Big Historical Sagas Wanted

[Pulpmeister]

Anthony Adverse might be of interest. A very big book indeed. Half a million words, or about 5 regular novels in one. It's free right here in the Library, kindle or epub.

[MorganM]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Anthony Adverse might be of interest. A very big book indeed. Half a million words, or about 5 regular novels in one. It's free right here in the Library, kindle or epub.

[Dr. Drib]

You want BIG and THICK?

Have I got a solution for all your needs! Try Brazil, by Errol Lincoln Uys.

Uys was James Michener's fact-checker and researcher, and probably wrote parts of some of Michener's later novels. This book is over 1,100 pages long.

Here's the beautiful cover:

[Uncle Robin]

Since it seems the OP wants stats on exactly how big is big, a more specific plug for the 592,000 word, 1348 page A Suitable Boy

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by MorganM

I have read the first 2 books from The Australians series. I'm Aussie myself and thought the first 2 were good. But omg the font is so small! They don't seem to be on ebooks, which is how I have read 99.9% of the time for a decade.

Pehaps you've already read the Australian novel, Poor Fellow My Country, by Xavier Herbert?

It's over 2,300 pages in length.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Pehaps you've already read the Australian novel, Poor Fellow My Country, by Xavier Herbert?

It's over 2,300 pages in length.

They must be small pages - Every copy I can find for sale is close to the 1463 pages listed in its Wikipedia entry.

[JSWolf]

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

They must be small pages - Every copy I can find for sale is close to the 1463 pages listed in its Wikipedia entry.

I was going by dividing by 1/2 the total page count as listed on Amazon. Let me check my digital copy and see what comes up.....[Cue music]...The book starts at page 28 and goes to 4673. Let me check another source....[Cue music]...OK, it seems that you are correct, and that the book is actually around 1400+ pages.

Thank you!

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I was going by dividing by 1/2 the total page count as listed on Amazon. Let me check my digital copy and see what comes up.....[Cue music]...The book starts at page 28 and goes to 4673. Let me check another source....[Cue music]...OK, it seems that you are correct, and that the book is actually around 1400+ pages.

Thank you!

I guess the discrepancy could prompt a discussion on the value and/or definition of page numbers on e-reading devices, but I'm sure that's a topic that would never take off here.

[Pulpmeister]

850,000 words give or take a few, is the size of "Poor Fellow my Country". More reliable guide to size than page numbers. I hadn't realised it was that vast. Herbert's earlier novel, which I remember at home when I was a kid in the 1950s, "Capricornia", was also vast. I tried to read Capricornia but it was too much: I could barely lift it.

A great big saga sometimes forgotten is "Music of Time", a sequence of 12 novels spanning the period from WW1 to the 1960s. Author was Anthony Powell. Each individual novel is about 80,000 words, so the whole set is around 1,000,000. The central characters are Nicholas Jenkins and Kenneth Widmerpool.

The series:

A Question of Upbringing
Buyers Market
Acceptance World
At Lady Molly's
Casanova's Chinese Restaurant
The Kindly Ones
The Valley of Bones
The Soldier's Art
The Military Philosophers
Books do Furnish a Room
Temporary Kings
Hearing Secret Harmonies

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo

War and Peace, my favorite.

From Hugo, try Les Miserables. It's in the 1400 printed pages length.

[Pablo]

Shayne Parkinson's Promises to keep and Daisy series, set in New Zealand starting in the 1880's. Both series are related. The first book, Sentence of Marriage is free. (Smashwords and Amazon)

P.B. Ryan's Nell Sweeney Mystery Series, set in Boston. The first book, Still Life with Murder is free. (Amazon)

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I guess the discrepancy could prompt a discussion on the value and/or definition of page numbers on e-reading devices, but I'm sue that's a topic that would never take off here.

Yeah, you're right.

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

These books are by Edward Rutherfurd and are pretty large. I know you've read Ruthrfurd, but I'm posting this here for anyone else interest such large tomes.

Series
Dublin Saga
1. The Princes of Ireland (2004) <- 800 pages
2. The Rebels of Ireland (2006) <- 944 pages

Novels
Sarum (1987) <- 1344 Pages
Russka (1991) <- 1024 pages
London (1997) < - 1328 pages
The Forest (2000) <- 912 pages
New York (2009) <- 1040 pages
Paris (2013) <- 848 pages
China (2020) <- due out May 13, 2021

The China one should be interesting. Quite a few years since the last one, so he's been working on it for a while.

[Luffy]

I recommend The Cazalet Chronicles omnibus with 3500 pages. It's seamless. Centres around World War 2. It's in my top 10 books of all time.