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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 159 of 988.
The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A prince of a fallen nation and an Egyptian priest’s son forge an unlikely friendship that survives exile, pursuit, and the shadow of a sacred execution.
The Dead Secret: A Novel
Wilkie Collins
A long-held domestic secret threatens to shatter a young woman’s identity, forcing a desperate, generation-spanning search for the truth hidden within the walls of a remote Cornish estate.
The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing: Miss Sara Sampson, Philotas, Emilia Galotti, Nathan the Wise
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
These plays explore the volatile intersection of private desire and public moral duty, challenging the rigid social hierarchies of their time with startling, often tragic, directness.
The Green Fairy Book
Unknown
Fairy tales offer a window into universal human longings, where courage and kindness often prove more powerful than any spell.
The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4, July, 1851
Various
This mid-century periodical functions as a sophisticated literary and cultural archive, offering a window into the intellectual preoccupations, artistic trends, and global political currents of July 1851. It captures the rapid expansion of a world increasingly connected by steam and ink.
The Nibelungenlied: Revised Edition
William Nanson Lettsom
This epic poem chronicles the rise and ruin of a heroic age, where loyalty to one’s kin and king inevitably collides with the demands of personal honor, leading to an inescapable cycle of vengeance.
The Poetry of Architecture
John Ruskin
Architecture is a conversation between the hand of man and the character of the earth. By grounding design in local climate, national temperament, and the contours of the landscape, the built environment achieves a poetic unity.
U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1953 July - December
Library of Congress. Copyright Office
This registry preserves the administrative pulse of American letters, cataloging the formal extension of legal protections for a vast array of mid-century creative works.
Diary in America, Series One
Frederick Marryat
A seasoned traveler ventures across the Atlantic to decode the complex, contradictory character of a young republic. These observations provide an unvarnished, often sharp-tongued portrait of American life in the late 1830s.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Part 2: More Ghost Stories
M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
The boundaries between the mundane and the malevolent are dangerously thin, particularly for the curious scholar or the careless collector of antiquities. These tales explore the quiet terror that erupts when the past refuses to stay buried.
Men of Invention and Industry
Samuel Smiles
Behind the great machines and industrial triumphs of history lie the grit, failures, and persistent labor of individuals who often lacked formal recognition. This collection of biographies reveals the human heartbeat within the gears of progress.
Rossa's Recollections, 1838 to 1898: Childhood, boyhood, manhood
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa
A staunch revolutionary reflects on a life forged in the furnace of Irish struggle, charting a path from the desperate poverty of the Great Famine to the front lines of the Fenian movement.
The castles and abbeys of England
William Beattie
These pages traverse the crumbling stone of England’s most storied fortresses and cloisters, weaving together the heavy silence of ruins with the clamor of the chronicles that once filled them.
The Circular Staircase
Mary Roberts Rinehart
HOOK A sensible, middle-aged spinster trades city comforts for a country estate, only to find herself trapped in a labyrinth of lethal secrets and midnight prowlers.
The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery
John R. (John Richard) Wise
The New Forest holds a singular place in the English landscape, a rare expanse of ancient woodland and open heath that serves as a living archive of history, folklore, and natural wonder.
The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 3: May 1906
Various
This periodical serves as a vibrant time capsule of 1906, gathering reflections, short stories, historical anecdotes, and practical wisdom into a single, eclectic volume. It offers a window into the intellectual and social preoccupations of the Edwardian era.
A Roving Commission
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A young midshipman navigates the perils of the high seas and the chaos of the Haitian Revolution, finding his path from a boyish rescuer to a seasoned officer of the British Royal Navy.
English Grammar in Familiar Lectures: Accompanied by a compendium, embracing a new systematic order of parsing, a new system of punctuation, exercises in false syntax, and a system of philosophical grammar, in notes, to which are added an appendix and a key to the exercises
Samuel Kirkham
This comprehensive guide to nineteenth-century English usage offers a rigorous, systematic method for students to master the language by active parsing rather than passive memorization.
God, the Invisible King
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
The Invisible King is a man of action, a divine presence who exists within the minds of people as a partner in the struggle to perfect the world. This is a manifesto for a faith that finds its power in the human spirit rather than in ancient, blood-stained dogmas.
In a German Pension
Katherine Mansfield
A young woman navigates the absurdities and stifling social hierarchies of a Bavarian sanatorium, capturing the collision between British reserve and German rigidity. These stories offer a sharp, impressionistic look at the isolation hidden behind the polite veneer of pension life.
Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It
William Walker Atkinson
The secret to a razor-sharp mind lies not in elaborate parlor tricks, but in the disciplined application of natural mental habits. This guide offers a practical, no-nonsense roadmap for mastering the art of recollection.
Prejudices, fourth series
H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
This collection of cultural commentary dissects the absurdity of American public life with razor-sharp wit and uncompromising skepticism. It serves as a defiant, brilliant manifesto against the stifling conformity of the early twentieth century.
Pygmalion's Spectacles
Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman) Weinbaum
A chance encounter with an eccentric professor leads a cynical man into a startling, sensory-rich virtual reality, forever altering his perception of what constitutes a life worth living.
Rome
M. A. R. (Mildred Anna Rosalie) Tuker
Rome is a city of layers, where the grandeur of imperial ruins and the ancient authority of the Church coexist with the daily rhythms of modern Italian life. It is a portrait of a capital in transition.
