A Book That Examines or Takes Place in a Time Before the 18th Century

Updated January 13, 2026
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Beowulf : a new verse translation
Heaney, Seamus.
Paper Book
Named one of the Best Poetry Books of 2021 by The Guardian Longlisted for the 2021 National Translation Award in Poetry. Picked for Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction in Translation of 2020. Named a Book of the Year by NPR, Vox, and The New Statesman. Picked for...
The Odyssey
Homer.
Paper Book
If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after...
SHOGUN
CLAVELL, JAMES
Paper Book
FX/Hulu's Shōgun has won nineteen Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, and four Critics Choice Awards, among many other accolades. The most talked about and awarded series on television. Read the book that started it all! The classic epic novel of feudal Japan that captured the heart of a...
Hamnet
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * Now a major motion picture starring ACADEMY AWARD® winner Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, directed by Chloé Zhao. The acclaimed author of the Reese's Book Club pick The...
The three musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre
Paper Book
Alexandre Dumas's most famous tale-- and possibly the most famous historical novel of all time-- in a handsome hardcover volume. This swashbuckling epic of chivalry, honor, and derring-do, set in France during the 1620s, is richly populated with romantic heroes, unattainable heroines,...
LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN
SEE, LISA
Paper Book
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!* From "one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot" (The New York Times Book Review) an immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China--perfect for fans of...

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