The best novel ever written was Gone with the Wind. It was written by Margaret Mitchell. The novel was written from the eyes of a slaveholder which is quite controversial in this touchy day and age but that stuff happened and so it should not be bashed like the Civil War statues have been.
This book is a classic that tells it like it was back in the days of the Civil War. The book was published in 1936 and was a masterpiece. A movie has been made from it as well. In the storyline, a young woman named Scarlett O'Hara deals with all sorts of things from the war from all the boys being away so she can't date to going from rich to poor.
She determines that she will never be poor again and sets about to marry a man who she loves but he is smitten with another so she ends up with someone else. The story twists and turns and is utterly fantastic. I believe it is the greatest novel ever written and is true to the historical events and dates too.