NovelCult

Completed Historical Web Novels

Finished Historical web novels you can binge without waiting on the next chapter.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is one of Mark Twain’s most enduring novels. During a stay at a modern-day English castle, the narrator meets a mysterious stranger. The stranger, Hank Morgan, is an engineer from Connecticut, and proceeds to weave a satirical, biting, and hilarious tale of how he traveled back in time to find himself in the court of the legendary King Arthur.

Mark Twain · Comedy · 47 ch

A Tale of Two Cities

A doctor is released from the Bastille after being falsely imprisoned for almost eighteen years. A young woman discovers the father she’s never known is not dead but alive, if not entirely well. A young man is acquitted of being a traitor, due in part to the efforts of a rather selfish lout who is assisting the young man’s attorney.

Charles Dickens · Historical · 46 ch

Barnaby Rudge

Barnaby Rudge opens in the English village of Chigwell in 1775, where an unsolved double murder casts a long shadow over the local community, and in particular Barnaby Rudge, the son of one of the victims. Five years later, London is consumed by the Gordon Riots of 1780, when Lord George Gordon led the Protestant Association in a protest against increased rights for Catholics that descended into days of mob violence. Into this maelstrom wanders Barnaby, a guileless young man with an intellectual disability, recognized across the countryside by his eccentric dress and by Grip, the raven riding on his shoulder.

Charles Dickens · Historical · 83 ch

Bellarion the Fortunate

Bellarion, a young orphan, leaves the abbey he was raised in to attend university and learn Greek. He quickly learns the dangers of life in fifteenth-century Italy, as he is robbed, caught in a riot, and chased through town by the authorities. He tangles himself in a plot against the local regent, plays one side against the other, and declares his service to the beautiful but uninterested Valeria.

Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 47 ch

Ben Hur

Judah and Massala are close friends growing up, though one is Jewish and the other Roman. But when an accident happens after Massala returns from five years in Rome, Massala betrays his childhood friend and family. Judah’s mother and sister are taken away to prison, and he is sent to a galley-ship.

Lew Wallace · Historical · 89 ch

Betty Zane

Betty Zane, published in 1903, was Zane Grey’s first novel. It tells the romanticized story of Grey’s great-great-aunt, who made a miraculous dash under fire to save a frontier fort from Indian attack. Fort Henry sat on the site of present-day Wheeling, West Virginia.

Zane Grey · Historical · 18 ch

Captain Blood

Peter Blood, with experience as a soldier and sailor, is practicing medicine in Bridgewater, England, when he inadvertently gets caught up in a rebellion being waged by the Duke of Monmouth. After being convicted of treason, Blood and some of the rebels are sentenced to slavery in the Caribbean. The year is 1688.

Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 31 ch

Catriona

Robert Lewis Stevenson continues the story of David Balfour, starting directly where Kidnapped left off. Compared to Kidnapped, Catriona is much more of a comedy of manners, politics, and romance than a simple action-adventure story, but it still has several of Stevenson’s trademark escapades, imprisonments, and daring escapes. The title character David Balfour attempts to navigate, to his own peril, his apparent role in the Appin murder, the subsequent trial of James of the Glens, life among high society, and the machinations of James Macgregor Drummond, the father of David’s great love, Catriona.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 33 ch

El Dorado

In the Scarlet Pimpernel’s fourth outing, he and his league want to free the orphaned Dauphin of France from his captors. But someone else has the same idea, although for very different, and selfish, reasons. In addition to trying to outflank his rival, the Pimpernel also has to deal with a member of his inner circle whose romance has caused him to disobey orders and put the entire plan in jeopardy.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 50 ch

Hypatia

Philammon is a young monk living in an isolated Egyptian monastery circa 400 AD. He feels a longing to see the world, so he embarks on a trip to Alexandria, a city teeming with culture and learning. On his way he meets Pelagia, a beautiful courtesan traveling up the Nile with a band of Goths in search of Asgard.

Charles Kingsley · Historical · 32 ch

I Will Repay

The young Vicomte de Marny rashly challenges a French official to a duel, and dies as a result. The Vicomte’s father, the ancient Duc de Marny, insists that his daughter, Juliette, swear an oath before God to seek revenge on the man who killed her brother. Years later, as the French Revolution rages, Juliette insinuates herself into the official’s household, and quickly discovers a way to anonymously accuse him before the National Convention.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 32 ch

Ivanhoe

Set in 12th-century England, Prince John rules while his brother King Richard is away during the Crusades. During his reign, Prince John and others of Norman nobility abuse their power over the Saxons, forcing Saxons off their lands and many Saxon nobles into serfdom. Ivanhoe, a man disowned by his own Saxon father for going to war alongside the Norman King Richard, returns from the Crusades in disguise and appears in a tournament at Ashby.

Walter Scott · Historical · 46 ch

Kidnapped

Written in 1886, Kidnapped is an adventure novel set in Scotland in the mid-1700s, not long after the Jacobite rebellion in the Highlands which had attempted to set Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne. This rebellion was put down brutally and afterwards the Government imposed strict controls on Highlanders, outlawing many clan leaders. The protagonist of Stevenson’s novel is young David Balfour, who is in his late teens.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 33 ch

Les Misérables

Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo has been described as one of literature’s greatest novels. The first two volumes were published in French in March 1862 and translated into English later the same year. Since then it has been translated by numerous others and has been adapted for film, television, radio, animation and the stage.

Victor Hugo · Historical · 371 ch

Lorna Doone

John Ridd, a young yeoman farmer, chances upon a beautiful girl in an injudicious visit to a secret valley. It’s a brief but life-defining moment, for John falls in love at first sight. Yet there are complications.

R. D. Blackmore · Adventure · 76 ch

Notre-Dame de Paris

Esmeralda is a breathtaking beauty and attracts the attention of men all around her, including an actor, a captain, and an archdeacon, to whom she is of course forbidden. But because of a kindness she paid to him, there is one whose love for her is pure: the archdeacon’s bellringer. The actions of the archdeacon, who cannot control his lust for the young woman, ultimately draws all four men into her orbit, and his, with tragic consequences.

Victor Hugo · Historical · 61 ch

Pan Michael

The third and final book of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy takes a closer and more intimate look at one of the series’ protagonists: Pan Michael Volodyovski. The Polish Commonwealth has been through intense periods of war, and the peace that follows leaves one of its greatest heroes, Pan Michael, finally free to marry his beloved Panna Anusia. But in a twist of fate, she falls ill and dies, leaving Michael despairing of life—to the point of him joining a monastery.

Henryk Sienkiewicz · Historical · 63 ch

Quo Vadis

In Nero’s Rome, a young Roman officer falls in love with a Christian hostage while the early Church faces persecution. Their story unfolds against the intrigues of the imperial court and the burning of the city.

Henryk Sienkiewicz · Historical · 75 ch

Romola

In the late 15th century, a shipwrecked Greek named Tito Melema arrives in a Florence unsettled by the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He swiftly wins friends and favor with his quick wits, lightly worn learning, and good looks. He comes to the attention of the blind old scholar, Bardo de’ Bardi, and becomes his assistant.

George Eliot · Historical · 74 ch

Sir Percy Hits Back

In the Dauphiné area of France, soldiers have come to arrest some local aristos as part of the French Revolution’s anger and revenge on anyone with money. A young woman rescues the family’s papers and money from their house after their arrests, and persuades a childhood friend to hide the valuables. The friend is soon arrested for the theft, so the young woman seeks to go to where he has been taken in order to defend him.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 39 ch