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10,588 public-domain books, summarised. Page 202 of 221.
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table
Oliver Wendell Holmes
This observant, conversational collection of essays captures the intellectual and social life of a mid-19th-century Boston boardinghouse through the eyes of a scholarly narrator. It serves as a philosophical record of a changing American identity.
The Works of Lucian of Samosata
of Samosata Lucian
This collection is a brilliant, stinging masterclass in skepticism, showcasing the wit of a second-century Syrian intellectual who transformed satire into a scalpel for dissecting the human condition.
Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment: Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad
Maud C. Cooke
Mastering the nuances of social grace is a fundamental pursuit for anyone seeking to navigate the complex landscape of polite society with confidence and ease. This comprehensive guide serves as an essential roadmap for achieving that goal.
Two Tragedies of Seneca: Medea and The Daughters of Troy: Rendered into English Verse
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
This volume presents two pillars of Roman tragic drama, offering a window into the intense, psychological storytelling that profoundly shaped the evolution of Western theater. These works explore the terrifying limits of human passion when pushed to the point of no return.
United States Steel: A Corporation with a Soul
Arundel Cotter
This account traces the emergence of the world’s first billion-dollar industrial giant, arguing that organizational scale and progressive management transformed the steel industry into a stable, "souled" institution.
Anecdotal Recollections of the Congress of Vienna
La Garde-Chambonas, Auguste Louis Charles, Comte de
This vivid memoir captures the twilight of the Napoleonic era, chronicling a moment when the crowned heads of Europe gathered in Vienna to redraw the map of the world amid an endless swirl of balls.
Botchan (Master Darling)
Soseki Natsume
A hot-headed Tokyo youth leaves the capital for a teaching post in a backwater town, only to find himself in a bruising clash with corrupt superiors and unruly students.
Contemporary Russian Novelists
Serge Persky
This critical survey serves as a vital introduction to the giants of early 20th-century Russian literature, exploring how writers navigated the crushing weight of political censorship to capture the profound, often melancholic, national soul. It offers a window into an era where fiction functioned as a desperate,…
Iphigenia in Tauris
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A priestess stranded on a distant shore must choose between the cold demands of duty and the desperate, human ache of homecoming.
Journal of a Voyage to Brazil: And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823
Callcott, Maria, Lady
This observant travelogue captures the raw, shifting pulse of a nation in the throes of birth, documenting the daily life and political upheaval of Brazil during its transition to independence. It serves as a candid window into a world where the old colonial order clashes with the fervor of a new, uncertain empire.
Mince Pie
Christopher Morley
HOOK This collection of lighthearted, observant essays celebrates the quiet rhythms of domestic life, the curiosities of the city, and the enduring comfort of a good book.
Nurse and Spy in the Union Army: The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields
S. Emma E. (Sarah Emma Evelyn) Edmonds
** A woman sets aside her civilian life to serve as both a field nurse and a clandestine scout, navigating the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War in a series of dangerous disguises.
Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology
William Healy
By peering into the minds of chronic deceivers, this clinical study unravels the complex, often tragic motives behind those who weave elaborate webs of fiction to navigate their own lives.
Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
This is a sweeping, elegiac exploration of the Venetian Republic’s long decline, tracing the city’s transformation from a Mediterranean powerhouse into a stage for decadence and eventual collapse. It reads as both a love letter to a vanishing world and a sharp-eyed autopsy of its political and social disintegration.
The Golden Censer
John McGovern
The golden censer of our daily life must be kept burning with the frankincense of high endeavor, for our actions in the present serve as the only reliable foundation for our eternal future.
The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts
Daniel Defoe
This satirical inquiry into the biography of Satan reveals a figure who is less a terrifying cosmic adversary and more a bumbling, overly busy bureaucrat whose greatest trick is convincing humanity to own its own sins.
The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac: Studies upon its Origin, Development, and Position in the Arthurian Romantic Cycle
Jessie L. (Jessie Laidlay) Weston
This scholarly exploration dissects the evolution of the Lancelot legend, tracing its transformation from independent folk motifs into the sprawling, interconnected Arthurian cycles familiar to modern readers.
The Miraculous Medal: Its Origin, History, Circulation, Results
Jean-Marie Aladel
Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee! May the following pages draw hearts to follow your example of maternal tenderness and divine grace.
The Negro in American fiction
Sterling A. Brown
This critical study examines the evolution of African American representation in literature, tracing how social biases and shifting political climates have shaped the fictional construction of Black identity in the United States.
Tik-Tok of Oz
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A girl and a mule find their way to a land where roses have human faces, and an army of sixteen officers prepares to march on the most peaceful kingdom in existence.
U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1973 July - December
Library of Congress. Copyright Office
This bureaucratic ledger preserves a fleeting moment in mid-century American intellectual life. It serves as a formal record of the legal claims that sustained the livelihoods of writers, scholars, and creators during the post-war transition.
Antic Hay
Aldous Huxley
A group of aimless London intellectuals drift through a post-war landscape of disillusionment, seeking meaning in hedonism, anatomy, and the "antic hay" of their own absurd social performances.
Apu Ollantay: A Drama of the Time of the Incas
Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
This dramatic tale of forbidden love and imperial power offers a rare window into the traditional stories of the Incas, preserved through memory and later transcribed in the Andean highlands. It explores the tension between rigid social hierarchy and the irrepressible nature of human affection.
Ballads
Robert Louis Stevenson
The sea and the mountain hold secrets that weigh heavier than any treasure, waiting to pull the living into the silence of the dead. These narratives explore the friction between ancient codes and the relentless march of fate.
Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century
Georgiana Fullerton
A woman caught in the tightening grip of Elizabethan religious persecution fights to hold onto her faith, her family, and the man she loves despite the looming threat of the scaffold.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "France" to "Francis Joseph I.": Volume 10, Slice 8
Various
This volume is a fragment of a monumental reference work, capturing the state of history, politics, and biography in the early 20th century. It offers a dense, authoritative survey of the French nation and the lives of various figures named Francis.
From Immigrant to Inventor
Michael Pupin
This memoir chronicles a journey from a Serbian village to the heights of American science, tracing how an immigrant boy’s curiosity became a cornerstone of modern electrical engineering. It is an enduring testament to the power of intellectual idealism.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II
Various
This expansive periodical offers a snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual life, blending literary excerpts, historical narratives, and international news. It serves as a bridge between the Victorian era’s artistic preoccupations and the burgeoning concerns of the American public.
Henry Dunbar: A Novel
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A dispossessed daughter and a fugitive father collide in a high-stakes game of identity and murder, where the weight of a fortune rests on the shadow of a man’s past.
Hilaire Belloc: No Alienated Man
Frederick D. Wilhelmsen
A portrait of a writer as a bastion of tradition, this study examines how one man’s deeply integrated life offers a vital alternative to the alienation of the modern age.
Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1861-November 1863
Jacob D. (Jacob Dolson) Cox
The story of the American Civil War is often told through the grand, impersonal lens of strategy and statistics. This narrative offers a rare, ground-level perspective from a leader who served with distinction from the war's first shots through the pivotal campaigns of 1863.
Principles of Freedom
Terence J. (Terence Joseph) MacSwiney
The call to liberty is not a distant aspiration for the future but a demanding, daily discipline of the soul. This collection of essays serves as a rigorous manifesto for those who believe that a nation’s freedom is forged through the private integrity of its individual citizens.
Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century
Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
A life of restless industry, this memoir charts a journey from the constraints of pre-Civil War America to the halls of international diplomacy, championing the necessity of self-reliance for the advancement of a people.
Sixteen years in Siberia: Some experiences of a Russian revolutionist
L. G. (Lev Grigor'evich) Deich
An accidental arrest in Germany begins a harrowing odyssey for a Russian revolutionary, leading to a long, forced march into the heart of the Siberian penal system and a persistent, years-long struggle for liberation.
Tanks in the Great War, 1914-1918
J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles) Fuller
The tank emerges in this account not merely as a weapon, but as a mechanical revolution that permanently shattered the stalemate of trench warfare. It remains a foundational text for understanding the birth of mechanized combat and the industrialization of the battlefield.
The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
This chronicle traces the evolution of the road from London to Brighton, capturing the transition from the golden age of coaching to the dawn of the motor-car.
The Gods of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs
A legendary warrior returns to a hostile world to rescue his missing wife, only to discover a terrifying, ancient conspiracy hidden beneath the planet’s surface.
The Hudson: Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention
Wallace Bruce
This guide captures the majestic course of the Hudson River, weaving together natural wonders, Revolutionary lore, and the progress of nineteenth-century engineering. It serves as a comprehensive companion for those tracing the river from its mountain springs to the sea.
Charles Baudelaire, His Life
Théophile Gautier
This portrait of a poet captures the intersection of art and agony, depicting a man who navigated the shadows of 19th-century Paris with a temperament as complex as his verse. It is a rare, intimate look at the life and mind of a literary master.
How to Study Architecture
Charles H. (Charles Henry) Caffin
Tracing the evolution of human history through the stone and mortar of its most significant monuments, this guide offers a clear, systematic path for understanding how architectural style reflects the shifting values of civilization.
Melville and Co.'s Directory and Gazetteer of Norwich, Yarmouth, Dereham, Swaffham, Wymondham, Fakenham, Thetford, Attleborough, Aylsham, Diss, Reepham, Foulsham, Hingham, &c
F. R. Melville & Co.
A meticulous mapping of mid-nineteenth-century East Anglia, this volume serves as a comprehensive inventory of the towns, trades, and social infrastructure of Norfolk and Suffolk at the height of the Victorian era.
Miss Billy
Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
This story of a young woman adjusting to the realities of marriage explores the delicate machinery of domestic life with humor and emotional honesty. It captures the transition from the dream of romance to the practical challenges of keeping a home and a heart steady.
Pink and White Tyranny: A Society Novel
Harriet Beecher Stowe
A marriage built on deception becomes a suffocating trap for a man of principle and a woman who views herself as the only idol worthy of worship. This domestic drama dissects the devastating collision between romantic illusion and harsh reality.
The Arena, Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891
Various
HOOK This collection captures the urgent, fractious spirit of the American Gilded Age, where visionary reforms and profound social anxieties collide in the pages of a radical monthly journal.
1914
French, John Denton Pinkstone, Earl of Ypres
A first-hand account of the opening months of the Great War, detailing the strategic movements, agonizing retreats, and critical command decisions of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage: Together with the Sense of Antiquity on this Argument
Jeremy Collier
The English stage of the late 17th century serves as a battlefield where virtue confronts vice, and the theater is painted as a theater of corruption. This polemic remains a foundational, albeit controversial, artifact of moral criticism.
Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown: With a Chapter on Historic Morristown
Julia Keese Colles
A quiet, meticulous survey of the intellectual and historical landscape of Morristown, New Jersey, this compilation gathers the literary echoes of a town long defined by its Revolutionary legacy and subsequent refinement.
El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
The Scarlet Pimpernel returns to France to rescue the young Dauphin from the horrors of the Temple prison, only to find himself ensnared in a web of his own making. A high-stakes game of shadows and duty unfolds.