Best Historical Fiction Anthologies

One of the greatest and most ambitious works in English literature, in the original Middle English The Canterbury Tales depicts a storytelling competition between pilgrims drawn from all ranks of society. It Features an introduction by Jill Mann, a chronology of Chaucer's life and works, detailed explanatory notes, suggestions for further reading, a full glossary, and a bibliography. Chaucer's wife Philippa, whom he married c. 1365, was the sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress (c. 1370) and third wife (1396) of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, whose first wife Blanche (d. 1368) is commemorated in Chaucer's ealrist major poem, The Book of the Duchess .From 1374 Chaucer worked as controller of customs on wool in the port of London, but between 1366 and 1378 he made a number of trips abroad on official business, including two trips to Italy in 1372-3 and 1378.

Shalamov himself spent seventeen years there, and in these stories he vividly captures the lives of ordinary people caught up in terrible circumstances, whose hopes and plans extended to further than a few hours. It is estimated that some three million people died in the Soviet forced-labour camps of Kolyma, in the north-eastern area of Siberia.

Ten bestselling authors inspired by New York City's iconic Grand Central Terminal have created their own stories, set on the same day, just after the end of World War II, in a time of hope, uncertainty, change, and renewal…. My friends and I built forts in our manicured backyards and spent Sundays at the beach with our moms, wading in the water, splashing each other. When the sun set, we all raced home on our bikes and gathered around a dinner table where there was almost always a hot casserole waiting. In my high school years, it was Stephen King who held me in the palm of his hand and whispered to me that evil existed, but that it could be battled and beaten . It wasn’t until later, when I grew up and got married and had a child of my own, that I began to see my life in context, to see how different the sixties and seventies and eighties were from the years that came before. In our modern, divided and conflicted world, many of us long to glimpse a forgotten time, where the right path seemed easier to identify and follow. It’s no wonder that stories about the men and women who lived and loved during that era seize our imagination and hold it so firmly. While the world was at war and the men were gone, it was the women who held life together, who gave the soldiers a safe place to return to. Everyone had to readjust their lives after World War II—the men coming home, the women trying to return to a life that had been changed beyond recognition, the children who remembered nothing of peacetime. In it, a single day in Grand Central Terminal—entrance to the melting pot of America—becomes the springboard for ten very different stories, which, when read together, weave a beautiful tapestry about men and women and their war years. In all of them, we see the changes wrought by World War II and the battles that often needed to be fought at home simply to survive and begin anew. And through all the stories is the melody of loss and renewal, the idea that something as simple as a song played on a violin in a train station can remind one of everything that was lost . Kristin Hannah New York Times bestselling author of Home Front and Winter Garden. But on certain afternoons, when the pedestrian traffic was not too heavy, Gregori Yanovsky could close his eyes, place his chin on his violin, and convince himself that Grand Central Terminal was his very own Carnegie Hall. It was far enough from the thunder of the train tracks, yet still busy enough for foot traffic to yield him a few spare coins every couple of minutes. He’d arrive early each morning from his apartment on Delancey Street and ascend the stairs of the subway with his shoulders back and his head held high. And although his suit jacket, with its thin grey flannel, was a far cry from the more stylish ones from Paul Stuart or Brooks Brothers worn by the men who arrived daily on trains from Larchmont or Greenwich, Gregori felt he transcended the shabbiness of his shirtsleeves. As a child in Poland, Gregori had watched his father, Josek, soak his hands in milk every night to soften his calluses after a day of splitting wood. The barrels made him money and so kept food on the table and a roof over his family’s head, but music fed his soul. Even more extraordinary was the boy’s remarkable ability to hum back any melody he heard, without missing a single note. One night, when the rain was coming down so hard it sounded to Gregori as though the roof might collapse, there was a knock at the family’s door. When his mother opened the door, she found Josek’s friend Lev standing there under the doorway, with a man she did not recognize. His wife took their wet coats and hung them by the fire, while Josek and Gregori watched as Zelik placed his violin case on the table and unlatched it. Gregori would never forget the sight of Zelik taking his violin out from his case, withdrawing the instrument as though he were a sorcerer. He still remembered that impending sense of magic as Zelik placed his chin on the edge, lifted his bow, and began to play. Zelik captivated everyone with the music that soon came forth in swirls and arabesques; the notes filled the room and thundered over the storm outside. When the young