There have been a number of such works. Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker takes a somewhat poetic approach to the idea. And restraining oneself to an Einsteinian universe where nothing exceeds C was a hallmark of "hard-sci-fi" although even Arthur C. Clarke fudged and went for hyperspace when the plot was otherwise going to drag for a few millennia.

For a more recent take on the topic check out Karl Schroeder's Permanence [1] which is a damn fine read and doesn't run the hyperspace cheat and is all the more operatic for that.

1. http://amzn.to/1LYhwwm