Explore how many writers take the foundational elements of mystery and suspense and move them to earlier periods of history, often mixing true events and historical facts with fictional characters or situations. Professor Schmid introduces you to two types of historical mysteries and showcases a number of examples to understand why historical mysteries are so popular among their legions of fans.

A retelling of "Snow White" set in Renaissance Italy draws a link between the original fairy tale and the Borgia family's infamous practice of poisoning its enemies.

A fisherman's daughter in 1930s Japan rises to become a famous geisha. After training, Sayuri's virginity is sold to the highest bidder, then the school finds her a general for a patron. When he dies, she is reunited with the only man she loved.

With her family in tow, archaeologist and amateur sleuth Amelia Peabody prepares for another Egyptian excavation with hopes of a quiet season, but old dangers bring fresh foes and Amelia finds herself in peril.

The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking,...

From the "New York Times" bestselling author who "makes history come brilliantly alive" ("The Washington Post Book World") comes a novel that spans decades and generations--from the American Revolution through the downfall of the Confederacy--in Jakes's most ambitious work yet.

In the late 19th century, Newport, Rhode Island, was a cauldron of undeclared class warfare where reputations were made and lost in a whirlwind of parties and fancied slights. Sam Driver, railroad mogul and one of the few surviving robber barons of the lawless years after the Civil War, knocks on the door of fabled Newport. Sam is determined to win a place in the strange rarefied world of Newport's brief summer season ... for a price.

King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Presents a fictionalized account of the friendship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave.

"Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. A human child brought up by fairies, the Raven King blended fairy wisdom and human reason to create English magic. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he is barely more than a legend, and England, with its mad King and its dashing poets, no longer believes in practical magic." "Then the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears...