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7,238 public-domain books, summarised. Page 141 of 151.
Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed: (The Harvard Classics Series)
Unknown
This volume gathers three foundational pillars of the English literary and historical consciousness: the sweeping, martial accounts of the Hundred Years’ War, the mystical quest for the Holy Grail, and a vivid, panoramic portrait of Elizabethan domestic life. It is a collection that bridges the divide between the…
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
Izumi Shikibu
A shimmering, ephemeral collection of records, these classical Japanese texts capture the interior lives and refined sensibilities of noblewomen navigating the constraints and aesthetic passions of the Heian-era imperial court.
Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O
Unknown
These collected addresses represent the formal, oratorical culture of the turn of the twentieth century, capturing the wit, gravity, and civic idealism of an era that treated public speaking as a high art.
New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies: Papers by Many Writers
Unknown
This collection of medical papers serves as a curated archive of late 19th-century homeopathic inquiry, gathering diverse reports on both obscure and established botanical, mineral, and animal-based remedies.
Races and Peoples: Lectures on the Science of Ethnography
Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison) Brinton
Ethnography serves as a vital key to history, mapping the complex relationships of human migration, culture, and physical adaptation across the globe.
The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 2 of 2)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A celebrated poet navigates the turbulent currents of mid-nineteenth-century European politics, spiritualism, and motherhood, all while maintaining a vibrant, searching correspondence with the intellectual titans of her age.
The Life of John Taylor: Third President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
B. H. (Brigham Henry) Roberts
A leader’s life is defined by the convictions he holds and the trials he endures. This chronicle traces the path of a man who chose principle over safety in the face of widespread public hostility.
The Standard Cantatas: Their Stories, Their Music, and Their Composers: A Handbook
George P. (George Putnam) Upton
A practical guide for the nineteenth-century concertgoer, this handbook demystifies the complex world of the cantata by tracing the history, narratives, and musical structures of the most significant works of the era.
The Wrecker
Robert Louis Stevenson
HOOK A whirlwind tale of financial ruin, Pacific shipwrecks, and the desperate, morally fraying pursuit of a phantom fortune. It is a sprawling, globe-trotting mystery that tests the limits of friendship and the integrity of a man’s soul.
A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, with a Sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French
Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell
This narrative presents a human-centered portrait of the French Emperor and his consort, tracing their rise from obscurity to the height of European power. It captures the complex interplay between personal character and historical destiny.
Don Carlos: A Play
Friedrich Schiller
A prince trapped between the iron walls of his father’s court and the desperate, forbidden love he harbors for his stepmother struggles to find a path toward freedom and political purpose.
Dramatic Romances
Robert Browning
This collection of verse captures the interior lives of men and women caught at the height of their passions, turning the historical past into a mirror for the human heart. It is a masterful study of human motivation, rendered with a keen ear for the rhythm of thought and the urgency of the moment.
England in the Days of Old
William Andrews
History reveals itself not in grand political maneuvers, but in the intimate, often peculiar habits of daily life that define a nation’s character. These pages offer a vibrant, episodic survey of the customs, superstitions, and social rituals that shaped the English experience across the centuries.
Manners and Rules of Good Society
Anonymous
To move through the world with grace, one must master the intricate, unwritten choreography that governs every social encounter from the dinner table to the throne room. This definitive guide transforms the daunting complexities of Edwardian social life into a structured, reliable map for the aspiring individual.
Ragged Dick, Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A street-smart bootblack navigates the bustling, opportunistic landscape of mid-nineteenth-century New York, proving that a little ambition and an honest heart can transform a vagrant into a gentleman.
The Celestial Omnibus, and Other Stories
E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster
These tales explore the friction between the constraints of mundane, ordered life and the wild, transformative power of the unseen world.
The Great Stone Face, and Other Tales of the White Mountains
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In these haunting tales of the White Mountains, individuals search for truth, greatness, and treasure against the backdrop of an unforgiving, majestic wilderness that reveals the folly of human ambition.
The life, letters and work of Frederic Leighton. Volume II
Barrington, Russell, Mrs.
A life of artistic devotion unfolds in these pages, tracing the journey of a painter who transformed his deep reverence for classical tradition into a singular, enduring career at the heart of the Victorian establishment.
An Iron Will
Orison Swett Marden
Success is rarely a matter of accident or inheritance, but the direct result of a cultivated, indomitable spirit. This work serves as a practical manual for transforming a passive existence into one of iron-willed achievement.
Ancient Rome
Robert F. Pennell
This is a concise, academic survey of Roman history, designed to guide students through the rise of the Republic, the triumph of the Empire, and the eventual decay of the state.
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
Marietta Holley
A sharp-witted American farm wife finds that traveling the globe provides as much opportunity for social commentary as it does for sight-seeing. She navigates foreign landscapes while measuring the world against her own unyielding common sense.
English Verse: Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History
Raymond MacDonald Alden
This collection serves as a practical guide to the mechanics of English poetry, offering a carefully curated selection of verse designed for inductive study. It maps the evolution of rhythmic forms from their earliest origins to the modern era.
History of Human Society
Frank W. (Frank Wilson) Blackmar
Humanity’s trajectory is a vast, interconnected narrative of struggle, invention, and social refinement. This text traces the long, uneven ascent from primitive survival to the complex, interdependent global society of the modern era.
Kai Lung's Golden Hours
Ernest Bramah
A wandering storyteller must trade his most imaginative tales for his own life, navigating the treacherous politics and rigid bureaucracy of a high official’s court. This collection of linked fables balances wit with profound, quiet stakes.
