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6,138 public-domain books, summarised. Page 118 of 128.

Cover of A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 2

A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 2

François Guizot

The tides of medieval power shift through this sweeping historical chronicle, revealing how a fractured collection of territories slowly coalesced into the enduring nation of France.

History - European7 min read
Cover of Essays in Experimental Logic

Essays in Experimental Logic

John Dewey

Thinking is not a detached, ethereal power, but a practical tool developed by living organisms to navigate their physical world and resolve the specific problems they encounter.

Philosophy & Ethics6 min read
Cover of Hans Brinker

Hans Brinker

Mary Mapes Dodge

A race across the frozen canals of the Netherlands offers more than a simple victory; it becomes a bridge between a family’s poverty and their long-awaited restoration.

Children & Young Adult Reading6 min read
Cover of Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Michel De Montaigne

Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Michel De Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne

The most human of companions, these reflections explore the vast, messy, and contradictory landscape of the self. They transform the act of thinking into a lifelong conversation, inviting readers to examine their own lives with the same unflinching, gentle curiosity.

Essays, Letters & Speeches5 min read
Cover of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies

John Dickinson

The path to revolution is rarely paved with sudden violence; more often, it begins with the quiet erosion of legal precedent and the slow, deliberate subversion of self-governance.

Essays, Letters & Speeches6 min read
Cover of Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]

Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]

New York State Historical Association. Meeting

The records of a regional historical meeting reveal the meticulous, often overlooked labor required to preserve the vanishing nomenclature and military narratives of colonial New York.

History - American7 min read
Cover of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

The vast, labyrinthine landscape of this classic cycle captures the infinite reach of the human imagination, where a single story unfurls into a dozen more, binding life and death in a web of shifting fortune.

Classics of Literature8 min read
Cover of Three Stories & Ten Poems

Three Stories & Ten Poems

Ernest Hemingway

The prose here is spare, muscular, and unyielding. It captures the ache of growing up and the sudden, brutal collision between youthful innocence and a world that offers no easy explanations.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy

Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy

John Stuart Mill

These foundational essays clarify how nations trade, wealth is distributed, and economic science itself should be studied. They remain a vital bridge between classical theory and modern analytical thought.

Economics6 min read
Cover of Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal

Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal

Harold Edgeworth Butler

The literature of Rome’s Silver Age is a landscape of brilliant, troubled intellects straining against the shadow of their own golden past. This survey navigates the complex tension between technical mastery and the decay of genuine creative spirit in the post-Augustan world.

Essays, Letters & Speeches6 min read
Cover of The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. II

The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. II

Gomes Eannes de Zurara

A journey of ambition and conquest across the African coast, documenting the relentless drive of explorers to expand the known world.

History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)6 min read
Cover of The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Arts: Translated from the German with Notes and Prefatory Essay

The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Arts: Translated from the German with Notes and Prefatory Essay

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Art is a profound, necessary expression of the human spirit, yet for the modern mind, it has become a reflective object of study rather than a primary source of truth. This foundational inquiry explores why humanity creates beauty and how that creation has evolved through history.

Art6 min read
Cover of Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552

Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552

Garrick Mallery

A comprehensive exploration of how gesture transcends spoken language, bridging communication gaps between diverse North American tribes, deaf communities, and the universal human instinct for physical expression.

Archaeology & Anthropology7 min read
Cover of The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen

The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen

Simon Wolf

Patriotism is not a matter of creed, but a testament to shared sacrifice, as demonstrated by the long, often overlooked history of Jewish service in the building of the American nation.

History - American8 min read
Cover of The espalier

The espalier

Sylvia Townsend Warner

The poems in this collection act as an espalier—a formal, disciplined structure trained against the stone wall of tradition to coax wild, living things into a controlled and beautiful shape. These verses explore the tension between the domestic, orderly life of the hearth and the untamed, often indifferent beauty…

Poetry6 min read
Cover of The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey

E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

The struggle for self-definition in an indifferent world remains one of the most haunting inquiries in literature.

British Literature6 min read
Cover of The Master Builder

The Master Builder

Henrik Ibsen

A man who has built his life upon the ruin of others faces the arrival of a girl from his past who demands the impossible. He must choose between the security of his terrestrial success and the vertigo of a final, fatal ascent.

