Books to discover: Historical fiction

Emily Brontë

1801.-I have just returned from a visit to my landlord-the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California.

Louisa May Alcott

"CHRISTMAS won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

Mark Twain

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

Alexandre Dumas

ON the 24th of February, 1815, the lookout of Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.

Charles Dickens

DEPENDING ON WHO you listened to, it was either the best of times, or it was the worst of times.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes.

Charles Dickens

It was about twenty years after I first started Pickwick Papers before I could honestly claim to have finished it.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17-, and go back to the time when my father kept the 'Admiral Benbow' inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

Joseph Conrad

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.

Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

John Steinbeck

THE SALINAS VALLEY is in Northern California.

Jonathan Swift

MY FATHER HAD a small estate in Nottinghamshire, 1 was the third of five sons.

Лев Толстой

ALL happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.

Upton Sinclair

IT WAS FOUR O'CLOCK when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive.

Agatha Christie

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-l7th September-a Thursday.