8 Historical Fiction Picks Set in the World of Theater

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Rachel Beanland has taught creative writing at the College of William & Mary and at Virginia Commonwealth University, and she’s the 2023–2024 Writer in Residence at the University of Richmond. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia.

My novel, THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE, is based on the true story of the 1811 Richmond Theater fire, which killed 72 people—mainly women—and became a defining moment in the history of American theater. I follow four characters, who experience the play and its aftermath from very different perspectives, and to do the story justice, I spent two years reading everything I could about early nineteenth-century theater and life on the stage.

If you want more historical fiction set in the world of the theater, here are eight novels you’ll love!

The Underground River
by Martha Conway

In this novel, set in 1838, a young seamstress named May Bedloe finds work on a riverboat theater called Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre. The flatboat cruises up and down the Ohio River—between Northern states, which have abolished slavery, and Southern states, which have not—and as May gets to know the famed actress Comfort Vertue and a community of abolitionists who help ferry enslaved people across the river to freedom, she realizes that she may soon be required to do some acting of her own.

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The Underground River
Martha Conway

Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this New York Times Notable book is the “captivating, thoughtful, and unforgettable” (Kathleen Grissom, author of The Kitchen House) story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love.

It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.

May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who help ferry slaves across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her newfound friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of a slave catcher.

As May’s secrets become more tangled, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to entrap those who know her best. “Twain has his ‘Life on the Mississippi’. Conway’s life on the Ohio makes you see the place, through May’s eyes, in all its muddy glory” (New York Times Book Review).

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Booth
by Karen Joy Fowler

I fell in love with Karen Joy Fowler when I read WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES, so when I discovered that we had both been busy writing novels with a focus on nineteenth-century theater, I was giddy. In BOOTH, Fowler imagines the life and times of John Wilkes Booth, who was born into a family of actors in 1838, and whose fate would take a dreadful turn at Ford’s Theatre when he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The book is an intimate portrait of one of America’s leading theatrical families, and what drives the narrative is the dramatic irony that comes from our knowing how this one man’s actions will ultimately change the course of history.

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Booth
Karen Joy Fowler

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8 Historical Fiction Picks Set in the World of Theater

By Rachel Beanland | May 22, 2023

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City of Girls
by Elizabeth Gilbert

We should all be so lucky as to get kicked out of college and go live with an aunt who owns a playhouse. In 1940, that’s precisely what happens to Vivian Morris, and the experience of being in New York, amid actors and showgirls, writers and stage managers, changes her life in both good ways and bad. This novel is about one woman’s sexual awakening, but it’s also about growing old and balancing our desire to conform with our—often stronger—desire to live a life without regret. There’s no other way to say this: I loved this book.

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City of Girls
Elizabeth Gilbert

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A Mask of Shadows
by Oscar de Muriel

If you like a good whodunit, look no further than this detective story set in 1889 Edinburgh. Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, two of London’s theatrical darlings, are taking Macbeth to the stage, but before the curtain rises, a grisly message—foretelling someone’s demise—is found smeared in blood. Enter detectives McGray and Frey, who must determine whether they’re investigating a distasteful publicity stunt, a sign of the occult, or something more sinister.

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A Mask of Shadows
Oscar de Muriel

Edinburgh’s most unlikely detective duo—“Nine-Nails” McGray and Inspector Ian Frey— must try to solve a murder mystery on the Scottish stage, as a new production of Macbeth is attracting the machinations of a serial killer . . .

Edinburgh, 1889. The Scottish Play is coming home.

But before the darlings of London theater—Henry Irving and Ellen Terry—take their acclaimed Macbeth to the Edinburgh stage, terror treads the boards: A grisly message is found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone’s demise.

As the bloody prophecies continue to come to fruition, Edinburgh’s own beloved pair of detectives—“Nine-Nails” McGray and Inspector Ian Frey—enter the scene. Frey scoffs at what he believes is a blatant publicity stunt, while McGray is convinced that the supernatural must be at play.

As they scrutinize the key players, they discover that Irving, Terry, and their peculiar, preoccupied assistant, Bram Stoker, all have reasons to kill, or be killed. But one thing is clear: by occult curse or human hand, death will take a bow the night the curtain rises.

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MENTIONED IN:

8 Historical Fiction Picks Set in the World of Theater

By Rachel Beanland | May 22, 2023

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Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell

At this point, likely no one needs me to recommend this book, but no list of historical novels, set in the world of the theater, would be complete without it. In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare’s young family does the best they can to get by, in light of the reality that the head of their household is so frequently in London, staging one play or another. When Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, dies of the Black Death, the entire family plunges into a world of such bitter anguish and grief, it’s hard to believe they’ll ever come out the other side, much less that the Bard will keep writing.

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Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell

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The Whalebone Theatre
by Joanna Quinn

One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel, and Cristabel Seagrave and her siblings build a theater from the beast’s skeletal rib cage. Within the Whalebone Theatre, they can escape their feckless stepparents and brisk governesses, and let their imaginations come to life. As the years pass and World War II looms, Cristabel and her stepbrother become British secret agents, but if they are to protect their country and their own futures, they’ll have to give the performances of a lifetime.

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The Whalebone Theatre
Joanna Quinn

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Morality Play
by Barry Unsworth

Come with me all the way back to the fourteenth century where, in rural England, a small troupe of actors breaks with the longstanding tradition of performing only religious plays and instead decides to enact the story of a recent local murder, which has put all the townspeople on edge. As the actors delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves embroiled in a feud that may very well be their undoing.

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Morality Play
Barry Unsworth

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Tipping the Velvet
by Sarah Waters

In Victorian-era England, Nan King is captivated by the music-hall phenomenon Kitty Butler. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all of Kitty’s Canterbury shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of London’s Leicester Square, where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.

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Tipping the Velvet
Sarah Waters

Provincial Nan King’s world is forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer and follows her to London as her dresser and secret lover.

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The House Is on Fire
by Rachel Beanland

Available now!

A masterful and “gripping” (The Washington Post) work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night, from the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever.

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The House Is on Fire
Rachel Beanland

The author of Florence Adler Swims Forever returns with a masterful work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night—told from the perspectives of four people whose actions during the inferno changed the course of history.

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church.

On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes, sits newly-widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.

Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.

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Photo credit: iStock / fergregory

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