Plays/Films/Dramas6 min read
Cover of The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth

William Shakespeare

Ambition acts as a poisoned chalice, transforming a valiant warrior into a hollow tyrant whose reign is built upon blood and eventually collapses under the weight of his own haunting conscience.

British Literature5 min read
Cover of A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems

A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems

A. B. S. (Alfred Browning Stanley) Tennyson

A collection of verse navigating the borderlands between youthful idealism and the cold, inevitable arrival of age. It captures a fleeting, dreamlike vision of existence where beauty is always shadowed by its own decay.

Poetry6 min read
Cover of Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

Eliza Leslie

This culinary manual serves as a definitive bridge between colonial traditions and the emerging identity of American home cooking. It provides a meticulous, practical guide for managing a nineteenth-century household kitchen.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Lesser Hippias

Lesser Hippias

Benjamin Jowett

Is it better to do wrong on purpose, or to do wrong by mistake? This dialogue interrogates our most basic assumptions about morality, power, and the nature of expertise.

Classics of Literature6 min read
Cover of The American Claimant

The American Claimant

Mark Twain

The American Claimant is a satire of Gilded Age ambition and the collision of Old World aristocracy with New World optimism. It follows the frantic, often absurd attempts of a perpetual dreamer to claim his rightful place as an English earl while navigating the eccentricities of American social life.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Washington Square

Washington Square

Henry James

A young woman’s inheritance becomes the battleground for her father’s icy judgment and her suitor’s mercenary charm, forcing her to choose between filial obedience and the risk of a broken heart.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Amaryllis at the Fair

Amaryllis at the Fair

Richard Jefferies

A portrait of a family adrift in the rural landscape of England, this narrative captures the quiet desperation of domestic life and the fading echoes of a landed past. It is an immersive, unconventional meditation on memory, class, and the slow erosion of an ancestral inheritance.

British Literature6 min read
Cover of Portuguese Architecture

Portuguese Architecture

Walter Crum Watson

HOOK A contemplative guide to the stone monuments of a kingdom, capturing the rugged, often overlooked history etched into the granite of Portugal’s oldest cathedrals and castles.

Architecture6 min read
Cover of The Green Fairy Book

The Green Fairy Book

Unknown

HOOK These tales capture the ancient, rhythmic heartbeat of human wonder, where the impossible is ordinary and the smallest kindness often unlocks the deepest magic.

British Literature6 min read
Cover of The Moon Pool

The Moon Pool

Abraham Merritt

The search for a missing scientist reveals a submerged civilization of eternal light, where a predatory, radiant entity consumes the souls of the living.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies

The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies

Robert Kirk

A seventeenth-century Scottish minister meticulously documents the hidden, parallel society of fairies living among us, blurring the lines between folklore, theology, and the early stirrings of psychical research.

Mythology, Legends & Folklore6 min read
Cover of American Cookery: The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables

American Cookery: The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables

Amelia Simmons

HOOK This foundational culinary guide offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the late eighteenth-century American kitchen, blending practical instruction with the stark social realities of a young nation.

Cooking & Drinking6 min read
Cover of Diary of Samuel Pepys

Diary of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

HOOK A clerk’s hidden record captures the pulse of a nation in turmoil, blending the high stakes of 17th-century restoration politics with the messy, mundane textures of an ordinary life.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of The Book-Collector: A General Survey of the Pursuit and of those who have engaged in it at Home and Abroad from the Earliest Period to the Present Time

The Book-Collector: A General Survey of the Pursuit and of those who have engaged in it at Home and Abroad from the Earliest Period to the Present Time

William Carew Hazlitt

The world of old books is a labyrinth of forgotten treasures, where a single volume found in a dusty shop may rewrite history or turn a pauper into a prince.

How To ...6 min read
Cover of The influence of the stars

The influence of the stars

Rosa Baughan

This compendium serves as a comprehensive manual for the divinatory arts, offering a structured window into how the heavens, the hands, and the human face were once believed to dictate the course of individual destiny.

Mythology, Legends & Folklore6 min read
Cover of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

Edmund Burke

Political life is a volatile, high-stakes theater where the clash of principles and the cold reality of power determine the fate of nations. This collection captures the sharp observations of a master rhetorician navigating the most contentious debates of his age.

