Authors of historical love affairs often enjoy well-deserved popularity among numerous fans. They manage to combine events that really happened in their work with a beautiful romantic story that makes the novel interesting and attractive to a huge readership. In this article we will talk about several books of this genre.
"Gone With the Wind"
The author of the historical romance novel "Gone with the Wind" is an American writer Margaret Mitchell. She published her famous book in 1936. This is one of the most famous bestsellers in the history of world literature. Six months later, the number of copies sold reached one million, in 1939 the novel was filmed.
In this work, events unfold over a period of 12 years, from 1861 to 1873. This is a detailed and realistic story of the American Civil War, the confrontation of the industrial northern states by the southern slaveholding.
The situation in the country at that time was such that it became unprofitable for the northerners to keep slaves for work in factories, they began to make a choice in favor of civilian employees, only slaves were ideally suited for farming. When the North demanded the abolition of slavery, the southern states tried to establish their own state.
Plot of the novel
Mitchell is one of the best foreign authors of historical romance novels. The main character of her work is Scarlett O´Hara, who has an amazing ability to captivate the stronger sex.
Her love relationship unfolds amid a civil war that swept most of America in those years.
At the age of 17, she marries Charles Hamilton after a young man with whom she was in love declared that she was engaged to another girl.
At the very beginning of the Civil War, Charles dies of measles in a southerners' camp, not even having time to even be in battle. Scarlett becomes a widow at 17, she has to mourn. But she is not going to end her life on this, her heart asks for love and passion, despite the fact that a bloody war is unfolding around.
The author of this love-historical novel, M. Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for him in 1937. Surprisingly, this is her only work in the career of a writer. Despite the numerous requests and appeals of readers and publishers, she has not written more than a single book.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights is another popular historical love story. The author of this work is also a woman, the English writer Emily Bronte. This is also her only romance.
She managed to win the hearts of readers and publishers due to a thoroughly thought out and worked out plot in which she actively used innovative literary techniques. Features of her style are the narration of several storylines at once, attention to the details of rural life and life. In Bronte, all this is organically combined with a romantic interpretation of natural phenomena and vivid artistic images.
Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1847, became a classic work of late romanticism, the standard of early Victorian literature.
What is Wuthering Heights
The author of the historical Wuthering Heights love story puts his characters in the wastelands of Yorkshire in 1801. Young Londoner Mr. Lockwood settles in a small provincial estate in search of solitude. From Skvortsov Manor, he decides to visit his neighbor, Mr. Heathcliff, who is the owner of Wuthering Heights Estate.
Lockwood finds out that in addition to the owner of the estate, the widow of his son and Herton Earnshaw lives in the house. Relations between them are very tense.
The protagonist learns the history of this house. Having written this book, Bronte was among the best foreign authors of historical romance novels.
"Memoirs of a Geisha"
In 1997, the American writer Arthur Golden published his most famous novel, Memoirs of a Geisha. In it, he tells in the first person the fictional story of a geisha who works in the Japanese city of Kyoto during the 20th century, before and after World War II. Although history itself is fictional, it is based on real historical material and closely acquaints readers with the features and traditions of Japanese culture, especially with regard to geishas.
In 2005, the novel was filmed. The director of the melodrama was Rob Marshall, and the main role in it was played by Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
The author of a historical love affair, a book that many have grown fond of, built a story on the story of a wholly fictional translator from the University of New York, Jacob Haarhuis, who wrote a novel about geisha and was able to interview one of the most popular former geisha named Sayuri Nitt. It is she who tells the professor about all the features of her work.
Jane Austen
The list of foreign authors of historical romance novels that have earned worldwide recognition always include the English writer Jane Austen. She lived at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, becoming one of the founders of British realism. Her works of criticism were called "novels of morals."
These are universally recognized masterpieces in which a simple plot and deep penetration into the psychology and soul of the heroes are organically combined, all this is accompanied by an ironic and original English humor. Today, Austin's works are compulsorily studied in all British schools and colleges, they are known around the world.
One of the best authors of historical romance novels has six major works: Pride and Prejudice, Feeling and Sensitivity, Mansfield Park, Emma, Reason of Reason, and Northanger Abbey.
