Historical Fiction
Westerns set in the 19th Century

Isabelle Allende
Daughter of Fortune
Allende expands her geographical boundaries in this sprawling, engrossing historical novel flavored by four cultures, English, Chilean, Chinese and American and set during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather's best known novel; a narrative that recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

Clyde Edgerton
Redeye
A rollicking tale of cowboys and Indians, Englishmen and maidens, all set in Colorado 100 years ago. The cliff dwellings of southwest Colorado attract a motley crew of explorers in 1892, each with a personal agenda.

Helen Hunt Jackson
Ramona
A bestseller in 1884, Ramona was both a political and literary success and will continue to move modern readers with its sympathetic characters and its depiction of the Native American's struggle in the early West.

Larry McMurtry
Sin Killer
With prose that flows as naturally as the Missouri, McMurtry weaves together a large cast and vast setting into a thoroughly exciting, hilarious adventure novel. Though Sin Killer focuses on a love story and contains plenty of realistic violence, McMurtry's efficient voice and matter-of-fact perspective leaves little room for tragedy or sentimentality, instead emphasizing high comedy.

James Michener
Centennial
Centennial is an epic novel of the history, land, and people of Colorado. Centered around the fictional town of Centennial, the story contains an extensive cast of characters including Native Americans, French fur trappers, English noblemen, and American cowboys.

Jane Smiley
All-true Travels and adventures of Lidie Newton
Lidie Harkness, a spinster at 20, is an anomaly in 1850s Illinois. She has an independent mind, a sharp tongue and a backbone; she prefers to swim, shoot, ride and fish rather than spend a minute over the stove or with a darning needle. That makes her the perfect bride for Bostonian abolitionist Thomas Newton, who courts and marries her in a few days while enroute to Lawrence, K.T. (Kansas Territory).

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