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, Through a Gold Eagle, a nineteenth century librarian solves mysteries in a small town in upstate New York; #4 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series (series continues into the Civil War period)

Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club, a literary thriller set in late nineteenth century Boston

Matthew Pearl, The Poe Shadow, a literary thriller about a man who suspects a police cover-up regarding the death of Edgar Allen Poe

E.M. Schorb, Paradise Square, Edgar Allen Poe helps investigate a murder in nineteenth century New York

Lou Jane Temple, The Spice Box, an Irish immigrant cook for a Jewish family in nineteenth century New York helps investigate who murdered her employers’ son

The U.S. Civil War

Howard Bahr, The Judas Field, a Civil War veteran returns to a battlefield twenty years after the war to help a friend recover the bodies of her father and brother

Howard Bahr, The Year of Jubilo, about a Confederate soldier who returns home after the war to find new conflicts awaiting him

Kevin Baker, Paradise Alley, about the riots in New York City against an unfair Civil War military draft which the sons of the wealthy could pay to avoid

Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter, about the abolitionist John Brown, who led the raid on Harper’s Ferry that helped touch off the Civil War

Stephen Becker, When the War is Over, about a Union officer who tries to save the court-martialed Confederate teenager who wounded him a month after Lee’s surrender

Johnny D. Boggs, Camp Ford, about an 1865 baseball game between Union prisoners and their Confederate prison guards in Tyler, Texas

James Boyd, Marching On (1927), a romantic novel about a young Southerner in love with a woman above his station during the Civil War years

Gwen Bristow, The Handsome Road (1938), about the descendants of a wealthy plantation family and a poor white family in Louisiana during the Civil War; #2 in the Plantation Trilogy (#1 is set before the Civil War; #3 is set during World War I)

Geraldine Brooks, March, about the searing Civil War experiences of the father in Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women

Dee Brown, The Way to Bright Star, about a young man driving camels from Texas to Indiana during the Civil War

Rita Mae Brown, High Hearts, about a woman who disguises herself as a boy so she can join her Confederate soldier husband

James Lee Burke, White Doves at Morning, about a Confederate soldier in Louisiana, morally upright to the verge of insanity, and his conflicts with his superior officers.

Winston Churchill, The Crisis, a romantic novel about a New England man and a Virginia woman during the Civil War; by an American author (not the former British Prime Minister)

Bernard Cornwell, Rebel, about the son of an abolitionist preacher in the North who ends up fighting for the Confederacy; #1 in the Starbuck Chronicles

Bernard Cornwell, Copperhead, about the son of an abolitionist preacher in the North who ends up fighting for the Confederacy; #2 in the Starbuck Chronicles

Bernard Cornwell, Battle Flag, about the son of an abolitionist preacher in the North who ends up fighting for the Confederacy; #3 in the Starbuck Chronicles

Bernard Cornwell, The Bloody Ground, about the son of an abolitionist preacher in the North who ends up fighting for the Confederacy; #4 in the Starbuck Chronicles

Harold Coyle, Look Away, about two brothers who, due to a quirk of fate, fight on opposite sides of the Civil War and find themselves facing each other in battle

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895), about a young Union soldier and his experience of battle in the Civil War

Maggie Davis, The Far Side of Home, about a Civil War soldier in distress over the disaster of his wedding night

E.L. Doctorow, The March, about General Sherman’s march of destruction through the Confederate South

Clifford Dowdey, Bugles Blow No More (1937), a romantic novel about a young Confederate soldier

William Faulkner, Sartoris, a literary novel about a white man and his black friend during the Civil War

Shelby Foote, Shiloh, about the Battle of Shiloh

Robert H. Fowler, Jim Mundy: a Novel of the American Civil War, about a young Confederate soldier

Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, about a Confederate deserter’s struggle to return home to the woman he loves

Ernest Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the fictional autobiography of a woman born into slavery

Kaye Gibbons, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, about a Southern woman who marries a Northern doctor just before the Civil War breaks out

Janice Holt Giles, Run Me a River, set in 1861 Kentucky during the beginning of the Civil War

Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, Gettysburg, an alternative history novel about what might have happened if General Lee had used a different strategy in the Battle of Gettysburg; #1 in the Gettysburg Trilogy

Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, Grant Comes East, an alternative history novel about the Civil War; #2 in the Gettysburg trilogy

Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen, Never Call Retreat, an alternative history novel about the Civil War; #3 in the Gettysburg trilogy

Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, a woman narrates the story of her marriage to the last surviving Confederate soldier

Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan, Escape from Andersonville (2008), about a Union officer who escapes from the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville

Diane Haeger, My Dearest Cecelia, about the Southern belle General Sherman loved

Lenore Hart, Becky (2008), narrated by the Becky Thatcher of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer novels, now a mother married to Tom's cousin as the Civil War divides the country

Cynthia H. Haseloff, Marauder (a Gunsmoke Western), about the Civil War in Arkansas

Will Henry, The Crossing, about a Confederate soldier in the southwestern territory where Apaches are fighting a war of vengeance against Union forces

Robert Hicks, The Widow of the South, a literary novel about a woman living near a Civil War battlefield who buries the dead in her private graveyard

Josephine Humphreys, Nowhere Else on Earth, about the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina during the Civil War

John Jakes, North and South, two young men, one from the North and one from the South, meet at West Point and become friends; #1 in the North and South trilogy

John Jakes, Love and War, two friends fight on opposite sides in the Civil War; #2 in the North and South trilogy

John Jakes, Heaven and Hell, two Civil War veterans, one Union and one Confederate, struggle to rebuild their lives; #3 in the North and South trilogy

Jessica James, Shades of Gray (2008), a romantic novel about a young woman who dresses as a boy to serve as a scout for the Union army and the Confederate officer determined to hunt "him" down, featuring the patriotism and sense of honor both feel about their respective loyalties

Paulette Jiles, Enemy Women, about a Missouri family’s doomed efforts to remain neutral during the Civil War

Douglas C. Jones, Elkhorn Tavern, about the people of the Ozarks during the Civil War

Douglas C. Jones, The Barefoot Brigade, about a Confederate regiment from Arkansas

MacKinlay Kantor, Long Remember (1934), about the Battle of Gettysburg; one of the first realistic novels about the Civil War

MacKinlay Kantor, Andersonville, Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about the inhuman conditions in a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp

Thomas Keneally, Confederates, about the Civil War in Virginia

John Leekley, The Blue and the Gray, about a Southern family and their Pennsylvania cousins during the Civil War

Perry Lentz, The Falling Hills, about the Fort Pillow Massacre in April 1864

F. Van Wyck Mason, Armored Giants, about ironclad ships during the Civil War

F. Van Wyck Mason, Proud New Flags, about the Confederate Navy

Donald McCaig, Jacob’s Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War, a literary novel about a young man and a light-skinned slave girl who have an affair and are forced to separate when the Civil War breaks out

Donald McCaig, Canaan, a sequel to Jacob’s Ladder set in the post-Civil War years

Donald McCaig, Rhett Butler's People, a retelling of Gone With the Wind from Rhett Butler's perspective

Peter Charles Melman, Landsman, about an orphaned Jewish boy in Louisiana who fights for the Confederacy

Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind, about a strong-willed Southern belle in the years before, during and after the Civil War

Max McCoy, Sons of Fire, about a Missouri family with divided loyalties during the Civil War

Toni Morrison, Beloved, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about the psychological effects of slavery and emancipation on a black woman, based on an actual historical event

P.G. Nagle, The Guns of Valverde, about the Civil War west of Texas

P.G. Nagle, Galveston, about the Civil War in Galveston, Texas

James L. Nelson, Glory in the Name, about a Confederate naval officer from Charleston, #1 in the Samuel Bowater series

James L. Nelson, Thieves of Mercy, about a Confederate naval officer from Charleston, #2 in the Samuel Bowater series

Kerry Newcomb, Ride the Panther, about two brothers during the Civil War

Janis Cooke Newman, Mary, about Mary Todd Lincoln, President Lincoln’s wife

Hollister Noble, Woman With a Sword, about a Maryland woman during the Civil War

Gary E. Parker, Secret Tides, about an overseer’s daughter who accidentally causes the death of the plantation’s owner; #1 in the Southern Tides series

Gary E. Parker, Fateful Journeys, #2 in the Southern Tides series

Don Robertson, The Three Days, #1 in a Civil War series

Don Robertson, By Antietam Creek, #2 in a Civil War series

Elisabeth Payne Rosen, Hallam's War, about a slave-owning couple who leave Charleston to settle in the near-wilderness of Tennessee on the eve of the Civil War. Review