man eventually put the instrument into Gregori’s hands, instructing him how to grasp the bow, all he could think about was learning to play it himself. The next morning, after the sun reemerged and the wet timber and muddy roads began to dry, Zelik gave Gregori one last lesson. Zelik also sensed that, behind his closed eyes, Gregori didn’t just feel the music; instead it came forth from him as though he were breathing each note. As he grasped Josek’s hands, thanking him for giving him and Lev shelter that night, Zelik whispered into the man’s ear, “Your son has a gift. After he saved enough money to feed his family, Josek used whatever funds remained to have a music teacher from a nearby village come to give Gregori lessons. The boy learned quickly how to play his scales, and then went on to more complicated études and sonatas that normally took other children far longer to master. As he became older and his skills advanced, he started to dream of one day playing in Krakow’s prestigious Academy of Music and in candlelit recitals throughout Europe. Before, the essence of his youth was a bowl of soup, a slice of bread, and his parents smiling to the sound of his violin. Even fifteen years later, as he played in the safety and grandeur of Grand Central Terminal, the dark memories of his final days in his village often returned to him. The cries of his mother in the dark as the villagers torched their house, as his father lay bleeding and motionless on the ground. All he wanted to do was rush over and kneel by his father, and remove the splinters of glass from his head, which looked like a broken gourd. He yearned to cradle his father in his arms and bring back the warmth that was flowing out of him, causing him to turn blue before Gregori’s eyes. And beneath the material of his trousers were angry red patches of burn marks that wrapped around one leg. The scar looked like fire itself, a permanent red torch set in high relief against his skin. His uncle had sponsored Gregori not purely out of compassion but also because he believed the boy’s music might draw customers to his restaurant on the Lower East Side. As Gregori’s uncle scanned the room and saw the women transfixed, he was confident he’d have every table at his restaurant full by week’s end. Nearly every night for three years, Gregori played countless mazurkas and tarantellas to diners enjoying their bowls of borscht and plates of stuffed cabbage. As a new immigrant to a country that seemed so wealthy and full of prospects compared to Europe, Gregori wanted to find a way to harvest every opportunity. He didn’t just want to serenade men and women over his uncle’s pierogies and cabbage his entire life. So when he noticed an advertisement in one of the trade papers that a customer had left behind one night, indicating that the New Amsterdam Theater was holding auditions for musicians interested in their pit orchestra, Gregori took it as a sign. There weren’t as many men there as he had expected, as such a great number of them were off serving in the war, a fate he had escaped because of the severe scarring on his legs. Still, there were so many talented musicians who came out to audition that when Gregori was offered a place as one of the second violins, it felt like a dream come true. Some days it barely covered the cost of his subway fare and lunch, but Gregori loved playing in Grand Central for many more reasons than the few dollars it added to his daily income: the acoustics, the vaulted ceiling with its turquoise plaster and gilded constellations, and the kinetic energy of the commuters. He could sense the rumble of the subway beneath his feet, and the wind from the train tunnels that blew in and out from the brass doors. Here, waitresses mingled with soldiers returning from the war, and bankers in chalk-striped suits sprinted next to the men who worked the elevators in their skyscraper offices lining Fifth Avenue. There were also those few minutes each morning, when he leaned down to sprinkle the first few coins into the velvet of his case to encourage others to do the same, that he could hear the pattern of the foot traffic. He could hear the gallop of a child’s patent leather shoes against the marble, the soft shuffle of a banker’s oxfords, or the drag of a wounded soldier’s crutch as it thumped against the floor. Her face appeared to him in a flash: the pale skin, the dark hair, and foxlike eyes that looked almost like they belonged to another place. But in Gregori’s mind, the American face belonged to those of English or Irish descent, with their small-carved features and peaches-and-cream skin. She had stopped in front of the pastry cart that sold glazed doughnuts for a nickel and apple strudel for a dime. He had yet to begin his playing that morning, and as he stood holding his violin in his hands, his mind now raced as to what music to select. But time was ticking away as he watched her pay for what looked like a small piece of strudel now safely tucked inside a wax paper bag. As his bow moved across the strings, his body bouncing to the music, he saw her dip her fingers into the wax paper bag and pull out her pastry. Gregori watched, crestfallen, as she headed toward the Lexington Avenue exit, her hips moving beneath her dress as she pushed through the heavy, brass-edged doors. As Liesel crossed over Lexington, past the Bowery Savings Bank branch and the newspaper stand, she kept her stride brisk and glided by any older pedestrians who would have