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7,238 public-domain books, summarised. Page 139 of 151.

Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 1: Essays on the Science of Religion
F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller
The study of the divine is a journey into our shared past, revealing how disparate cultures have long reached for the same infinite truths through the unique, ancient languages of their own traditions.

Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers
John Guille Millais
A relentless explorer of the African veldt, a celebrated hunter, and an aging soldier, this narrative captures the singular, adventurous spirit of a man defined by the wild.

Memorials of old Derbyshire
Unknown
This expansive collection of essays invites readers into the deep, often shadowed history of an English county, where prehistoric stone circles and medieval monuments still speak to the persistence of the past.

Rolling Stones
O. Henry
A collection of stories and sketches that captures the restless spirit of a life lived on the move, these pieces offer a sharp, humorous, and sometimes melancholic window into the American frontier and beyond.

Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero
W. Warde (William Warde) Fowler
This exploration of Roman life invites readers to step behind the marble facades of history and into the bustling, flawed, and profoundly human world of the late Republic. It turns a scholarly gaze upon the daily reality of a civilization at a crossroads.

The Birth of the War-God: A Poem by Kálidása
Kālidāsa
A celestial epic of longing and transformation, this verse narrative follows a mountain princess’s quest to win the heart of a detached, mourning deity to save the heavens from ruin. It is a work of lush, sensory beauty, grounding its mythic stakes in the intimate rhythms of the natural world.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style
Walter Pater
This collection of essays offers a masterclass in literary discernment, guiding the reader through the architecture of language and the intimate, often melancholic lives of the writers who shaped the English canon.

History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 2 of 2)
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
The transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages is not merely a change of maps, but a profound transformation of the human soul. This inquiry traces how a new religious ideal reshaped the moral boundaries of Europe.

History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas: Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII
Philip Ainsworth Means
This scholarly assembly of historical documents chronicles the long, fragmented struggle to incorporate the independent Itza people of the Petén region into the colonial framework of Spanish Yucatán.

King Henry V
William Shakespeare
A young king balances the weight of his crown against the chaos of war, seeking to claim a foreign throne while proving his worth to his own people.

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Third Series
Emily Dickinson
HOOK This collection gathers the private, searching verses of a singular mind, exploring the heavy borders between the daily world and the infinite.

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1
United States. Work Projects Administration
This collection of firsthand accounts preserves the fading memories of formerly enslaved people in Georgia, offering an unvarnished, human-scale record of life under a system of bondage.

The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume—1895-1899)
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
A profound, restless record of a mind attempting to strip away the illusions of the self and the state, this volume captures a titan of literature grappling with the absolute demands of his own conscience.

The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2: The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise
Alfred Russel Wallace
A naturalist’s meticulous, years-long exploration of the Malay Archipelago captures the profound wonder of discovery and the complex, shifting beauty of a world before modern industry took hold.

The Trembling of a Leaf: Little Stories of the South Sea Islands
W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham
The Pacific holds a mirror to the human soul, revealing a place where the line between absolute bliss and utter despair is as thin as a trembling leaf. These stories explore the lives of those drawn to the South Seas—and the irrevocable ways the islands change them.

Three generations
Maud Howe Elliott
This memoir serves as a sprawling, intimate tapestry of late nineteenth-century cultural life, weaving together the personal growth of the author with the lives of the prominent figures who populated her world.

U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1963 July - December
Library of Congress. Copyright Office
This register serves as a formal, bureaucratic map of American intellectual property in the mid-1930s, documenting the legal extension of literary and technical works into a second term of protection.

A Handbook of Modern Japan
Ernest W. (Ernest Wilson) Clement
A panoramic survey of a nation in rapid transition, this work captures the spirit of early twentieth-century Japan as it pivots from feudal isolation toward a modern, globalized future.

A History of the Four Georges, Volume I
Justin McCarthy
This sweeping historical narrative chronicles the transition of the British crown and the evolution of parliamentary power during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It offers an intimate look at the figures who shaped a nation, from the corridors of St. James’s to the shifting landscapes of the Highlands.

Leo Tolstoy
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A profound exploration of the Russian giant whose literary genius is matched only by his radical, often startling, shift toward an uncompromising and absolute moral philosophy.

My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
A woman of singular will charts her path from the quiet shadows of a convent to the glittering, often tempestuous center of the global stage.

Old English libraries
Ernest Albert Savage
This study illuminates the vanished world of medieval English book culture, tracing how manuscripts were written, collected, and circulated long before the age of the printing press.

The Campaner Thal, and Other Writings
Jean Paul
This collection presents the singular, digressive, and deeply meditative world of a nineteenth-century master who treats the human soul as a landscape of both comedy and sublime terror.

"The Kingdom of God Is Within You": Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
A radical call to conscience, this text argues that the true essence of Christianity is incompatible with the violence of modern states. It demands a personal awakening to the simple, often ignored, teachings of non-resistance.

The Marble Faun
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The ancient shadows of Rome provide the backdrop for an inquiry into the nature of innocence and the heavy, irreversible transformation that follows a single act of violence.

The Optimist's Good Morning
Unknown
The day begins with a quiet, deliberate pause. This collection of daily devotions offers a steadying rhythm for those seeking to ground their mornings in reflection, gratitude, and purpose.