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
A master of the short form explores the quiet, devastating ruptures in lives built upon stifling social conventions and internal obsessions.
The Yosemite
John Muir
A vast, ancient landscape of granite, ice, and forest, Yosemite stands as a cathedral of wilderness, demanding reverence and protection from those who would trade its sanctity for human convenience.
Alcestis
Euripides
The King of Pherae must die, yet he finds a way to live—provided someone else takes his place. When his wife, Alcestis, volunteers to die in his stead, she sets in motion a drama of grief, duty, and the limits of heroism.
America First: Patriotic Readings
Unknown
This anthology serves as a pedagogical toolkit for fostering national identity, blending historical dramatizations with stirring oratory and verse to instill a sense of shared civic duty in the American classroom. It acts as a bridge between the founding ideals of the Republic and the patriotic responsibilities of…
Certain Success
Norval A. Hawkins
The secret to a life of achievement lies not in luck or innate genius, but in the deliberate mastery of the art of selling one’s own capabilities to the world.
Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems
Ben Jonson
This collection of observations and verse offers an intimate, unvarnished look at the mind of a giant of English literature. It serves as a rugged, intellectual map of the values and artistic rigor that defined a singular life.
English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. Volume 2 (of 2)
John Ashton
English caricature and satire during the Napoleonic era served as a vital, visceral outlet for a nation living in the shadow of total war. This collection documents the relentless artistic campaign waged by British cartoonists against the French Emperor, tracing his trajectory through public mockery from his rise…
Lulu's Library, Volume 1 (of 3)
Louisa May Alcott
A collection of whimsical bedtime tales invites readers into a world where magic, kindness, and moral discovery transform the everyday lives of children.
Mahan on naval warfare
A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
Naval dominance dictates the rise and fall of nations, as history reveals that control of the sea is the ultimate arbiter of international power. The fundamental principles of global security depend upon the strategic mastery of these maritime frontiers.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 2
United States. Work Projects Administration
These oral histories preserve the raw, unfiltered memories of formerly enslaved people in Texas, capturing a vanishing era through the unique rhythms of their own speech. They offer a rare, ground-level perspective on the daily reality of a brutal institution.
The book of Christmas
Thomas K. Hervey
This immersive chronicle preserves the fading customs, superstitions, and hearty revelries of the traditional English Christmas. It serves as both a nostalgic record and a warm invitation to rediscover the season’s enduring spirit of communal joy.
The History of Mr. Polly
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
The life of an unremarkable shopkeeper is transformed when a series of absurd, violent, and liberating mishaps finally allows him to abandon his misery for the simple, quiet beauty of the riverside.
The Natural History of Selborne
Gilbert White
A keen, patient eye turns the modest corners of an English village into a boundless laboratory of natural wonder. This collection of letters captures the quiet, enduring rhythm of the living world.
The Poems and Fragments of Catullus: Translated in the Metres of the Original
Gaius Valerius Catullus
The verses of an ancient Roman lover, reimagined through the formal rigors of Victorian classicism, reveal a heart as volatile and raw as any modern confession.
The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-Day and in Days of Old
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
This survey of an historic thoroughfare blends local topography with the vivid, often brutal, ghosts of England’s coaching past. It serves as a nostalgic yet critical map of a road defined by its movement and industry.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
A young woman’s uncompromising moral integrity is tested to the breaking point by a predatory suitor and an unforgiving family. This classic exploration of victimization and conscience captures the agonizing weight of a virtuous life coming to a premature end.
Elements of Gaelic Grammar
Alexander Stewart
A scholarly guide to the structure of a historic tongue, this volume serves as a bridge between the oral traditions of the Scottish Highlands and the formal codification of the written word.
Getting Married
Bernard Shaw
This sharp-witted drama invites a room full of eccentric characters to argue about the institution of marriage, ultimately revealing that the legal contract is far less interesting than the people trapped inside it.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
These volumes represent the collected literary output of a master of Victorian suspense, whose narratives transformed the landscape of the nineteenth-century novel through intricate plotting and innovative structural design.
Maori Religion and Mythology: Illustrated by Translations of Traditions, Karakia, &c., to Which Are Added Notes on Maori Tenure of Land
Edward Shortland
The wisdom of the Māori people survives in these carefully preserved oral traditions, offering a profound glimpse into a world where gods, ancestors, and the living landscape remain inextricably bound.
Myths That Every Child Should Know: A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People
Unknown
These classic tales weave the foundational wonders of human imagination, bridging the gap between ancient gods and the curious hearts of youth.
Owen Glyndwr and the Last Struggle for Welsh Independence: With a Brief Sketch of Welsh History
A. G. (Arthur Granville) Bradley
Long after its medieval princes fell, a fiercely independent nation rallies around a charismatic nobleman who challenges the English crown and reshapes a country's national identity.
Promoting Polecat Perkins
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A band of hard-luck cowboys attempts a hilariously ill-conceived scheme to pass off a skunk-trapper as a missing millionaire. It is a raucous, dust-covered romp through the culture clash of the Wild West and the urban East.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
A legendary collection of nested tales, these stories transport the reader into a world where magic, desire, and fate collide under the watchful eyes of kings and caliphs.