G. A. Henty Books in Order (Updated September 8, 2026)

G. A. Henty, fully George Alfred Henty, was an English war correspondent and adventure writer whose historical novels place young fictional protagonists inside major events ranging from ancient Egypt and Rome to the Crusades, the English Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, colonial conflicts, and nineteenth-century military campaigns.

Henty wrote dozens of adventure books, but they do not form one continuing series. Most novels use different heroes and different historical settings. Readers therefore have two useful ways to organize his work: publication order, which follows Henty’s writing career, or historical chronology, which moves through the eras depicted in the novels.

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How G. A. Henty’s Books Actually Fit Together

Best starting point: there is no mandatory first novel because most Henty books are standalones. Choose the historical period that interests you most, or begin with a well known title such as The Cat of Bubastes, In Freedom’s Cause, Under Drake’s Flag, With Clive in India, or With Lee in Virginia.

Series status: most novels are independent.
Publication order: best for following Henty’s career as a writer.
Historical order: often more useful for readers studying history period by period.
Recurring characters: uncommon, so continuity spoilers are rarely a concern.
Alternate titles: several Henty books have shortened or variant titles in later editions.
Modern publication dates: usually belong to reprints, not newly written Henty books.

G. A. Henty Books in Publication Order

Henty’s early bibliography includes adult fiction, nonfiction connected to military expeditions, and books that differ from the boys’ historical adventures for which he later became famous. The following sequence gives the principal books in broadly accepted publication order.

A Search for a Secret (1867)
The March to Magdala (1868)
All But Lost (1869, originally published in three volumes)
Out on the Pampas (1870 to 1871)
The Young Franc-Tireurs (1872)
The March to Coomassie (1874)
The Young Buglers (1880)
The Cornet of Horse (1881)
In Times of Peril (1881)
Facing Death (1882)
Winning His Spurs (1882), also published as The Boy Knight
Friends Though Divided (1883)
Jack Archer (1883)
Under Drake’s Flag (1883 to 1884)
By Sheer Pluck (1884)
With Clive in India (1884)
In Freedom’s Cause (1885)
St. George for England (1885)
True to the Old Flag (1885)
The Young Colonists (1885)
The Dragon and the Raven (1885 to 1886)
For Name and Fame (1886)
The Lion of the North (1886)
Through the Fray (1886)
Yarns on the Beach (1886)
With Wolfe in Canada (1887)
The Bravest of the Brave (1887)
A Final Reckoning (1887)
The Young Carthaginian (1887)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (1888)
For the Temple (1888)
Gabriel Allen M.P. (1888)
In the Reign of Terror (1888)
Orange and Green (1888)
Captain Bayley’s Heir (1889)
The Cat of Bubastes (1889)
The Lion of St. Mark (1889)
The Curse of Carne’s Hold (1889)
By Pike and Dyke (1890)
Maori and Settler (1890)
One of the 28th (1890)
Sturdy and Strong (1890)
By England’s Aid (1891)
By Right of Conquest (1891)
Chapter of Adventures (1891)
Those Other Animals (1891)
The Dash for Khartoum (1892)
Held Fast for England (1892)
Rujub, the Juggler (1893)
In Greek Waters (1893)
Redskin and Cowboy (1893)
Beric the Briton (1894)
Through the Sikh War (1894)
With Buller in Natal (1894 to 1901 in different edition histories)
In the Heart of the Rockies (1895)
When London Burned (1895)
A Knight of the White Cross (1895)
Through Russian Snows (1896)
The Tiger of Mysore (1896)
At Agincourt (1897)
On the Irrawaddy (1897)
Wulf the Saxon (1897)
With Frederick the Great (1897)
A March on London (1898)
Colonel Thorndyke’s Secret (1898)
With Moore at Corunna (1898)
At Aboukir and Acre (1899)
Both Sides the Border (1899)
In the Irish Brigade (1900)
With Cochrane the Dauntless (1900)
Won by the Sword (1900)
At the Point of the Bayonet (1901)
With Roberts to Pretoria (1901)
To Herat and Cabul (1902)
With Kitchener in the Soudan (1902)
With the British Legion (1903, posthumous)
By Conduct and Courage (1904, posthumous)

Publication-date caution: Henty’s books often appeared in annual gift-book seasons before the year printed on their title pages. Bibliographies can therefore differ by a year for the same work. The stable sequence matters more than whether one edition is dated late in one year or early in the next.

Why Historical Order Can Be More Useful Than Publication Order

Henty’s historical novels were designed to place fictional young protagonists inside real historical events. Because the heroes usually change from one book to another, readers can organize the novels according to the periods they depict without damaging continuity.

