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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 145 of 988.
The Bible Story
Newton Marshall Hall
A multi-volume guide to the scriptures pairs dramatic narrative retellings with historical background, classic poetry, and famous fine art.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A young woman weaves a tapestry of endless night-time stories to stay the hand of a monarch intent on execution, saving a kingdom through the enchantment of narrative.
The Holy War, Made by King Shaddai Upon Diabolus, for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World
John Bunyan
A soul falls to treason, endures a siege, and learns that its hardest battles begin after the hero wins.
The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development
Levi L. (Levi Leonard) Conant
An exhaustive cross-cultural survey demonstrates that human counting is not an innate mathematical abstraction, but an organic creation carved from physical gestures, language, and everyday survival.
The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell
Thomas Campbell
In a world driven by mechanical progress and sudden political upheaval, these verses pause to examine the quiet price paid by soldiers, exiles, and lovers on the margins of history.
The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2 (of 10): Poetry - Volume 2
Alexander Pope
Poetry can instruct the intellect even as it delights the imagination, proving that precision of thought and elegance of expression belong together.
Byeways in Palestine
James Finn
A long-time British official in Jerusalem leaves the beaten paths to record the quiet, forgotten landscapes of mid-nineteenth-century Palestine.
Joan of Arc
Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Lord
Faith in a heavenly calling transforms an obscure peasant girl into the military savior of France, driving her from rural fields to royal courts and bloody battlefields before leading to her betrayal, trial, and ultimate martyrdom.
Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette
Victor Hugo
An escaped ex-convict hazards his newly bought freedom to rescue a neglected child and shepherd her through the shadowy corners of a changing Paris.
More Letters of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
A vast epistolary archive reveals how world-changing scientific ideas are forged through rigorous empirical debate, meticulous observation, and deep personal alliances across decades of ceaseless inquiry.
The Art of Writing & Speaking the English Language: Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric
Sherwin Cody
Mastering clear expression is less about innate genius and more about disciplined observation, deliberate imitation, and an unyielding commitment to practical mechanics.
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England
Moncure Daniel Conway
Driven by a determination to rescue Thomas Paine from centuries of partisan libel, Moncure Daniel Conway delivers an exhaustive, sympathetic biography that details the philosopher's crucial role in shaping modern democratic revolutions.
The Turkish Bath, Its Design and Construction
Robert Owen Allsop
A thermal sanctuary's success hinges entirely on the invisible physics of its walls and flues.
A British Rifle Man: The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo
George Simmons
A green-jacketed officer endured years of grueling march and shot in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, sending home vivid journals and devoted letters that balance the brutal reality of battle with tender family care.
A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition)
Calvin Cutter
The human body operates under natural laws that demand understanding, care, and daily discipline to preserve health and prevent physical decay.
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law
Roscoe Pound
Law must remain stable to safeguard society, yet it must continuously adapt to human needs. Balancing these competing demands requires a clear philosophy of how justice actually operates.
Days of Heaven Upon Earth
A. B. (Albert B.) Simpson
Daily spiritual practice offers a year-long path away from human effort and into the quiet, transformative presence of an indwelling Christ.
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Artemus Ward
A traveling showman wanders across a young, chaotic America, offering sharp-eyed observations dressed in deliberate misspellings, deadpan absurdities, and an unyielding refusal to take anyone’s solemnity at face value.
The Insect World: Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects
Louis Figuier
Small six-legged creatures construct towering fortresses, launch elaborate strategic warfare, and organize highly sophisticated societies entirely beneath human notice.
The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity
Julius Rosenbaum
A deep historical inquiry into classical antiquity reveals how ancient societies understood, experienced, and attempted to manage venereal afflictions through medical, cultural, and environmental frameworks.
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.)
Unknown
A rustic farmhand dodges domestic chores for a afternoon by the river, while an urban household unravels over a dinner dispute with a newly hired maid.
The Woman in Black
E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
A ruthless American tycoon dies by a bullet in an English garden, leaving behind a brilliant puzzle that shatters every tidy assumption a clever investigator tries to make about human behavior.
A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century
Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers
Long before nineteenth-century poets claimed the wilderness as their temple, eighteenth-century scholars, satirists, and literary fakers were quietly dismantling the strict, formal rules of classicism to build the foundation of English Romanticism.
Carpentry for Boys: In a Simple Language, Including Chapters on Drawing, Laying Out Work, Designing and Architecture With 250 Original Illustrations
James Slough Zerbe
A clear-eyed 1914 instruction manual transforms raw timber and sharp steel into a complete curriculum for body, mind, and character.
