Seeking relatively well-known, canon-caliber fictional accounts of imaginary encounters between actual, historically significant figures -- especially encounters that could well have taken place, but which we know did not or remain undocumented. Philip Levine's poem "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" typifies what I'm looking for. Mark Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ does not (respectable evidence out there of a historical Arthur notwithstanding). The literary field is rife with examples, I know -- say, some novel casting Charles Lindbergh and Adolf Hitler into a tete-a-tete. But, ack, I'm drawing a blank. [more inside]
posted by taramosalata on Feb 5, 2009 - 31 answers

Please recommend me some great books about the home front during WWI or WWII. [more inside]
posted by booksandlibretti on Jul 21, 2008 - 26 answers

Tom Clancy's absurd Debt of Honor (1992) has a politically motivated suicider crashing an airliner into the capitol building. Hector Bywater's novel The Great Pacific War (1925) sort of kind of predicted December 7, 1941. Any other examples come to mind, novels presaging alarming events? Thanks in advance.
posted by IndigoJones on Sep 13, 2005 - 24 answers

I'm trying to learn about the Edwardian era especially (but not exclusively) in England, Ireland, and Canada. What excellent materials (fiction and non-fiction books, movies, websites, etc.) have you read and seen about this period?
posted by orange swan on Mar 1, 2005 - 17 answers

What are your favourite historical fiction novels? [more inside] [more inside]
posted by Johnny Assay on Dec 11, 2004 - 46 answers