British Literature7 min read
Cover of Trees, and Other Poems

Trees, and Other Poems

Joyce Kilmer

A collection of verse rooted in the quiet sanctity of the domestic, the spiritual significance of nature, and the dignity of the common man. These poems bridge the gap between early twentieth-century urban life and a profound, traditional reverence for the divine.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of A Spanish Anthology

A Spanish Anthology

Unknown

This collection of Spanish verse, spanning from the thirteenth century to the late nineteenth, serves as an academic and cultural survey of the lyrical evolution of the Spanish language. It offers an immersive window into the rhythmic, thematic, and linguistic shifts that define the Spanish literary tradition,…

Poetry6 min read
Cover of Chamber Music

Chamber Music

James Joyce

The quiet, rhythmic pulse of youthful devotion gives way to the inevitable dissonance of loss in this delicate sequence of verses. It captures the fleeting, bittersweet nature of intimacy with a musical grace that lingers long after the final page.

British Literature7 min read
Cover of Giant brains

Giant brains

Edmund Callis Berkeley

Mechanical brains are not merely tools; they are powerful, emerging instruments capable of handling information with the speed and skill of a thinking human mind.

Engineering & Technology6 min read
Cover of Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Louisa M. Alcott

Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Louisa M. Alcott

Louisa May Alcott

This collection of works introduces readers to the enduring literary voice of a nineteenth-century American writer, spanning from imaginative fairy tales to the realistic struggles of independent women. It remains a foundational touchstone for its honest portrayal of domestic life, personal growth, and the quiet…

Encyclopedias/Dictionaries/Reference6 min read
Cover of Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901

Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901

Unknown

This record of the 1901 American Library Association meeting captures a profession in transition, balancing the expansion of national library infrastructure with the intimate, often contentious work of selecting books for children.

Reports & Conference Proceedings7 min read
Cover of Prejudices, first series

Prejudices, first series

H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken

The critic’s duty, as defined here, is to cut through the veneer of polite American letters and expose the "swinish" and "inconsequential" realities beneath the reputations of its most famous figures.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Apple of Discord

The Apple of Discord

Earle Ashley Walcott

A young lawyer is thrust into a high-stakes power struggle between warring industrial titans and the volatile, incendiary labor unrest of 1870s San Francisco.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

A tapestry of Eastern storytelling, this collection weaves together the fantastic, the bawdy, and the scholarly to reflect the boundless imagination of a centuries-old oral tradition.

Adventure7 min read
Cover of The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 06 (of 12)

The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 06 (of 12)

William Hazlitt

A combative critic dissects human nature, artistic genius, and political vanity through brilliant essays and sharp studio dialogue. In these pages, intellectual vanity encounters uncompromising scrutiny.

Art12 min read
Cover of The Woman of Mystery

The Woman of Mystery

Maurice Leblanc

A French officer hunts for his kidnapped wife through the war-torn ruins of the First World War, encountering a shadowy, murderous conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the German Empire.

Crime, Thrillers and Mystery6 min read
Cover of An essay on the foundations of geometry

An essay on the foundations of geometry

Bertrand Russell

The quest to reconcile the logical necessity of space with the shifting landscape of non-Euclidean geometry defines this foundational work of rigorous philosophical inquiry. It remains a vital bridge between mathematical exploration and the nature of human knowledge.

Mathematics6 min read
Cover of Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman

Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman

Alexander Walker

An examination of female aesthetics rooted in 19th-century anatomical science, this work attempts to categorize beauty through a rigorous, if rigid, classification of the human form. It seeks to elevate the study of grace from mere subjective preference to an objective system of natural laws.

Gender & Sexuality Studies6 min read
Cover of Fernley House

Fernley House

Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

HOOK In the sun-drenched gardens of an old estate, a group of young people learn that kindness, curiosity, and the courage to act are the greatest treasures of all.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Modern Prose And Poetry

Modern Prose And Poetry

Unknown

This collection serves as a pedagogical window into the early twentieth-century American classroom, gathering diverse voices to cultivate literary appreciation and critical thought in young readers.

Essays, Letters & Speeches6 min read
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