Best Revolutionary War novels

Fiction that puts the reader inside the Revolution rather than just explaining it. Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you choose to buy, it supports the site at no extra cost to you. Fiction has done more with the Revolutionary War than nonfiction usually gets credit for. The novels written for young readers shaped how several generations first understood this war before they ever read a textbook. This list covers the fiction, the war as a story rather than an argument. For the history and biography behind these novels, see the companion list: Best Revolutionary War books. The best Revolutionary War novels Johnny Tremain (1943) by Esther Forbes Forbes had just finished her Pulitzer-winning biography of Paul Revere when she wrote this, and the research carries straight over into every scene. Johnny is a Boston silversmith’s apprentice whose crippled hand pushes him toward the fight for independence almost by accident. It’s shelved as a children’s book, and it is one, but the prose holds up for adult readers who haven’t touched it since a school reading list. I’d start here even as an adult. It’s the clearest window into what Revolutionary Boston actually felt like day-t...