Death comes for the archbishop
Willa Cather
A refined French priest rides into the vast, sun-baked wilderness of the American Southwest to build a diocese, forging a quiet legacy of faith and friendship against a backdrop of ancient cultures.
History of the Scottish Regiments in the British Army
Archibald K. Murray
From the early mercenary bands serving European crowns to the mid-nineteenth-century lines in the Crimea and India, Scotsmen built a formidable military legacy. Major Archibald K. Murray traces this long martial lineage across two dozen regiment histories.
Pen Drawing: An Illustrated Treatise
Charles Donagh Maginnis
A skilled stroke can turn simple black ink on white paper into light, texture, and physical depth.
The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
James Justinian Morier
A penniless barber's son navigates nineteenth-century Persia through sheer opportunism, shifting seamlessly between victim and rogue across a lifetime of bizarre misadventures.
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
A quietly lethal collection exposes the polite cruelties of high society, tracing how money, ego, and intellectual posturing dismantle human relationships.
The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art
Various
An obscure Victorian periodical becomes a battleground for young artists rebelling against academic tradition and demanding an uncompromising, soulful return to nature.
The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne
William Makepeace Thackeray
A proud, orphaned boy grows up in a great house, yields his birthright to shield his family, serves Queen Anne on European battlefields, and pursues a dazzling, unreachable woman until age and exile reveal where true devotion lies.
The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti: With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern
Charles William Russell
A poor carpenter's son in Bologna eavesdrops on a neighborhood Latin school through an open window and discovers a prodigy’s ear. He grows up to master dozens of world languages without ever setting foot outside Italy.
The Little Lame Prince
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
A abandoned royal child rides an enchanted cloak through the skies, discovering that his fragile limbs cannot restrict the vast, transformative power of a generous heart.
What Maisie Knew
Henry James
A young girl becomes a human shuttlecock in the bitter court battles of her self-absorbed, divorcing parents, gradually developing a sharp, quiet awareness of the adult corruption surrounding her.
Heortology
K. A. Heinrich (Karl Adam Heinrich) Kellner
An indispensable record of liturgical evolution, tracing how scattered local devotions transformed into a synchronized global calendar.
Is Shakespeare Dead?: From My Autobiography
Mark Twain
A skeptical, funny, and deeply personal attack on the literary establishment asks how a man who left no books or letters could possibly have written the greatest plays in the English language.
Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History
Auguste Sabatier
Humanity finds itself trapped in a tragic internal conflict between the strict determinism of modern science and the moral freedom demanded by conscience. Deliverance comes neither through sheer intellect nor blind authority, but through a vital, historically grounded faith.
Pedagogical Anthropology
Maria Montessori
To build a better society, we must look beyond abstract theories of education and ground our schools in the biological reality of the developing child.
Sex: Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English
Henry Stanton
Breaking the silence surrounding human reproduction, this earnest guide frames sexual education as a vital necessity for personal health, moral stability, and social harmony.
Sixes and Sevens
O. Henry
A roving minstrel shoots his host’s rival, a cowboy mistakes a rat for his girl, and a Broadway rogue steals a Southern major’s identity.
The Black Monk, and Other Stories
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
A scholar’s fatal hallucination, an exhausted nursemaid’s dark impulse, and a doctor trapped in his own asylum showcase human vulnerability at its absolute threshold.
The pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria
of Alexandria Hero
An ancient treatise opens a window into an era where steam, air pressure, and water were harnessed to create wondrous mechanical marvels and automated temple illusions.
The Principles of Chemistry, Volume II
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev
A monumental nineteenth-century journey through the architectural order of matter, mapping the chemical elements by atomic weight and unmasking the hidden laws governing the universe.
The Standard Operaglass: Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas
Charles Annesley
Behind every curtain rests a world built on passion, deception, and fateful choices, waiting for a guide to unlock its secrets.
The Wolves of God, and Other Fey Stories
Algernon Blackwood
A man stands alone at a ship’s rail, watching a low, treeless shore rise from the mist. What he seeks is the quiet safety of home, but what waits in the silence is an ancient, watchful fear.
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 05: Miscellaneous Pieces
Samuel Johnson
A giant of eighteenth-century letters turns his formidable mind to dictionaries, Shakespeare, political satire, and legal theory, demonstrating how rigorous critical thinking transforms everyday prose into enduring literature.
Travels through France and Italy
T. (Tobias) Smollett
A sharp-eyed Scottish doctor journeys through mid-eighteenth-century France and Italy, recording the indignities of travel alongside the enduring wonders of classic architecture.
William Morris: Poet, Craftsman, Socialist
Elisabeth Luther Cary
To read this biography is to watch a force of nature hurl itself against the Victorian age, transforming books, homes, and public squares through sheer creative conviction.