The Practice of Autosuggestion
C. Harry (Cyrus Harry) Brooks
A systematic guide to the practice of mental suggestion, this work outlines a technique for self-improvement and healing that emphasizes the power of the imagination over the conscious will. It documents a method based on the belief that simple, repetitive thoughts can influence the unconscious mind to restore…

Urbain Grandier: Celebrated Crimes
Alexandre Dumas
A handsome, defiant priest finds himself trapped in a web of manufactured hysteria, where his personal pride becomes the weapon used to lead him to the stake.

A Short History of Italy (476-1900)
Henry Dwight Sedgwick
This sweeping narrative traces the complex evolution of the Italian peninsula, from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West to the dawn of the twentieth century. It offers a clear, structured guide through the centuries of fragmentation, cultural triumph, and political rebirth that define the Italian experience.

Aunt Rachel: A Rustic Sentimental Comedy
David Christie Murray
A long-severed love affair between two aging villagers finds an unlikely second act, woven into the romantic courtship of their younger relatives in a quiet, music-filled English hamlet.

First Lensman
E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith
HOOK The Galactic Patrol fights for the survival of civilization against an unseen, malevolent enemy, armed only with the mysterious, psychic power of the Lens.

Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3
François Rabelais
A giant prince and his irrepressible friend embark on an intellectual quest to determine if a man should marry, navigating a world of chaotic debate, strange omens, and endless, learned absurdity.

Mike and Psmith
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
A disgraced schoolboy and a dandy with an eyeglass navigate the absurd, rigid hierarchies of an English boarding school. Their unlikely friendship turns the tide of the school’s cricket fortunes and its social order.

Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas: A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work
W. J. (William James) Henderson
This biographical study navigates the turbulent life and monumental artistic evolution of a nineteenth-century composer, offering a clear, expository guide to the complex narrative and musical architecture of his greatest stage works.

The American Nations, Vol. I
C. S. (Constantine Samuel) Rafinesque
An expansive, controversial effort to chart the origins and history of the American continents through linguistics, archaeology, and comparative mythology. This work challenges long-held colonial assumptions by asserting that the Americas were never an empty wilderness, but a cradle of ancient, complex civilizations.

The Brothers Dalziel: A Record of Fifty Years Work in Conjunction with many of the Most Distinguished Artists of the Period 1840-1890
George Dalziel
The brothers Dalziel were the master engravers of Victorian London, turning the sketches of giants into the printed soul of an era. This is their own record of the people and the craft that shaped a visual century.

Woman in Science: With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind
J. A. (John Augustine) Zahm
A sweeping historical reclamation, this work unearths the forgotten contributions of women to the sciences, challenging the long-held dogma of their intellectual inferiority across three millennia.

Artillery Through the Ages: A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America
Albert C. Manucy
HOOK This illustrated study traces the evolution of cannon from early bombards to the sophisticated rifled artillery that transformed the American battlefield.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844
Various
What are the enduring echoes of a century past? This collection captures the vibrant, sprawling intellect of the Victorian era through the diverse voices of its most influential monthly magazine.

Charles Dickens and Music
James T. (James Thomas) Lightwood
The musical landscape of Victorian England comes alive through the eyes of its most famous novelist, revealing how songs, instruments, and melodies were woven into the daily lives of his iconic characters.

Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 2 (of 2)
A. C. Wootton
The history of medicine is a graveyard of peculiar ideas, where ancient superstitions and modern chemistry collide in the apothecary’s shop. This volume serves as a meticulous map of that strange territory, cataloging the evolution of the pharmacy from the bizarre to the scientific.

Dope
Sax Rohmer
This mystery novel plunges into the shadows of post-WWI London, where the gilded salons of the West End collide with the hidden, illicit opium dens of Limehouse.

Max Havelaar
Multatuli
HOOK A blistering indictment of colonial exploitation masquerading as a novel, this work dismantles the self-satisfied morality of the Dutch empire through the lens of a disgraced official’s desperate, doomed crusade for justice in Java.

Memoirs of the Comtesse Du Barry: With Minute Details of Her Entire Career as Favorite of Louis XV
Lamothe-Langon, Etienne-Léon, baron de
The life of a royal favorite is a precarious climb, and this narrative captures the dizzying heights of Versailles before the inevitable, crushing fall. It offers a window into a world where power is measured in proximity to a king’s favor and every gesture is a calculated move in a high-stakes game of survival.

My past and thoughts, vol. 1 (of 6)
Aleksandr Herzen
This sprawling memoir captures the birth of a revolutionary consciousness, charting the passage from a stifling aristocratic childhood in Moscow to the cold reality of exile under the watchful eye of a paranoid tsar.
Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
Jean F. (Jean Finlay) Terry
Northumberland is a land of Roman ruins, medieval fortresses, and industrial rivers, where history is written in stone and song. This guidebook captures the essence of the northern county, tracing its evolution from ancient battleground to modern hub.

Original Short Stories, Complete, Volumes 1-13: An Index to All Stories
Guy de Maupassant
These stories map the hidden landscapes of the human heart with cold precision and startling empathy. They offer an unmatched panorama of French life during the late nineteenth century.

Tarzan the Untamed
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Driven by the false belief that his wife has been murdered, Tarzan wages a solitary, vengeful war against German forces in Africa until a shocking discovery changes everything.