Mary Fremont Schoenecker, Four Summers Waiting, historical romance about a woman in love with a surgeon for the Union army. More info

Jeff Shaara, Gods and Generals, a prequel to The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels, about the Battle of Gettysburg

Jeff Shaara, The Last Full Measure, sequel to The Killer Angels

Richard Slotkin, The Crater, about the digging of a tunnel under Confederate lines during the Union siege of Petersburg, Virginia, emphasizing racial and class conflicts that survived the Civil War

Nick Taylor, The Disagreement (2008), about a 16-year-old medical student in Virgina during the Civil War

Elswyth Thane, Yankee Stranger, about two Virginia families during the Civil War; #2 in the Williamsburg novels

Harry Turtledove, The Guns of the South, a fantasy/alternative history novel about what might have happened if the Confederacy had won the war with the help of time-travelers from the future

Robert Penn Warren, Wilderness, about a Bavarian who comes to the U.S. to fight on the Union side in the Civil War

Tom Wicker, Unto This Hour, about the Battle of Second Manassas/Second Bull Run

Ben Ames Williams, House Divided, about a Confederate family related to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War

Marly Youmans, The Wolf Pit, about a Confederate soldier and a mulatto slave woman

Stark Young, So Red the Rose, about life on a Mississippi plantation before, during and after the Civil War

Civil War Mysteries

Michael Kilian, Murder at Manassas, a Southerner tries to clear the name of a dead Northern soldier whose widow believes he was not killed fleeing the battlefield, but murdered; #1 in the Harrison Raines series

Michael Kilian, A Killing at Ball's Bluff, when a U.S. Secret Service agent fails to protect Abraham Lincoln's friend, he goes in pursuit of the killer; #2 in the Harrison Raines series

Michael Kilian, The Ironclad Alibi, a U.S. Secret Service agent investigates the construction of a Confederate ironclad and tries to clear the name of a friend accused of murder; #3 in the Harrison Raines series

Michael Kilian, A Grave at Glorieta, a U.S. Secret Service agent travels West to investigate Confederate operations; #4 in the Harrison Raines series

Michael Kilian, The Shiloh Sisters, a U.S. Secret Service agent investigates the murder during the Battle of Shiloh of beautiful twin sisters; #5 in the Harrison Raines series

Michael Kilian, Antietam Assassins, a U.S. Secret Service agent investigates the murder of a minister on the eve of the Battle of Antietam; #6 in the Harrison Raines series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, The Stalking Horse, a young woman working for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency overhears people discussing a plot to assassinate the newly elected President Lincoln; #5 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series

Miriam Grace Monfredo, Must the Maiden Die, in a town in upstate New York, a local murder upstages the beginning of the Civil War; #6 in the Glynis Tryon Historical Mystery series

Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue, a mystery set during the U.S. Civil War; #1 in the Abel Jones series

Owen Parry, Shadows of Glory, a mystery set during the U.S. Civil War; #2 in the Abel Jones series

Owen Parry, Call Each River Jordan, a mystery set during the U.S. Civil War; #3 in the Abel Jones series

Owen Parry, Honor’s Kingdom, a mystery set during the U.S. Civil War; #4 in the Abel Jones series

Late 19th Century North America

Alan Brennert, Moloka’i, about a Hawaiian girl who contracts leprosy in the late nineteenth century

Fred Busch, Night Inspector, set in post-Civil War New York

Megan Chance, An Inconvenient Wife, about a woman struggling for emotional health in Gilded Age New York

Harriet Scott Chessman, Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper (2002), about the relationship between the nineteenth century American Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia

Francis Clark, Waking Brigid (2008), historical horror/fantasy about a beautiful Irish nun in post-Civil War Savannah who is drawn to her family's pagan legacy while white magicians and devil worshipper's clash over the city's soul

J. California Cooper, The Wake of the Wind, about emancipated slaves trying to find a safe place to live

Lori Copeland, Twice Loved (2008), historical romance about a young Texas schoolteacher who must choose between marrying for duty or for love in the years after the Civil War; Christian message

Jack Finney, Time and Again, about a government agent testing a time-travel theory who goes back to New York in the 1880s

Lawrence Goldstone, The Anatomy of Deception (2008), a thriller about a doctor in 1889 Philadelphia who believes he knows the identity of the beautiful woman whose corpse arrives in the morgue

