Ten great titles of historical fiction for Hilary Mantel fans

At Lit Hub, Emily Temple tagged ten great historical novels that pick up on the themes or forms of Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy in some way, including:

Marguerite Yourcenar, trans. Grace Frick, Memoirs of Hadrian

If what you liked best about Mantel’s novels was their exquisite prose, I strongly recommend you pick up Yourcenar’s fictionalized autobiography of the Roman emperor Hadrian, which is also a book about time, a philosophical treatise, and a blazing evocation of ancient Rome. Also, not for nothing, but Yourcenar is extremely cool: for instance, even her close friends called her “Madame,” which is, let me tell you, the dream. We stan.

Read about another entry on the list.

Memoirs of Hadrian is among Will Eaves’s five top fictional takes on real lives, Rabih Alameddine's six favorite novels, Alix Christie's ten favorite historical novels, John Mullan's ten best emperors in literature, and Teju Cole's top 10 novels of solitude.

--Marshal Zeringue