"Most historically accurate historical novels." Topic

I'll start out by nominating the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser.
Fraser makes a point to not fake timelines, and to make it plausible for our "hero" to be there.
Some very slight errors, like being "the only one to charge in the right direction at Chilianwallah", when he was in Mississippi at the time, are excused by the Dear Old Soldier's memory being like recent … politicians. 🙄

The books have exactly the correct atmosphere for his … adventures.

Note that I gave no criteria. So, it's up to you to justify your choice.

For example, the Horton Hornblower books are almost exclusively our Hero in an independent situation. Very rarely does he interact with other characters we can "fact check" him against. But the books drip with "historical accuracy".

I would nominate the Aubrey books by O'Brien. The time line for Our Hero pretty much aligns with history and the details, such as the trepanning operation, are engrossing. The Hornblower books are a close second.

The Mad Galahs, by Brigadier (RTD) George "Warrie George" Mansford. It follows a few RAR infantrymen through Korea, Malaya, Viet Nam and "peace". Written by a man who was a private soldier in Korea, who had "been there and done that", and who retired as a Brigadier in the 90's. Warrie George was a legend in the Australian army, for good reason.

It may not translate well for foreigners.

I echo the choice of O'Brien. If they aren't accurate, they certainly read as if they are.

Two of my close friends have written exceptional historical novels, for which they did considerable research. I am quite comfortable in saying their efforts are highly accurate— Ruta Sepetys and Sharon Cameron. (The latter also writes science fiction, but not in historical settings.) Their works are set in WWII Lithuania, Poland, and the US, as well as Franco's Spain, and Communist Romania— but in general they are not works of military fiction. (Great gifts for the women in your life… and the Romanian novel I Must Betray You by Sepetys should be required reading for young adults alongside Orwell's Animal Farm.)

I love Jeff Shaara's The Killer Angels, though I suspect his treatment of Longstreet is a little glossy— Shaara's clearly a fan of Longstreet. But the rest reads true to me.

And finally, Rosemary Sutcliff may not be all that accurate, but dang they're good.

There is some abominable "fan fiction" out there purportedly Flashman in the Civil War. Fie on them!
Avoid them at all costs.
I always thought that any ACW references in the books were his Giant Rat of Sumatra. Fraser had no intention of writing any.

I enjoyed Zulu Dawn. Read it before I saw the movie. Made me understand the main character better.

This might be heresy but I enjoyed Bernard Cornwell's Saxon tales and Sharpe series of novels.

Jim

My only knock against O'Brien is when he made 1813 last more than two years. To his credit he acknowledged the absurdity of this.

Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series is one I return to again and again. Her take on the Iliad, "The Song of Troy", is also superb.

Alan Furst's novels of intelligence and espionage activities in 1930s and wartime Europe. Intensely grounded in reality, there are no Bond-like characters and the stakes are often surprisingly small. Things go wrong for the most believably mundane reasons and some operations just peter out.

"The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Montsarrat makes me feel chilled to the bone and soaking wet from the Atlantic convoys. Very realistic in that they sunk maybe 2 U-Boats in 6 years.

The "No Merciful War" aviation series by Tom Burkhalter is brilliant. It's a very realistic series about the air war in the South Pacific starting with the fall of the Philippines through the desperate days of 1943. It paints a gritty view of life at a jungle air strip flying second hand planes at the end of the American supply lines.

link

Col C
Me too.
I also enjoyed the King Arthur series

Some that haven't been noted yet:

I like Wallace Breem's "The Leopard and the Cliff" (Third Afghan War) and "Eagle in the Snow" (Rome on the Rhine, AD 406-407).

R. F. Delderfield's "Seven Men of Gascony" for the sweep of the Napoleonic wars.

Anya Seton's "Avalon" (Anglo-Saxon England and the Viking invasions); "Green Darkness" (Tudor England); and "Devil Water" (18th century England and Jacobitism).

Nigel Tranter's "Robert the Bruce" trilogy, and also his "The Black Douglas."