Larry Kimport, A Small Harvest of Pretty Days (2007), an old woman tells her children the story of how, after being accused of murdering a man who had gang-raped her years before, she fell in love with the drifter she believed to be the real killer

Eric Lerner, Pinkerton's Secret, a novel in the form of a memoir about the self-promoting nineteenth century founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the woman who assists him and becomes his lover

Elizabeth Maguire, The Open Door (2008), a novel inspired by the life of Constance Fenimore Woolson, a popular American author who became friends with novelist Henry James after meeting him in Florence, Italy

Thomas Maltman, The Night Birds, about a German-American farming family and their struggles with present and past misfortunes in 1876 Minnesota

Arthur Meeker, Prairie Avenue (1949), about a boy who comes to stay with wealthy relatives in Chicago during the late nineteenth century and discovers his adored aunt is not admirable in all respects. Review

Judith Miller, In the Company of Secrets (2007), about a young woman who takes a job as assistant chef at the elegant Hotel Florence in the company town of Pullman, where the Pullman railroad cars are manufactured; #1 in the Postcards from Pullman series

Judith Miller, In the Company of Secrets (2007), about a young woman who works as assistant chef at the elegant Hotel Florence in the Pullman company town and also as an undercover detective for the company; #2 in the Postcards from Pullman series

Judith Miller, An Uncertain Dream (2008), about a young woman torn between her loyalty to her employer and the man she loves when employees of the Pullman Car Works go on strike; #3 in the Postcards from Pullman series

Eric Nicol, Dickens of the Mounted, a humorous novel about the third son of author Charles Dickens, who served in the Canadian North West Mounted Police during the late 1800s

Patricia O'Brien, Harriet and Isabella (2008), about the 1875 adultery trial of the famous clergyman and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher and the division it caused between his daughters, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) and Isabella Beecher Hooker (a leader in the women's suffrage movement)

Gary E. Parker, Distant Shores, about a former child slave searching for his mother at the end of the Civil War; #3 in the Southern Tides series; Christian message

Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller, A Daughter's Inheritance (2008), historical romance about a young woman who receives an inheritance that upsets her family and creates pressure for her to give up her love for the family boat-keeper; #1 in the planned Broadmoor Legacy series

Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, a sprawling literary novel set during the years between the Chicago World’s Fair and the first World War

Peter Rushforth, Pinkerton’s Sister, about the reclusive sister of Ben Pinkerton, the character from Madame Butterfly

Peter Rushforth, A Dead Language, about the tormented youth of Ben Pinkerton, the character from Madame Butterfly

Barbara Scott, Listen With Your Heart, historical romance set in nineteenth century America and Ireland about the daughter of a stage magician who falls in love with an Irish tenor. More info

Robert Anthony Siegel, All Will Be Revealed, about a late nineteenth century pornographic photographer and a medium who has begun to fake her trances

Annette Snyder, Arpetta Honor, historical romance set in the late nineteenth century about a New York attorney whose wife is unbalanced and the servant girl who loves him.

Lalita Tademy, Cane River, about four generations of black women in nineteenth century Louisiana

Elswyth Thane, Ever After, about two Virginia families during the last decade of the nineteenth century; #3 in the Williamsburg novels

John Vernon, Peter Doyle, a satiric novel set in the late nineteenth century U.S. about a man who unknowingly possesses some of Napoleon’s body parts

Victoria Vinton, The Jungle Law, about Rudyard Kipling’s friendship with a neighbor’s boy after he moved to Vermont in 1892

Margaret Walker, Jubilee, about the daughter of a house-slave in post-war Georgia

Edmund White, Hotel de Dream, set in late nineteenth century New York

Mysteries: Late 19th Century America

Caleb Carr, The Angel of Darkness, about an investigation into a series of murders in late nineteenth century New York; sequel to The Alienist. More info

Megan Chance, The Spiritualist, a murder mystery set in nineteenth century New York. More info

David Ebershoff, The Nineteenth Wife (2008), a historical story about a former wife of the Mormon prophet Brigham Young who leads a crusade against polygamy in 1875, interwoven with a present-day story of a young man thrown out of a polygamist sect in Utah who returns to find out the truth behind his father's murder.

Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves, a literary novel about a Scottish immigrant in coastal Canada who decides to track down the real killer after her son is accused of murder in 1867. More info

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