Imagined Lives
Fictional Biographies

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Burning Bright
Tracy Chevalier

After a tragic death in the family, the Kellaways move to the bustling city of London, where they discover that they live next door to the famous William Blake: printer, poet, and political radical.


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The Virgin's Lover
Philippa Gregory

A fictional portrait of the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I follows the young queen as she copes with intrigues aimed at placing Mary, Queen of Scots, on the British throne, and her passion for the traitorous Robert Dudley.


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Creation
Katherine Govier

John James Audubon embarks on an expedition to Canada’s maritime provinces to document the Great Auk and other rare birds.


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I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark
Brian Hall

A fictionalized account based on the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean seeks to convey what was happening in the minds of the explorers.


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Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Robert Harris

A tale inspired by the writings of Tiro, Cicero’s confidential secretary, traces the life of the ancient Roman orator from his beginnings as a young lawyer through his competitions with Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus in the political arena.


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The Widow of the South
Robert Hicks

A story based on the true experiences of a Civil War heroine finds Carrie McGavock witnessing the bloodshed of the Battle of Franklin, falling in love with a wounded man, and dedicating her home as a burial site for fallen soldiers.


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Loving Frank: A Novel
Nancy Horan

Fact and fiction blend in a historical novel that chronicles the relationship between seminal architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, from their meeting in Oak Park, Illinois, when they were each married to another, to the clandestine affair that shocked Chicago society.


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Patrick: Son of Ireland
Stephen R. Lawhead

Surviving an attack by Irish raiders on his home in Wales, Succat is sold into slavery and comes to the attention of a novice Druid who teaches him Irish lore and healing, before Succat, renamed Patrick, goes on to become a bard, a king’s advisor, and a patron saint.


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Empress Orchid: A Novel
Anchee Min

A fictional portrait of the last empress of China follows Orchid, a beautiful teenager from an aristocratic family, who is chosen to become a low-ranking concubine of the emperor and rises to a position of power in the Chinese court.


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Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
Sena Jeter Naslund

A fictional tale of the life of Marie Antoinette presents the story of a teenage empress’s daughter who is forced to leave her family home to marry the future king of France and who rebels against the formality and rigid protocol of court life.


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Double Play
Robert B. Parker

In 1947, as Jackie Robinson breaks the major league color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Joseph Burke, a World War II veteran and survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by the Dodgers manager to be Robinson’s body guard.


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Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War
Steven Pressfield

This epic novel presents the story of the great Athenian warrior and general Alcibiades, from his great victories on behalf of Athens to his later alliances with Sparta and Persia and his role in the eventual downfall of Athens.


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The Empress of the Last Days: A Novel
Jane Stevenson

Michael Foxwist, a young Oxford don, and his scholarly friends stumble upon a collection of old manuscripts that reveal the secret seventeenth-century marriage of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the black prince Pelagius, a revelation that means that Queen Elizabeth II is not the rightful ruler of Britain.


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The Master
Colm Toibin

Nineteenth-century writer Henry James is heartbroken when his first play performs poorly in contrast to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and struggles with subsequent doubts about his sexual identity, his decision not to marry, and his difficulties with emotional intimacy.


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The Jungle Law
Victoria Vinton

Chronicles the 1892 arrival of a nearly penniless Rudyard Kipling and his pregnant young wife in Vermont, and his struggle to bring to life his story of a feral child raised by wild animals, a work that became “The Jungle Books.”


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