slowed her down. So she quickly finished her pastry and, on the corner of 46th Street and Lexington Avenue, took out a napkin and blotted her lips to make sure there were no crumbs. Then, as she had watched the other dancers do a thousand times, she reapplied her lipstick before taking one final look in the compact mirror and snapping it shut. But it was a route she loved because it enabled her to pass the only pastry kiosk in all of New York that had apple strudel exactly like her mother used to make. If she had an extra few minutes, she’d walk toward the central concourse and enjoy the pastry under the gilded images of the zodiac, those finely painted constellations resplendent in a sea of blue. Liesel loved the very vastness of the rotunda, with its cathedral-like opulence, and the way the light streamed through the east entrance’s arched windows and illuminated the commuters in a sepia-soft glow. And even more poignantly, it was where she could imagine a chance meeting or a potential reunion with the family she still refused to accept as lost. She didn’t want to have time to think, because during those pauses, it was hard not to imagine what terror had befallen her family. And when she wasn’t sewing, she was dancing, either at her ballet studies or performing at the supper clubs that helped pay her bills. So he arranged for her to work in the supper clubs on Friday through Sunday, meaning that aside from the rehearsals to learn that weekend’s choreography, she was still free to do everything else: the sewing for her boss, Gerta, and the ballet training she refused to give up, even though it provided her with no income yet. “I don’t want to break my promise to Gerta.” She smiled and fluttered her eyelids, not to be coy, but because she enjoyed being especially sweet to him. “Just be thankful that you look like my daughter.” He shook his head, placed his cigar on the ashtray, and reached for his desk drawer. When she started grade school, her mother’s clients began commenting with increasing frequency that Liesel was born with the physique of a dancer. Her mother had sewn costumes for the prestigious dance academy in the city for over a decade, and Liesel had spent most of her childhood seeing her fit the girls for their corsets and tutus. And although Liesel’s mother began to teach her to sew from the time she could hold a needle and thread, she imagined her daughter receiving the applause, perhaps even traveling with the troupe, rather than behind the scenes making the costumes for the stage. And his well-tailored suits were anchored by two perfectly arched feet, which were encased in black slippers and moved with great elegance across the wooden floor. They knew that this man was already regarded as one of the best dancers in their country, and had also recently begun to hone his skills as a choreographer. Each day, before she left for the conservatory, Liesel would find a freshly baked apple strudel and a glass of milk waiting on the table for her. He had brought an element of glamour and prestige to the conservatory when he began there ten years earlier, at the age of twenty. He noticed her perfectly arched feet, the natural lightness to her step, and, even more unusual for her young age, her sharp mind, which remembered his choreography. .” He stumbled to catch his breath, and his normally bright and lively eyes looked as grey and lifeless as plaster. “I’ve asked someone I met in Monte Carlo last summer to help you, a man with a lot of wealth and power. I actually discussed it with them before I even wrote to Mr. Laemmle.” He stopped speaking for a moment, and his eyes once again left her and settled on the ground. That afternoon, as she said good-bye to her parents at the train station in Brno, her mother reached into the basket she was carrying and pulled out a package. As for her ballet classes, Psota made sure she could study in the evenings with a former Kirov dancer, a Madame Polyakov, on the Upper West Side. But each night, no matter how tired Liesel was from her sewing work or her ballet, she lay awake worrying about her family back in Czechoslovakia. He has the dancers visit me before curfew, and only one or two of them come each week so as not to raise suspicions that he is helping supplement our income. Because she had only been able to bring a small suitcase with her, Liesel now had so few tangible things that connected her with her family life back in Brno. She had two dresses that her mother had sewn for her, a small leather photograph album that captured scattered memories of their family vacations in the Moravian countryside, and a recording that Psota had brought to her the night before she left, which she had carefully wrapped within the layers of clothing in her suitcase. It was a favorite of the music students at the conservatory who shared part of the building with the dancers, and Liesel had heard it several times floating through the walls of the practice halls. The second movement was especially beautiful; one of the boys at the conservatory tried to impress her after rehearsal one day by telling her that it had inspired another American composer to create a song called “Going Home.”