BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like The moon and sixpence

Loved The moon and sixpence by William Somerset Maugham? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from historical fiction, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    The Pillars of the Earth

    Ken Follett · 1989 · Historical Fiction

    The building of a cathedral across decades of medieval turmoil; a vast, addictive saga.

  2. 2

    Wolf Hall

    Hilary Mantel · 2009 · Historical Fiction

    Thomas Cromwell's rise in the court of Henry VIII; political intrigue rendered in extraordinary close-up prose.

  3. 3

    The Book Thief

    Markus Zusak · 2005 · Historical Fiction

    A girl in Nazi Germany who steals books, narrated by Death itself; original, tender and devastating.

  4. 4

    All the Light We Cannot See

    Anthony Doerr · 2014 · Historical Fiction

    A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths cross in occupied France; luminous, intricate storytelling.

  5. 5

    Wildfire

    Zane Grey · 1916 · Historical Fiction

    From the book:For some reason the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying emotions - a sweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the Ford, yet a haunting remorse that she could not b

  6. 6

    Huntingtower

    John Buchan · 1910 · Historical Fiction

    Dickson MCunn, a recently retired prosperous Scots grocer decides on a walking tour in SW Scotland as a suitable beginning to his retirement activities. To his surprise, he stumbles into a sinister pl

  7. 7

    Rilla of Ingleside

    Lucy Maud Montgomery · 1920 · Historical Fiction

    Fifteen-year-old Rilla, the daughter of Anne Shirley Blythe, grows from a carefree, irresponsible girl into a strong and capable young woman during the war years, 1914-1918.

  8. 8

    The Age of Innocence

    Edith Wharton · 1920 · Historical Fiction

    Edith Wharton's most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War, is a brilliantly realized anatomy of New York society in the 1870s, the world in which she grew up, and fro

  9. 9

    Where Angels Fear to Tread

    E. M. Forster · 1920 · Historical Fiction

    Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) follows two women to Italy: the widowed Lilia Herriton and her traveling companion Caroline Abbott. Lilia falls passionately in love with the country, and also with a

  10. 10

    The Call of the Canyon

    Zane Grey · 1921 · Historical Fiction

    From the book:What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and gazed dreamily through the window. It was a day typical of early April in New Yor

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