This makes Henty unusually suitable for chronological reading by historical era. A reader can move from ancient Egypt through Rome, medieval Europe, the Reformation, the English Civil War, the eighteenth century, the Napoleonic period, and finally nineteenth-century imperial conflicts.

Ancient World Henty Books in Historical Order

The Cat of Bubastes, set in ancient Egypt
The Young Carthaginian, set during the age of Hannibal
Beric the Briton, set during the Roman invasion and Boudica’s revolt
For the Temple, set around the fall of Jerusalem

These books do not share protagonists. Their order is historical rather than narrative.

Medieval Henty Adventures in Chronological Sequence

The Dragon and the Raven, age of Alfred the Great
Wulf the Saxon, Norman Conquest
Winning His Spurs, Crusades
In Freedom’s Cause, Wallace and Bruce
St. George for England, Hundred Years’ War
The Lion of St. Mark, fourteenth-century Venice
A March on London, Peasants’ Revolt
Both Sides the Border, Hotspur and Glendower
At Agincourt, early fifteenth century
A Knight of the White Cross, Knights Hospitaller and Rhodes

This chronological route is popular with readers using Henty as supplementary historical fiction because it follows European history forward without pretending the books are sequels.

Reformation and Exploration Era Books

By Pike and Dyke, Dutch Revolt
St. Bartholomew’s Eve, French Wars of Religion
Under Drake’s Flag, Elizabethan seafaring
By England’s Aid, Netherlands campaign
By Right of Conquest, conquest of Mexico

Standalone continuity: shared historical era does not make these a series. Readers can choose any title without missing a recurring hero.

Civil War, Restoration, and Seventeenth-Century Henty

Friends Though Divided, English Civil War
When London Burned, Restoration-era London
The Lion of the North, Thirty Years’ War
Won by the Sword, Thirty Years’ War period

The settings overlap historically, but the protagonists are different. Treat the list as a historical route rather than a series order.

Eighteenth-Century and Revolutionary Henty Books

The Cornet of Horse, Marlborough’s wars
The Bravest of the Brave, Peterborough in Spain
Bonnie Prince Charlie, Jacobite rising
With Clive in India, British expansion in India
With Wolfe in Canada, Seven Years’ War
True to the Old Flag, American Revolution
In the Reign of Terror, French Revolution

This period contains several of Henty’s most frequently reprinted books and is a strong place to begin if eighteenth-century military history is the reader’s main interest.

Napoleonic Era Books in Historical Order

At Aboukir and Acre
With Moore at Corunna
One of the 28th
Through Russian Snows
By Conduct and Courage

Again, these are separate protagonists placed against related historical campaigns. They can be read chronologically without needing any fictional crossover.

India and Central Asia Books

Henty returned repeatedly to British military campaigns and political conflicts in India and neighboring regions.

With Clive in India
In Times of Peril
For Name and Fame
The Tiger of Mysore
Through the Sikh War
At the Point of the Bayonet
To Herat and Cabul

These books cover different conflicts and periods. They are best treated as a historical cluster rather than a continuing fictional series.

American History and Western Adventure Books

With Wolfe in Canada
True to the Old Flag
With Lee in Virginia
Captain Bayley’s Heir
Redskin and Cowboy
In the Heart of the Rockies

The books range from eighteenth-century warfare to the American Civil War and western frontier settings. No single family or hero connects them.

African Campaign and Adventure Books

By Sheer Pluck
The March to Coomassie, nonfiction war correspondence
The Dash for Khartoum
With Kitchener in the Soudan
The Young Colonists
With Buller in Natal
With Roberts to Pretoria

Readers following colonial and African military history can group these together, but the works range across different decades and conflicts.

Henty’s War Correspondence and Nonfiction

Before and during his career as a boys’ adventure novelist, Henty worked as a correspondent and wrote nonfiction based on military campaigns.

The March to Magdala (1868)
The March to Coomassie (1874)
Queen Victoria (1887)
Those Other Animals (1891)

These books should remain outside the historical-fiction chronology when the goal is a novel reading order.

G. A. Henty Story Collections

Henty also published shorter adventure fiction and collections. Commonly listed collections include:

Yarns on the Beach (1886)
The Sovereign Reader (1887)
Tales of Daring and Danger (1890)
A Soldier’s Daughter and Other Stories (1899)

Modern Henty collections may repackage stories from earlier books or periodicals. Recent publication dates should not automatically be interpreted as new material.

Alternate Titles and Edition Traps

Henty’s works have been reprinted for more than a century, and publishers have sometimes shortened or changed titles.

Winning His Spurs is also widely published as The Boy Knight.
Facing Death may appear with the subtitle The Hero of the Vaughan Pit.
By Right of Conquest commonly appears with the subtitle With Cortez in Mexico.
The Bravest of the Brave commonly appears with With Peterborough in Spain in the title.
With Wolfe in Canada may appear with The Winning of a Continent as its subtitle.

