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6,138 public-domain books, summarised. Page 110 of 128.
Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to Canton
Barrow, John, Sir
Few Westerners in the nineteenth century ever gained a glimpse behind the Great Wall, but this record captures the rare, firsthand experience of a British diplomatic mission arriving at the height of the Qing Dynasty.
Poems by William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant
In these quiet, stately verses, the vast American landscape meets the ancient, inescapable truths of mortality and the passage of time. The poems serve as a meditative bridge between the wild, untamed frontier and the reflective spirit of the nineteenth century.
Proposed Roads to Freedom
Bertrand Russell
The modern struggle for a just society remains a work in progress, shaped by the tension between individual liberty and collective authority. This inquiry explores how we might transcend the cruel chaos of our current world.
The Blithedale Romance
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A group of idealists retreats to a farm to reinvent society, only to find that human nature—jealousy, ambition, and hidden pasts—proves stronger than their utopian blueprints. This meditation on the failure of high-minded schemes remains a haunting portrait of how personal obsession can dismantle collective hope.
The Defendant
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
The world is often misjudged because we mistake the familiar for the bad, dismissing the gold of our own existence as mere dust. This collection invites us to reclaim the wonder hidden in plain sight.
Art
Clive Bell
Art is the creation of "significant form," a quality that triggers an aesthetic emotion distinct from all other human experiences. This book serves as a foundational manifesto for modernism, stripping away historical sentiment to focus on the essential, structural reality of the work itself.
History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814
M. (François-Auguste-Marie-Alexis) Mignet
This concise history charts the tumultuous quarter-century of the French Revolution, analyzing the collapse of the Old Regime, the rise of radical democracy, and the ultimate emergence of imperial authority.
The revenge of Florida Jack
Ernest Haycox
The story follows the calculated, murderous spite of a dismissed, drifting sheepherder who attempts to orchestrate a deadly feud between his former employer and a local mountaineer. It is a stark, rapid-fire Western that interrogates the volatile intersection of pride, isolation, and reputation in the frontier.
The Tower of Oblivion
Oliver Onions
A man begins to shed his adult life, regressing through time toward a long-lost youth. This haunting narrative explores the terrifying, beautiful erosion of identity as the past physically reclaims the present.
The World's Best Books
Frank Parsons
A guide to the world's best books, offering a curated journey through literature's greatest works.
Alchemy: Ancient and Modern: Being a Brief Account of the Alchemistic Doctrines, and Their Relations, to Mysticism on the One Hand, and to Recent Discoveries in Physical Science on the Other Hand
H. Stanley (Herbert Stanley) Redgrove
Alchemy: Ancient and Modern offers a measured, scholarly examination of the historical alchemists, tracing how their mystical pursuits eventually intersected with the emerging scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.
History of Phoenicia
George Rawlinson
Uncover the ancient world of Phoenicia, a civilization of remarkable mariners, traders, and cultural pioneers.
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon
The Roman Empire’s slow dissolution is not a sudden collapse, but a centuries-long transformation shaped by the weight of its own history, the rise of new faiths, and the relentless pressure of migration. It remains the definitive, panoramic account of how an ancient superpower frayed at the edges until it simply…
The Son of Tarzan
Edgar Rice Burroughs
The son of the legendary jungle lord finds his own path in the wild, navigating a perilous world of desperate criminals and savage beasts to protect the girl who has become his entire world.
A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Georges Perrot
This expansive study meticulously reconstructs the origins and development of Egyptian creative expression. It treats the civilization’s architecture and sculpture as an organic, unfolding history rather than a static collection of relics.
The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer
Various
This collection captures the Victorian obsession with the past, serving as a time capsule for nineteenth-century scholars who found deep, almost spiritual significance in the weathered stones and faded parchments of Great Britain.
A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament
William Greenfield
A rigorous reference tool, this volume bridges the distance between modern English and the ancient Greek of the New Testament, serving as both a linguistic anchor and a scholarly map for theological study.
Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
HOOK A profound voice of the nineteenth century navigates the perilous passage from bondage to freedom and, later, demands that a fractured nation secure true equality through the transformative power of the ballot.
Four Plays of Aeschylus
Aeschylus
The ancient works collected here reveal the foundational power of Greek tragedy, where gods, kings, and outcasts collide in a cosmic struggle between fate and the human will.
How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day
Ethel R. (Ethel Rose) Peyser
This guide invites readers of all ages to trace the evolution of musical expression from primitive rhythmic impulses to the complex experiments of the twentieth century. It serves as a narrative map for those seeking to understand the historical struggle of music against the constraints of politics, religion, and…
International Short Stories: French
Unknown
This collection offers a vivid, kaleidoscopic tour through the French imagination, capturing the grandeur of historical sacrifice and the quiet, crushing weight of private human longing.
Opportunities in Aviation
Arthur Sweetser
This accessible handbook serves as an early, optimistic manual for the burgeoning field of aviation, written at the dawn of the commercial era. It offers a practical perspective on the transition of flight from a destructive weapon of war into a transformative tool for global peace and commerce.
Strength and How to Obtain It
Eugen Sandow
Vitality and strength are not merely inherited traits, but attainable results that follow from a disciplined, mind-centered approach to physical culture.
Superstition in all ages
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
A relentless critique of religious dogma, this work presents the radical confession of a rural priest who spent his life in quiet service while secretly documenting his total rejection of faith. It serves as a foundational text for Enlightenment-era atheism.
