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Author

John Jakes

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John Jakes was an American novelist best known for expansive historical sagas tracing families through periods of national transformation. Born in Chicago in 1932, he began selling stories while still a student and earned degrees from DePauw University and Ohio State University. He initially wrote science fiction, fantasy, mysteries and Westerns before achieving his greatest commercial success with historical fiction. Jakes died in Sarasota, Florida, in 2023 at the age of ninety.

Jakes’s eight-volume Kent Family Chronicles follows successive generations from the American Revolution through the Civil War and the late nineteenth century. His North and South trilogy centres on the Main and Hazard families, whose friendship is divided by the Civil War, while Homeland and American Dreams trace a German-American family through the social and industrial changes of the early twentieth century. Combining political events, warfare, romance and family conflict, his novels helped establish the multigenerational American historical saga as a major form of popular fiction.

Periods and events

Abolitionism & American Slaveryc. 1830–1865 CE American Civil War1861–1865 CE American Revolutionary Era1763–1783 CE American Revolutionary War1775–1783 CE Assassination of Abraham Lincoln14–26 April 1865 California Gold Rush1848–1855 CE Civil War Espionage and Secret Services1861–1865 CE Early American Motion Picture Industryc. 1891–1920 CE Emancipation and Reconstruction1863–1877 CE First Battle of Bull Run21 July 1861 Gilded Age Americac. 1870–1900 CE Indian Wars of the American West1850–1890 CE Old West and Frontier America1803–1912 CE Railroad Expansion in the American West1865–1900 CE War of 18121812–1815 CE World War I Air War1914–1918

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by John Jakes (3 series)

The Crown Family Saga in Order

by John Jakes 2 books 4.3(12,154)

The Crown Family Saga follows a German-American family in Chicago as immigration, industrial wealth and new forms of entertainment transform the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Beginning with young Pauli Kroner’s arrival from Berlin, the novels explore the household of brewery magnate Joe Crown…

The North and South Trilogy in Order

by John Jakes 3 books 4.2(99,587)

The North and South Trilogy follows the Mains of South Carolina and the Hazards of Pennsylvania, two families joined when Orry Main and George Hazard become friends at West Point. Their bond survives the Mexican–American War and years of sectional conflict, but slavery, secession and family pressure place…

The Kent Family Chronicles in Order

by John Jakes 8 books 4.2(89,573)

The Kent Family Chronicles trace successive generations of one family from the eve of the American Revolution to the early 1890s. The saga begins with Phillipe Charboneau, the unrecognised son of an English duke, who becomes Philip Kent in America, and follows his descendants as they build, lose…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by John Jakes (5 books)

Ranked by rating and voting volume.

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