. That night, after they ate the simple potato dumplings that her mother had prepared, her father took the record Psota had given Liesel and put it on the Victrola. On the nights the pain of being separated from her family was unshakable, she would put on the Dvorák recording from her teacher back home and imagine all of them in the living room again, her parents’ soft hands within reach. She spent hours stitching hems, taking in bustiers, and adding embellishments to the costumes of women who performed at supper clubs. And after she finished at Gerta’s around one P.M. each day, she would try to take an afternoon class at Madame Polyakov’s dance studio to practice her ballet, using a portion of her wages to pay for her lessons. Within Gerta’s sewing studio, chorus girls, with their elaborate hair and makeup, white smiles, and perfect curls, stood in front of the mirror as Liesel pinned their fittings so their costumes enhanced their figures. Her mother had taught her about ballet corsetry and whaleboning, but here in New York she learned about waist nippers and other items that could transform even the slightest girl into a goddess. The girls liked Liesel’s light touch with her needle and thread, and the way she understood, from her own years of training as a classical dancer, how their bodies moved while they performed. .” She gave them cues to enable her to alter the costume so it would not shift or gap while they stretched their bodies and moved across the stage. That afternoon, after Liesel had made sure her costume looked like a second skin, Victoria handed her Leo Stein’s business card. She spent so much of her day with a silk-screened smile imprinted on her face and her body propelling itself to embrace the laughter and music around her. But when the makeup was wiped off and her sequined dance costume put away, the black-and-white photographs in the newspapers were a haunting she couldn’t shake. She didn’t want to look at those horrible photos in the paper and believe her parents could be amongst the piles of bodies or reduced to dark ash. He scanned the parade of dark suits and white shirts, and the women in their autumn costumes of felt hats and kidskin gloves. He listened to every footstep and took breaks between his playing in order to study the faces that stood in line for Murray’s pastries. Some stopped briefly to listen to him play, and a number of them dropped some change into his velvet-lined case as a token of their appreciation. Her heel had pivoted gracefully as she turned from Murray’s with her wax paper bag in her hand, like the miniature ballerina in a music box he once saw in an antiques store near his apartment. As Liesel headed toward Mr. Stein’s office, she felt a buoyancy in her step that had nothing to do with the sunshine hitting her face or the fact that she knew she’d soon be getting her next paycheck. Something in the music she had just heard coming from the violinist in Grand Central had made her feel happy and alive. She remembered hearing that music countless times wafting from the cafés late at night in Brno. She’d heard lots of the buskers in the subway stations since she arrived in New York, but most of them chose works by contemporary composers such as Gershwin or Duke Ellington, probably because they thought those were the pieces that would inspire people to reach into their pockets. She thought of her former life back in Brno, and those days at the dance conservatory where the music students often tried to gain the attention of the most beautiful dancers by playing their instruments with as much passion as possible. But even with the door to his studio closed, the beautiful music played by the chamber orchestra filled the entire school. They provided a few consecutive days where she could grab one of Murray’s pastries and again be serenaded by the handsome violinist who seemed to be playing just for her.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A magnificent collection of Outlander short fiction—including two never-before-published novellas—featuring Jamie Fraser, Lord John Grey, Master Raymond, and many more, from Diana Gabaldon “The Custom of the Army” begins with Lord John Grey being shocked by an electric eel and ends at the Battle of Quebec. Then comes “The Space Between,” where it is revealed that the Comte St. Germain is not dead, Master Raymond appears, and a widowed young wine dealer escorts a would-be novice to a convent in Paris. Lord John Grey dipped a finger gingerly into the little stone pot, withdrew it, glistening, and sniffed cautiously. That’s what I said.” His valet, Tom Byrd, face carefully averted, put the lid back on the pot. “Well, in justice,” Grey said dubiously, “I suppose the whale is long dead.” He looked at the far wall of his office. There were a number of flies resting along the wainscoting, as usual, fat and black as currants against the white plaster. “Where did you get that stuff?”. “The owner of the Moor’s Head keeps a keg of it; he burns it in his lamps—cheaper nor even tallow candles, he says, let alone proper wax ones.”