These are not extra novels. Compare subtitles and contents before adding a second copy to a completion list.

Why Henty Publication Dates Often Differ by One Year

Henty bibliographies frequently show two dates for the same title. Many books were released in time for the Christmas gift-book market during the year before the date printed on the title page.

For example, a book carrying an 1885 title-page date may have been available in late 1884. Modern sources therefore sometimes disagree about which year to use.

Best rule: preserve the accepted sequence of books and avoid treating a one-year date discrepancy as evidence of another edition or another title.

Should Henty Be Read in Historical Chronology?

Yes, if the reader’s main goal is history. Because almost every novel has a different protagonist, historical chronology works unusually well.

A reader can move from The Cat of Bubastes through The Young Carthaginian, Beric the Briton, medieval adventures, early modern Europe, eighteenth-century wars, Napoleonic campaigns, and finally Victorian-era conflicts without losing fictional continuity.

Publication order remains better for readers studying Henty himself because it shows how his interests, style, and recurring adventure structure developed over time.

A Beginner’s G. A. Henty Reading Route

Readers who want a representative set from several periods can use this sequence:

The Cat of Bubastes
The Dragon and the Raven
In Freedom’s Cause
Under Drake’s Flag
With Clive in India
With Wolfe in Canada
In the Reign of Terror
With Lee in Virginia
The Dash for Khartoum

This is a thematic sampling route, not a series order. Each book can stand alone.

For Readers Using Henty as Historical Supplementary Fiction

Historical chronology is often the most practical method. Select books matching the historical period being studied and read them alongside broader histories of the same era.

Readers should remember that Henty wrote from a late Victorian British perspective. His treatment of empire, race, warfare, and colonial politics reflects attitudes of his period and should not be treated as neutral modern historical scholarship.

The novels are most useful as historical adventure fiction and as evidence of nineteenth-century popular attitudes, not as substitutes for current academic history.

Posthumous G. A. Henty Books

G. A. Henty died in November 1902. Several books prepared from manuscripts already written or nearly completed appeared after his death.

With the British Legion appeared posthumously.
By Conduct and Courage appeared posthumously in 1904.
Later collections and reprints continue to use Henty’s existing stories and novels.

A modern publication date on a Henty book usually describes a new edition, not a newly discovered novel.

Questions About Reading G. A. Henty

What was G. A. Henty’s first book?

A Search for a Secret, published in 1867, is generally listed as Henty’s first novel. His early career also included military reportage such as The March to Magdala.

Do G. A. Henty books need to be read in order?

No. Most Henty novels are standalones with different protagonists and settings. Readers can choose books by historical period without missing a continuing plot.

What is the best Henty book to start with?

There is no single required starting point. The Cat of Bubastes, Under Drake’s Flag, In Freedom’s Cause, With Clive in India, and With Wolfe in Canada are all practical introductions depending on historical interest.

Are Winning His Spurs and The Boy Knight different books?

No. The Boy Knight is an alternate title commonly used for Winning His Spurs.

Can Henty books be read chronologically by history?

Yes. Historical chronology is one of the most useful ways to organize Henty because the novels normally have separate heroes and can therefore be rearranged by period without damaging continuity.

Which Henty book is set in ancient Egypt?

The Cat of Bubastes is Henty’s major ancient Egyptian adventure and is usually placed first in a historical chronology of his fiction.

Which Henty books cover medieval England?

Important medieval titles include The Dragon and the Raven, Wulf the Saxon, Winning His Spurs, In Freedom’s Cause, St. George for England, A March on London, and At Agincourt.

Why do different Henty lists show different publication years?

Many books were released late in the year before the date printed on the title page. Later American and British editions can also create date differences. The sequence of works is usually more reliable than a single year attached to a modern reprint.

The Most Useful G. A. Henty Reading Order

G. A. Henty does not require one fixed series order. Readers interested in the author’s career should use publication order, beginning with A Search for a Secret and moving through the major historical adventures to the books published around and after his death.

Readers interested in history will often get more value from historical chronology. Beginning with The Cat of Bubastes and moving forward through ancient, medieval, early modern, eighteenth-century, Napoleonic, and Victorian settings creates a broad historical journey without disrupting fictional continuity.

The main practical cautions are alternate titles, gift-book publication dates, and modern reprints. Most of Henty’s stories are standalones, so choosing the historical era that interests you is usually the best way to begin.

Frank

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Frank is the editor of BookSeries.blog, focusing on publication order, chronological timelines, and spoiler-free reading guides for book series and fictional universes.

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