The Antiquary
Walter Scott
This intricate portrait of a Scottish coastal community captures the tension between fading feudal traditions and the relentless, often unromantic, march of modern life. It remains a foundational work of historical realism, celebrated for its sharp wit and deeply human characters.
The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer: With an Introductory History of Roads and Travelling in Great Britain
Samuel Smiles
A master builder’s rise from a humble mason to the "Colossus of Roads," this biography charts the transformation of Britain’s rugged, isolated landscape into a connected, modern nation through the power of civil engineering.
The Poison Belt
Arthur Conan Doyle
As the earth drifts into a lethal belt of cosmic ether, four survivors barricaded in a room must confront the extinction of humanity and the terrifying fragility of life.
William Blake: A Critical Essay
Algernon Charles Swinburne
This critical study navigates the visionary landscape of a misunderstood genius, arguing that his radical imagination offers a profound liberation from the rigid moralism and material constraints of his era.
From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People
Sven Anders Hedin
The world is vast, and the spirit of discovery is its greatest mapmaker. This collection of journeys traverses the globe to reveal the strange, the majestic, and the enduring heart of human civilization.
Greenmantle
John Buchan
A soldier-spy and his comrades must navigate the treacherous heart of the Ottoman Empire to thwart a fanatical conspiracy that threatens to ignite the East during the Great War.
King Henry V: Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre
William Shakespeare
A young king stakes his nation's future on a desperate invasion of France, transforming from a wild, reckless youth into a resolute commander beneath the weight of an imperial crown.
Lincoln's yarns and stories
Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly) McClure
The wisdom of a president is often measured by his words, but for this leader, it was found in the laughter he cultivated. Through droll stories and plain-spoken humor, he navigated a nation through its deepest divide.
Minnie's Pet Lamb
Madeline Leslie
A gentle exploration of rural life and natural history, this story follows a young girl’s expanding affection for a lamb and the lessons in responsibility, empathy, and observation that follow.
The corset and the crinoline
William Barry Lord
The quest for the ideal silhouette has spanned millennia, prompting both fervent devotion and fierce debate. This exploration of historical dress examines the enduring, controversial legacy of the corset and the crinoline.
The Monastery
Walter Scott
The struggle for the soul of 16th-century Scotland plays out in the shadow of a crumbling monastery, where ancient traditions collide with the rising tide of the Reformation.
The Story of Chautauqua
Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
The Chautauqua Institution began as a summer experiment in teacher training and evolved into a national movement for lifelong learning, fundamentally reshaping the landscape of American adult education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Winning of the West, Volume 2: From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783
Theodore Roosevelt
In the shadow of the American Revolution, a restless tide of settlers pushes past the Appalachian Mountains, carving a new nation out of a wilderness defined by peril, persistence, and the clash of civilizations. This is the story of how a rugged, self-reliant people secured the American heartland through a brutal…
Wanderings in Wessex: An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter
Edric Holmes
This immersive travelogue invites the reader to traverse the historic, rolling landscapes of Wessex, bridging the distance between the River Itchen and the distant Otter with a keen eye for architectural detail and folklore.
The Essence of Christianity: Translated from the second German edition
Ludwig Feuerbach
The divine is a mirror reflecting the human spirit, where all that is attributed to the heavens is, in truth, an alienated aspect of our own nature. Through this lens, the sacred becomes the deeply familiar.
1000 Things Worth Knowing
Nathaniel C. (Nathaniel Clark) Fowler
An essential compendium of everyday knowledge, this guide offers a practical, unadorned survey of facts, figures, and rudimentary instructions for the curious reader of the early twentieth century.
Elementary cryptanalysis
Helen Fouché Gaines
A masterclass in the mechanics of secrecy, this guide reveals the hidden structures behind scrambled messages. It transforms the intimidating art of code-breaking into a logical, accessible, and deeply satisfying puzzle.
Marcel Proust, an English Tribute
Unknown
This collection gathers the voices of twenty-one prominent English-language writers and critics to assess the monumental achievement of a French novelist whose work reshaped the modern consciousness. It serves as an early, profound effort to map the vast, labyrinthine terrain of a literary giant.
Mysteries of the Rosie Cross
Anonymous
The shadows of antiquity hide a secret order, leaving only fragments of their strange, alchemical dreams for the curious to piece together. An exploration of the enigmatic Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross navigates the blurred lines between historical record, literary invention, and occult philosophy.
Plays: the Father
August Strindberg
This collection of plays captures the volatile intersection of intellect, gender, and domestic power, exposing the hidden fractures in human relationships. It is a work of unrelenting psychological intensity, where characters dismantle each other’s realities with the precision of a scalpel.
The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce
William Denison Lyman
This sweeping historical and geographical survey captures the evolution of the Pacific Northwest through the lifeblood of its greatest waterway. It blends rugged exploration, indigenous folklore, and the rapid transformation of the frontier into a cohesive portrait of a region.
Things To Make
Archibald Williams
Whether you want to build a sturdy ladder or a steam-powered engine, this manual invites you to master the material world with nothing but a few hand tools and a resourceful spirit. It serves as a practical bridge between simple play and the mechanical ingenuity of the early twentieth century.
French Conversation and Composition
Harry Vincent Wann
This guide provides a structured bridge between elementary grammar and the fluid, unpredictable nature of spontaneous French conversation.
Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, Volume 1 (of 4)
Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole chronicles the early, turbulent years of King George III’s reign, capturing a volatile era defined by palace intrigue, shifting ministerial alliances, and the relentless pressure of public opinion.