Recommendations
Books Like Ivanhoe
Best books to read after Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
Readers who love Ivanhoe — Scott's most popular medieval romance, with its tournament at Ashby, its siege of Torquilstone, and the tragic Jewish heroine Rebecca — will enjoy these works of medieval historical fiction, adventure romance, and the great tradition of the historical novel.
- 1Buy
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
The twentieth-century heir to Ivanhoe's medieval world — Eco's monastic murder mystery is the most intellectually sophisticated modern engagement with the Middle Ages that Ivanhoe romanticized; a natural companion for readers who want medieval historical fiction at its most serious.
- 2Buy
The Heart of Midlothian
by Walter Scott
The Scott novel that shows what he could do at his most humanly complex — after Ivanhoe's romantic adventure, The Heart of Midlothian shows Scott's capacity for psychological depth and moral seriousness; essential reading for anyone who loves Ivanhoe.
- 3Buy
Rebecca and Rowena
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Thackeray's satirical sequel dissatisfied with Rebecca's fate — the most famous expression of readers' frustration that the more interesting heroine lost; essential reading for any fan of Ivanhoe, and wickedly funny about Scott's romantic conventions.
- 4Buy
The Talisman
by Walter Scott
Scott's other Crusades novel — set during the Third Crusade, featuring Saladin as one of Scott's most admiringly drawn characters; the closest companion to Ivanhoe in Scott's own work.
- 5Buy
The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
Follett's medieval epic about the building of a cathedral is the most popular modern successor to Ivanhoe's medievalism — the twelfth-century setting, the cast of villains and heroes, and the blend of historical detail with adventure narrative are all Ivanhoe's methods updated for contemporary readers.
- 6Buy
Kenilworth
by Walter Scott
Scott's Elizabethan historical novel — set at the court of Elizabeth I, featuring Amy Robsart and Robert Dudley; shares Ivanhoe's concern with the romantic possibilities of an idealized English past; the best Scott to read after Ivanhoe.
- 7Buy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
by Mark Twain
Twain's satirical response to the medieval romanticism that Ivanhoe represents — Twain explicitly attacked the Scott tradition of nostalgic medievalism; reading Ivanhoe and Twain's satire together shows both the appeal and the limitations of romantic medievalism.
- 8Buy
The Once and Future King
by T.H. White
White's retelling of the Arthurian legends is the twentieth-century heir to Ivanhoe's idealized medieval world — the tournament, the chivalric code, the gap between romantic ideals and brutal reality are all present, but treated with comic and tragic complexity that Ivanhoe doesn't reach.
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