The novel "Emma"
The novel "Emma" Austin finished in 1815, it describes in a humorous form the fate of a young woman who, with excitement and enthusiasm, weds her friends and acquaintances.
The main character of this work is called Emma Woodhouse, she is the daughter of a wealthy and wealthy landowner, she does not care about mundane issues, she is a real dreamer in her heart. She devotes all her free time to organizing someone else's personal life.
At the same time, Emma herself is convinced that she will not be able to get married, so her purpose is to become a matchmaker for her many friends and girlfriends. When everything goes according to her plan, life presents Emma with an amazing and unexpected surprise.
This fascinating story unfolds against the backdrop of real historical events that took place in England at the beginning of the 19th century.
Charlotte Bronte
The author of Wuthering Heights, Emily, had two more sisters who became major writers, their works as a result of which were recognized as classics of English literature.
Talking about popular authors of historical romance novels, they always remember Charlotte Bronte. Her very first novel, "Jane Eyre", became the most famous work of the writer, who brought her world fame. She graduated in 1847.
She also published the novels "Shirley", "Town" and "Teacher". Charlotte Bronte is one of the most talented and famous representatives of English realism and romanticism. She had an extremely impressionable and nervous temperament, according to the stories of acquaintances, she had an amazing ability to penetrate the personality and mood of a perfect stranger in order to understand his motives and actions.
With amazing truthfulness and beauty, she managed to convey everything that she saw and felt. According to critics, often overly vivid images added excessive melodramatism to her works, and sentimentalism weakened the overall artistic impression of the novel. But all this was able to be leveled thanks to life realism, which made all these shortcomings invisible.
Jane Eyre
The novel "Jane Eyre" Charlotte Bronte wrote under the pseudonym Carrer Bell. It is narrated in the first person, events unfold in northern England during the reign of George III.
Parents of the main character die when she was a very young child. Her mother’s brother, Mr. Reed, is engaged in her upbringing. At the time of the beginning of the affair, the girl is only ten years old, she has poor health, a lively character, this is a very impressionable child, who is very locked up due to circumstances, as she grows up in a strange house, and Mr. Reed, who had taken her once to raise him, recently passed away .
Jane grows up in an estate called Gateshead, which belongs to her aunt Sarah Reed. This is a selfish and domineering woman, which is matched by all her children, who are the cousins of the main character. Many treat her unfairly. This attitude is explained by the fact that everyone in the family was dissatisfied with the marriage of her parents.
Jane's mother was a girl from a good and rich family, she married for love to a poor vicar. Because of this, everyone in the family, except that of Mr. Reed, renounced her. She only has a good relationship with a servant named Bessie Lee.
Tensions between relatives reach their climax when John Reed smashes Jane's head to the blood, in response she rushes at him with fists. Mrs. Reed, who appeared nearby, punishes her by sending her to the so-called "red room". It was in her that Mr. Reed died a few years ago. The girl is convinced that the ghost lives in it, this is the worst punishment for her. She becomes ill, and she loses consciousness.
Such is the plot of this fascinating historical novel that brought world fame to Charlotte Bronte.
Elizabeth Dvoretskaya
The historical love affairs of Russian authors have become especially popular lately. Many new authors have appeared who are exploring this topic in detail.
One of them is the writer Elizabeth Dvoretskaya. She is interested in historical reconstruction of the early Middle Ages. This contributes to a realistic depiction of the life features of the heroes of that time, in her novels there is always a large number of reliable details.
It is the era of the Middle Ages and its works are devoted. She has already released the Scandinavian series “Ship in the Fjord”, consisting of 19 novels, several series of books about the Slavs, and even Slavic fantasy.
"Gunnhild, the Northern Bride"
One of the author’s latest novels is Gunnhild, the Northern Bride, which was published in 2018.
He talks about two noble Viking families who, after mutual insult, enter the warpath. The daughter of Olav, the head of one of the families, decides to seek help from Queen Thure, their distant relative.
The charming Gunnhild almost immediately becomes a voluntary captive of her son Knut, while she herself increasingly draws attention to his younger brother Harald.