Biographies, memoirs, letters, history
- Amy: the world of Amy Lowell and the Imagist Movement, by Jean Gould
- Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the building of Boston's golden age,by Ted Clarke
- Below Stairs, by Margaret Powell
- Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie
- Charles Dickens: a life, by Claire Tomalin
- Clover Adams: a gilded and heartbreaking life, by Natalie Dykstra
- Consider the fork: a history of how we cook and eat, by Bee Wilson
- Elizabeth the Queen: the life of a modern monarch, by Sally Bedell Smith
- Gilded Lives: the Titanic's First-Class Passengers, by Hugh Brewster
- Great Expectations: the sons and daughters of Charles Dickens, by Robert Gottlieb
- The Invisible Woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, by Claire Tomalin
- Love, Fiercely: a gilded age romance, by Jean Zimmerman
- Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: the private diary of a Victorian lady, by Kate Summerscale
- My Dear Governess: the letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann, edited by Irene Goldman-Price
- The richest woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age, by Janet Wallach
- Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor, by Rosina Harrison
- That woman: the life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, by Anne Sebba
- Virginia Woolf, by Alexandra Harris
- What Really Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved, by John Mullan
- Abdication, by Juliet Nicolson
- The age of desire, by Jennie Fields
- Beautiful Lies, by Clare Clark
- The Children, by Edith Wharton
- A Conspiracy of friends, by Alexander McCall Smith
- Country Plot, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
- Ghastly Business, by Louise Levene
- Greenery Street, by Denis Mackail
- High Rising, by Angela Thirkell
- The House I Loved, by Tatiana de Rosnay
- The Innocents, by Francesca Segal
- A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, by Suzanne Joinson
- Lady Fortescue Steps Out, by Marion Chesney
- The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty
- A Rather Lovely Inheritance, by C.A. Belmond
- Shadow of Night, by Deborah Harkness
- The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise, by Julia Stuart
- The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, by Alexander McCall Smith
- An Unexpected Guest, by Anne Korkeakivi
- The Uninvited Guests, by Sadie Jones
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
- The Walnut Tree, by Charles Todd
- The anatomist's apprentice, by Tessa Harris
- The assassin in the Marais, by Claude Izner
- Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch, by Nancy Atherton
- Anatomy of Murder, by Imogen Robertson
- Beastly Things, by Donna Leon
- Before the Poison, by Peter Robinson
- Believing the Lie, by Elizabeth George
- The Beautiful Mystery, by Louise Penny
- A Bitter Truth, by Charles Todd
- Blood never dies, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
- The Body in the Boudoir, by Katharine Hall Page
- A Christmas Homecoming, by Anne Perry
- Circle of Shadows, by Imogen Robertson
- The Confession, by Charles Todd
- Death wore a diadem, by Iona McGregor
- Dorchester Terrace, by Anne Perry
- Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear
- Eleven pipers piping, by C.C. Bennisonbr
- The food detective, by Judith Cutler
- Fear in the Sunlight, by Nicola Upson
- Footsteps in the dark, by Georgette Heyer
- The House at Sea's End, by Elly Griffiths
- Island of Bones, by Imogen Robertson
- The Ivy Tree, by Mary Stewart
- Jane and the Canterbury Tale, by Stephanie Barron
- The Jewels of Paradise, by Donna Leon
- Kill my darling, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
- Lady Audley's Secret. by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Last Ditch, by Ngaio Marsh
- Miss Tonks Turns to Crime, by Marion Chesney
- Mrs. Malory and any man's death, by Hazel Holt
- Murder in the Rue Dumas, by M.L. Longworth
- Murder on Fifth Avenue, by Victoria Thompson
- The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers
- A question of identity, by Anthea Fraser
- A question of identity, by Susan Hill
- Robert B. Parker's Lullaby, by Ace Atkins
- A room full of bones, by Elly Griffiths
- Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, by James Runcie
- The Solitary House, by Lynn Shepherd
- Speaking from among the bones, by Alan Bradley
- Stage Struck, by Peter Lovesey
- A Sunless Sea, by Anne Perry
- The Technologists, by Matthew Pearl
- Twelve Drummers Drumming, by C.C. Benison
- A Woman of Consequence, by Anna Dean
- The Yard, by Alex Grecian
- Miss Elizabeth Bennet, by A.A. Milne
{The books highlighted in bold type are among the year's best.}
12.31.12