. I daresay.” Given the usual smell of the Moor’s Head on a busy night, nobody would notice the stink of whale oil above the symphony of other reeks. “Easier to come by on Jamaica than bear grease, I reckon,” Tom remarked, picking up the pot. Tom had automatically picked up the oily rag that lived on the corner of Grey’s desk and, with a dexterous flick, snapped a fat fly out of the air and into oblivion. That should cause my blood to be especially attractive to the more discriminating biting insects in Charles Town—to say nothing of Canada.” Jamaican flies were a nuisance but seldom carnivorous, and the sea breeze and muslin window screening kept most mosquitoes at bay. “No,” Grey said reluctantly, scratching his neck at the mere thought of Canadian deer flies. Lord John and his valet shuddered simultaneously, recollecting last week’s experience with a banana spider—a creature with a leg span the size of a child’s hand—that had burst unexpectedly out of a ripe banana, followed by what appeared at the time to be several hundred small offspring, at a garden party given by Grey to mark his departure from the island and to welcome the Honorable Mr. Houghton Braythwaite, his successor as governor. “Oh, God, is that him now?” Grey glanced guiltily round at the disarray of his office: A gaping half-packed portmanteau lolled in the corner, and the desk was strewn with scattered documents and the remnants of lunch, in no condition to be viewed by the man who would inherit it tomorrow. Grey picked up the oiled rag and disposed of an unwary fly, then seized a plate scattered with bread crusts, blobs of custard, and fruit peelings and decanted this out of the window into the garden beneath. Thrusting the empty plate out of sight under the desk, he began hurriedly to gather papers into piles but was interrupted almost at once by the reappearance of Tom, looking excited. Why didn’t you say so?” John hastily grabbed his coat from its hook and shrugged into it, brushing crumbs off his waistcoat as he did so. John in fact liked his mother’s third husband—she having been twice widowed when she acquired the general four years before—though any military intrusion at this point was something to be regarded warily. The General Stanley who eventually appeared was not the bluff, jaunty, self-confident man last seen in his mother’s company. This General Stanley was hobbling with a stick, his right foot bound up in an immense bandage, and his face gray with pain, effort . “General!” John seized him by the arm before he could fall over and guided him to the nearest chair, hastily removing a pile of maps from it. ?”. “Just here, me lord.” Tom had dug Grey’s flask out of the open traveling bag with commendable promptitude and now thrust it into General Stanley’s hand. “The doctor says I mustn’t drink wine—apparently it’s bad for the gout—but I don’t recall his mentioning brandy.”. “Bring the cask.” The general was beginning to show a tinge of color and, at this point, began to be cognizant of his surroundings. “I am packing to leave, yes,” John said, the feeling of wariness developing small, prickling feet inside his stomach. And what in God’s name is she up to now?” Grey spoke with more heat than filial respect, but panic made him edgy. “Fine.” Tom had come back with the brandy bottle, and John poured himself a small glass. “I trust she’s enjoying the weather.” He raised an eyebrow at his stepfather, who sighed deeply and put his hands on his knees. The problem, my boy, is that the British Navy is on its way to lay siege to the city of Havana, and I really think it would be a good idea if your mother wasn’t in the city when they get there.”. For a moment, John stood frozen, glass in hand, mouth open, and his brain so congested with questions that he was unable to articulate any of them. Grey reached for the brandy bottle, but Tom was already pouring a fresh glass, which he thrust into his employer’s hand. take it that he’s quite recovered, then?” On one level, this was good news; Malcolm Stubbs had lost a foot and part of the adjoining leg to a cannonball at the Battle of Quebec, more than two years before. By good luck, Grey had fallen over him on the field and had the presence of mind to use his belt as a tourniquet, thus preventing Stubbs from bleeding to death. He vividly recalled the splintered bone protruding from the remnants of Malcolm’s shin, and the hot, wet smell of blood and shit, steaming in the cold air. “Two, now—Olivia gave birth to a daughter two years ago; lovely child called Charlotte.”. “You see, I was meant to be sailing to Savannah in the spring—now, I mean—to advise a Colonel Folliott, who’s raising a local militia to assist the governor, and your mother was going to come with me. In his desire to keep his guests—all recently arrived from London, and all lamenting the dearth of roast beef and potatoes in the Indies—from sharing his realization, he had called for lavish and repeated applications of a native palm liquor. This had been very effective; by the second glass, they wouldn’t have known they were eating whale turds, should his adventurous cook have taken it into his head to serve that as a second course. “Or possibly you do, sir?” He turned politely to General Stanley, who was beginning to look better, under the influence of relief and brandy. “I wouldn’t,” he admitted frankly, “save that I shared Albemarle’s table aboard his flagship for six weeks. The general had learned of Albemarle’s expedition only the night before the fleet sailed, when a message from the War Office had reached him, ordering him aboard. “At that point, of course, the ship would reach Cuba long before any message I could send to your mother, so I went aboard at once—this”— he glowered at his bandaged foot—“ notwithstanding.”. “Tom,—run—and I do mean run —to Admiral Holmes’s residence and ask him to call upon me as soon as is convenient. If the British Navy showed up in Havana Harbor and started shelling the place, it wasn’t merely physical danger threatening the Stubbs family and Lady Stanley, also known as the Dowager Duchess of Pardloe. and I bloody don’t care if they do.” He sat upright, gray-stubbled chin outthrust and a glint in his eye.