Helena Schrader's "Leonidas of Sparta" trilogy is surprisingly engaging and vivid as well.

Arguably some of these may not be "historically accurate" per se, but they're all dynamic, engaging, crackling good novels set in historical times and involving historical characters (to a greater or lesser degree) and extremely faithful to the atmosphere and attitudes of their times. They will all inspire you to dig deeper (and even build armies!).

"Scoundrel!" by Keith Thompson.
It's a Flashmanesque "autobiography" of James Wilkinson. He's the amazing "scoundrel" of early AWI and later. He betrayed … everyone.
What I find fascinating is the detail in which the American occupation of 1775-1776 Canada.
Gif help me, it paints Benedict Arnold and Charles Lee as almost sympathetic characters. 🤷 Who knew???
This is a Part 1, but sadly I've never seen or heard of a Part 2. A continuation would be marvelous.

If anything, he is even more nefarious than Flashman.

Hillary Mantel, while not military history, is hard to beat for accuracy, and marvellous on personalities. The Thomas Cromwell trilogy is superb reading (and the television adaptation is a visual treat). Her book on the French revolution, 'A place of greater safety' is pretty good too.

Pretty well anything by Robert Harris, with the possible exception of 'Fatherland'. His Cicero trilogy is particularly good.

Another vote for Hilary Mantel.

"The Cruel Sea" is virtually Montserrats WW2 memoir. Alistair Maclean did much the same thing with 'HMS Ulysses', as he served on light cruisers on the Murmansk run. Novelised memoirs were popular after WW2.

Nigel Tranter's Marquis of Montrose novels are pretty accurate in telling the story of the 1644-45 campaign and the final failure of Carbisdale, capture and execution in 1650.

"I Claudius", Robert Graves.
I don't want to name "Claudius the God", because if this becomes a Poll, I don't want them taking votes away from each other.

+1 "The Killer Angels".

Also "The White Zulu"

I'll throw in "The Last of the Mohicans" as well.

My suggestion is Ralph Peters book "Cain at Gettysburg "

"The Wilderness War" by Eckert.

I will put up the Alexander Kent series based around his character of Richard Bolitho.

I also liked Martin Caiden's "The Last Dogfight".

Top of my list: 'Winged Victory' by V.M. Yeats. A historical novel centred on the experiences of a Sopwith Camel pilot and his squadron mates in 1918. It's a rather sobering read (Biggles it ain't), but for an unvarnished description of life, death and aerial combat in WW1 it's hard to beat.

Cant believe 'the red badge of courage' has not been mentioned yet.

WWI collected flying novels, Arch Whitehouse.
Not exactly a series as each one is a stand alone, but worthy of a group nomination rather than splitting them out: Squadron Shilling, Squadron 44, etc.

An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer.
A romance novel, the first half is set at the Duchess' ball. The second half is set in the battle of Waterloo. All the historical details were thoroughly research and presented; Wellingon's dialogue coming straight from his own letters.

The Spanish Bride, Georgete Heyer.
Another romance novel set during the siege of Badajoz, also thoroughly researched through diaries and letters.

His Majesty's Dragon / Temeraire, Naomi Novik.
Technically, this is alternate history, but the first book in the series is solidly set in the actual history of the Napoleonic Wars. She scrupulously followed Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon for the battles and the results. The social fabric and the tactical details were altered, because dragons. Later books in the series diverge more and more from history, because dragons.

Another vote for Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius The God."

Riveting and insightful, and not even remotely diminished by the BBC classic production.

TVAG

I'm going to say Thin Red Line. A lot of the locations are fictional, but if you look at an actual map of Guadalcanal, it becomes very apparent what he based them on. Plus The author – James Jones- went on a cross country trip when writing it to visit as many of his army friends as possible to go over that time period to get things as correct as possible.

Some Gore Vidal novels were … accurate. 🙄
But I do like
Burr (He doesn't like Jamie Wilkinson either.)
Lincoln
Julian

Some, not so much.

I may be more inclined to politically align with William F Buckley, but his novels seem to be "A Boy's Own Adventures in Spy Craft!"
So, I won't mention any of his stuff.

I would like to think that L Sprague deCamp's ancient novels are accurate. But if they aren't, I'm okay with that. I liked them.
An Elephant for Aristotle
The Arrows of Hercules
Lest Darkness Fall
Dragon of the Ishtar Gate
Etc.

Mary Renault had fantastic Greek mythology and Alexander trilogies.
Funeral Games, about the aftermath of Alexander's death gave me the phrase "terrible old men" to describe the Silver Shields.
And "The Bull from the Sea"

@jgawne, well spotted with James Jones. Personal history thinly veiled as fiction is always fascinating to me. GM Fraser's McAuslan stories are a personal favorite.

Yes -- Fraser's "McAuslan" stories are mostly fantastic, altho' McAuslan doesn't feature in them all, and I found the third volume not terribly interesting compared to the first two.

Interesting thread ! Let me show my age ;-))))) with the mentioning of Alfred Duggan (ancient and medieval history). Others are later writers like Steven Pressfield and Harry Sidebottom. Two corrections: it's Jack O'BriAn and The Killer Angels was not written by Jeff Shaara but by his father Michael.
A last suggestion: Ralph Peters wrote six very interesting ACW-novels (the Abel Jones mysteries) as Owen Parry.

Have no idea how Patrick O'Brian wouldn't top this list.

The Proud Canaries and Sabre General. The same book, published under one title in the US and the other in the UK. By David Johnson. It's the French light cavalry general Lasalle's career told through the eyes of his fictional aide de camp.

The author also wrote what are, in my opinion, the two best English language histories of the French Napoleonic cavalry, Napoleon's Cavalry and Its Leaders, and The French Cavalry 1792-1815.

Tom

If we're doing actual history, other than those mentioned, Derek Robinson for Goshawk Squadrn and Piece of Cake, Richard Powell for The Soldier and Whom the Gods would Destroy and John Harris for a laundry list, but my personal pick would be Light Cavalry Action. Don't forget Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, or "Barbara Hamilton"/AKA Barbara Hambly's Abigail Adams and Benjamin January mysteries, either.

If dragons and time travel are on the agenda, Judith Merkle Riley for The Master of All Desires, The Serpent Garden and The Oracle Glass, not to mention lots and lots of Barbara Hambly.

"Horatio" rather than "Horton" Hornblower, but I agree with the pick.

"Horatio" rather than "Horton" Hornblower, but I agree with the pick.

I blame autocorrect, AI, predictive text, and any other Satanic know it all apps or whatever that have been inflicted upon us.
Harrumph.
And that's not the only one of mine in this thread that I missed. I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to find and shame.

Good call, OFM. I think I'll blame the computer for my own inability to spell "Squadron."

May I toss in another recommendation for Georgette Heyer? Even when her Regencies weren't specifically on military subjects as the two mentioned were, she understood how the British Army functioned in her period. When her male characters are ex-military, they're formerly of specific regiments, and she gets the history right. Even her civilians understand that a commission in a high-numbered line regiment is not, socially, the same thing as a commission in a prestigious cavalry regiment or the Guards. There's a delightful bit in The Unknown Ajax where only the younger members of the family understand the significance of a cousin having held a commisson in the 95th.

Hardly any of Heyer's successors, even the ones who've done some research beyond reading other novelists' books, have any notion of the military side of things.

Always blame the computer, because AI is out to get you!

A friend recently asked Chat GPT to design a model railway layout, using Kato track pieces, to fit a one foot by two feet baseboard for a challenge posted on a model railway website.

The AI produced a very simple track plan of a straight track with one point and a short siding, but when he assembled the track pieces as per its design it was too long to fit on the baseboard! So much for AI…

Nah. The AI is willing, but poorly instructed, so it keeps making mistakes. It's the dice which are out to get me.