Renascence, and Other Poems
Edna St. Vincent Millay
This collection of poetry captures the sudden, sharp ache of existence—the dizzying realization of infinity and the quiet, heavy persistence of grief. It is a portrait of a heart trying to reconcile the vastness of the universe with the small, singular loss of a loved one.
The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 05 (of 12)
William Hazlitt
The written word is a living companion, transforming solitary hours into a vibrant, crowded conversation with the greatest minds of the past. To read is to walk through history, shaking hands with ghosts who speak as clearly as friends.
The Humorous Poetry of the English Language
Unknown
A spirited anthology of wit, this collection gathers centuries of verse that mocks, pricks, and plays, proving that a sharp mind and a nimble rhyme are the surest antidotes to a dull day.
Four Hundred Humorous Illustrations: With Portrait and Biographical Sketch
Unknown
A young artist’s extraordinary talent for observation transforms the landscape of Victorian caricature, eventually capturing the spirit of a nation before his own intense sensitivity to the world leads to a premature end.
His Family
Ernest Poole
HOOK A man grapples with the fading remnants of his old world as his daughters forge their own independent, modern paths in a rapidly changing, industrial New York.
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
A Roman general stands at the threshold of absolute power, forcing his closest allies to decide if the survival of their republic is worth the cold-blooded murder of a friend.
Modern Painters, Volume 2 (of 5)
John Ruskin
To perceive the beauty of the world is not merely a sensory experience, but a profound moral act that requires us to strip away our cynicism and see with the clarity of a child.
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf
Literature is not a fixed museum of rules, but a living pursuit of the human spirit. To read this essay is to stand on a crowded platform, watching the tools of one generation clash against the vision of the next.
The Hairy Ape
Eugene O'Neill
A brutal, existential collision between the iron-willed laborer and a world that sees him only as a beast. This is a journey into the dark heart of industrial isolation.
The Human Side of Animals
Royal Dixon
Animals are not merely instinct-driven organisms, but complex beings possessing social structures, artistic sensibilities, and moral lives that mirror our own. This volume serves as an earnest, observational study of the "human" characteristics ingrained within the animal kingdom.
A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878
Charles Alan Fyffe
The sweep of nineteenth-century European history unfolds as a relentless collision between the fading structures of absolute monarchy and the rising, volatile forces of national identity and constitutional reform.
Field and Forest
Oliver Optic
The American frontier is a place of hard labor, hidden dangers, and the potential for a young man’s moral and intellectual growth. Through the eyes of a self-taught, industrious youth, the vast Missouri wilderness becomes a classroom for character, faith, and the complexities of human relationships.
Routledge's Manual of Etiquette
George Routledge
Refinement in social conduct acts as a quiet architecture for civilized life, transforming individual interactions into a harmonious and predictable whole. This guide serves as a foundational manual for navigating the complexities of nineteenth-century society.
The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories
Grant Allen
The macabre and the mundane collide in these Victorian tales, where quiet English drawing rooms and remote tropical shores alike harbor dark, irreparable secrets. This collection of short stories masterfully explores the fragility of human composure when confronted by sudden, irrevocable catastrophe.
The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion)
Unknown
The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry chronicles the formative years, rigorous training, and harrowing combat service of a battalion composed of volunteers from Glasgow’s business community. This record transforms the raw chronology of a regiment into a testament of civic duty, endurance, and profound collective…
The Story of Mary MacLane
Mary MacLane
This is the raw, unvarnished diary of a nineteen-year-old girl in Butte, Montana, who declares herself a misunderstood genius and a companion to the Devil. It is a startling, honest, and abrasive exploration of profound adolescent alienation.
Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets
John Evelyn
The garden provides a wealth of medicinal and culinary virtue, yet modern appetites often obscure the simple, restorative power of the raw, green earth. This treatise elevates the humble salad into a philosophy of health and temperate living.
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A haunted mariner, a sinister guest, and a vision of a pleasure-dome reveal the restless, transformative power of the imagination. These verses capture the fleeting brilliance of a mind caught between ethereal beauty and dark, heavy isolation.
Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition
Edward Hutton
The Italian landscape is a storied tapestry, woven from the ruins of ancient empires, the spiritual fervor of the Middle Ages, and the artistic triumphs of the Renaissance.
Historic Homes, Fort Dodge, Iowa
Karl F. Haugen
The history of a community is built, brick by brick and beam by beam, into the dwellings where its citizens live, work, and dream. This record preserves the architectural and social heritage of Fort Dodge, Iowa, through the stories of its most enduring homes.
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12)
G. (Gaston) Maspero
The cradle of civilization emerges here as a landscape of shifting rivers, divine hierarchies, and the persistent, human struggle to organize the chaos of existence into enduring history.
Little Visits with Great Americans, Vol. 2 (of 2): Or Success, Ideals and How to Attain Them
Unknown
This collection serves as a Victorian-era manual on the nature of ambition, framing the lives of prominent individuals as blueprints for personal and professional achievement. It documents the transition from early struggle to public influence through firsthand accounts and biographical sketches.
Medieval People
Eileen Power
History is rarely a collection of dry dates and distant battles; it is a tapestry woven from the daily lives, labor, and small joys of ordinary people.
Responsibilities, and other poems
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
In the wake of a changing Ireland, a poet confronts the weight of his own legacy, finding that the heavy cloak of tradition must be discarded for the clarity of a naked, singular voice.