For classically Romantic, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Problematic yes, historically accurate no, but where ELSE are you going to get Richard the Lionheart and Friar Tuck in a drinking contest? I loved this book when I was 13, and still have a massive soft spot for it. (Also, Rebecca is the best.)
For Victorian poets and the scholars who love them, A.S. Byatt’s Possession. Excuse me while I vibrate out of my skin with suppressed emotion/get teary over the pleasures of research and its moral responsibilities. (Byatt’s The Children’s Book is also very good, but angstier.)
Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian. Romance! Vampires! Cursed manuscripts! What’s not to love?
Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City. Rather bittersweet, but very beautiful; a collection of short stories set in interwar China.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera. I actually prefer One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it is massive, and angstier.
José Saramago, History of the Siege of Lisbon. Magic realism, possible time travel, a mild-mannered copyeditor, a gorgeous publisher, and a stray dog.
Andrés Neuman, Traveler of the Century. Extremely sexy, extremely erudite, extremely delightful.
Robin McKinley, Sunshine. There are literal cinnamon rolls. There’s a young woman coming into her own. There’s a motorcycle subplot. And there is, yes, a vampire.
Maria Dueñas, The Time In Between, or if you don’t want to deal with the stress of fascists even when they are being outwitted and spied upon, The Heart Has Its Reasons, which is a gentle love story about/featuring scholars and scholarship.
Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April (with film adaptation.) This book is gentle and lovely and sweet and a little bit melancholy and very joyful. When it comes to the film, I love all of the women equally (but have a crush on Polly Walker the most) and I would die for Michael Kitchen’s Mr. Briggs.
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