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11,874 public-domain books, summarised. Page 239 of 248.

The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing: Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association
Watson Smith
This technical volume serves as a bridge between Victorian industrial craftsmanship and the nascent power of applied science. It provides a detailed, practical guide to the chemical processes underpinning a once-dominant trade.

The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811-1812: To Which Are Added an Account of the Resurrection Men in London and a Short History of the Passing of the Anatomy Act
James Blake Bailey
The resurrectionist trade was a grim necessity of early 19th-century medicine, fueled by a legal system that demanded dissection for science but provided only the bodies of executed murderers to satisfy that demand. This document captures the cold, transactional reality of the men who filled the gap.

The evolution of the steam locomotive (1803 to 1898)
George Augustus Nokes
This technical history documents the rapid transformation of steam-powered rail travel from experimental novelty to the iron backbone of British industry between 1803 and 1898.

The Laughter of Peterkin: A retelling of old tales of the Celtic Wonderworld
William Sharp
A boy awakens in a moonlit room to hear ancient legends, which frame three tragic epics of magic, transformation, and betrayal from the ancient Gaelic world.

The Moonlit Way: A Novel
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
HOOK A young artist finds his quiet New York life upended by a mysterious woman fleeing a web of international intrigue, only to discover that his own destiny is inextricably linked to hers.

The Practical Garden-Book: Containing the Simplest Directions for the Growing of the Commonest Things about the House and Garden
L. H. (Liberty Hyde) Bailey
Gardening is more than the growing of plants: it is the expression of desire. This guide provides the foundational wisdom necessary to cultivate a thriving home garden, honoring the simple, perennial joy of working the earth.

The Romance of Industry and Invention
Unknown
The nineteenth century stands as a monument to human ingenuity, where the relentless drive of the inventor transformed the primitive tools of the past into the industrial backbone of a global empire. This collection chronicles the pivotal breakthroughs in steel, communication, and manufacturing that defined an era…

The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself
Cole Younger
This narrative offers a measured, firsthand account of a life defined by the Border War, the notoriety of the post-Civil War West, and a quarter-century of imprisonment. It is a sobering reflection on the consequences of political violence and the long shadows cast by reputation.

The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire
Horace B. (Horace Baker) Browne
This history captures the enduring spirit of the East Riding of Yorkshire, tracing the region’s evolution from the primitive tools of the Stone Age to the bustling industrial docks of the modern era.

The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. VII. Being the Third of the Third Voyage
James King
The final chapter of an era, this chronicle captures the closing of a legendary maritime legacy amidst the unfamiliar and unforgiving landscapes of the North Pacific. It offers a sober, firsthand look at the human cost of discovery.

Tobias o' the Light: A Story of Cape Cod
James A. Cooper
A wily lighthouse keeper intervenes in the lives of his neighbors, orchestrating a series of clever deceptions to mend two fractured romances on the coast of Cape Cod.

Toy-Making in School and Home
R. K. (Ruby Kathleen) Polkinghorne
Hook Crafting playthings from everyday scraps—matchboxes, corks, and spare wood—builds more than toys; it fosters the patience and ingenuity necessary for a lifetime of creative problem-solving.

True Stories of the Great War, Volume 3 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
Unknown
A kaleidoscopic collection of firsthand reports, these pages capture the raw, immediate intensity of the First World War through the eyes of those who lived it.

Unconscious Memory
Samuel Butler
Biological evolution is not merely a matter of blind accidents or mindless mechanics, but an expression of deep, inherited memory passed down through the ages.

V. V.'s Eyes
Henry Sydnor Harrison
A proud, fashionable young woman hides her role in a scandal, only to have her quiet world upended by a idealistic slum doctor whose uncompromising moral vision slowly forces her to confront her own vanity and shallow conscience.

Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century: A Complete Digest of Facts Occuring in the County since the Commencement of the year 1800
T. C. Turberville
This chronicle serves as a meticulous ledger of a single English county’s transformation during the nineteenth century, capturing a society in the steady, often grinding, process of becoming modern. It is a record of administrative, political, and physical change.

A Marriage Under the Terror
Patricia Wentworth
This is a story of a young woman caught in the bloody machinery of the French Revolution, where the line between survival and execution is drawn by the shifting loyalties of a man she both fears and loves.

A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics
Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison) Brinton
A foundational study of Indigenous Central American literacy breaks down intricate Mayan glyphs into clear mathematical calculations, distinct deity portraits, and recurring astronomical symbols.

Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel: and Selections from his Writings
F. G. (Frank Gibbs) Allen
A portrait of devotion and intellectual rigor, this volume traces a Kentucky minister’s passage from an unlettered youth to a powerhouse of rural American evangelism.

Chapters on Spanish Literature
James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
A sweeping, clear-sighted tour through centuries of Spanish letters, uncovering the human lives and artistry behind medieval epics, golden-age plays, and modern prose.

Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon
Baker, Samuel White, Sir
A Victorian gentleman ventures into the rugged highlands of Ceylon to establish a settlement, documenting a life defined by ambitious agriculture, relentless big-game hunting, and a deep, enduring obsession with the island’s untamed beauty.

English Embroidered Bookbindings
Cyril Davenport
Before standard leather work became the rule, crafters in England stitched gold, silver, and vibrant silks directly into fabric book covers.

Fighting for peace
Henry Van Dyke
Caught between the fading era of nineteenth-century diplomacy and the terrifying dawn of total war, a seasoned diplomat witnesses the collapse of European order. This memoir captures the transition from a hopeful observer to a staunch advocate for intervention against German aggression.

First on the Moon
Jeff Sutton
An unmasking on the lunar ash transforms a high-stakes rocket race into a deadly battle for survival, where every breath of oxygen must be earned.

History of the Post-Office Packet Service between the years 1793-1815: Compiled from Records, Chiefly Official
Arthur H. (Arthur Hamilton) Norway
To deliver state papers and merchant letters through two decades of global war, unarmed mail boats were converted into armed commerce-defenders, turning ordinary sailors into unwitting naval heroes on the high seas.

Individuality: From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
Robert Green Ingersoll
To forfeit one's independent thought at the command of custom or authority is a form of self-annihilation. True human progress relies entirely on the rare courage of those who dare to think, speak, and stand alone.

Inventing for Boys
A. Frederick (Archie Frederick) Collins
The drive to create is a fundamental human urge, and turning a raw, intangible idea into a tangible, working machine offers a unique satisfaction that approaches the divine.

Landmarks in French Literature
Lytton Strachey
French literature moves with a single, unbroken inheritance. Guided by Latin logic, its path runs from medieval verse to modern prose through clarity, intellectual rigor, and an unwavering pursuit of artistic form.

Lighthouses and Lightships: A Descriptive and Historical Account of Their Mode of Construction and Organization
W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams
Standing as sentinels against the chaos of the sea, lighthouses represent a remarkable triumph of human engineering over the most unforgiving elements. This account explores their history, construction, and the evolution of the brilliant lamps that guide mariners home.

Making Fermented Pickles
Edwin LeFevre
A precise, scientific guide to preserving vegetables through natural fermentation, this government bulletin transforms household food conservation into an exact discipline of chemistry, microbiology, and careful household management.

Memories of the Kaiser's Court
Anne Topham
An English governess finds herself at the heart of the Prussian monarchy, observing the daily rituals and private eccentricities of the Kaiser’s family during the final, glittering years before the Great War.

Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again: A Life Story
Joseph Barker
A zealous young preacher loses his faith to hard study and church conflict, slides into radicalism, and spends decades wandering through debate halls and distant towns before discovering that what he sought was always in the Gospel.

Moran of the Lady Letty
Frank Norris
This tale of a spoiled socialite thrust into a primitive existence at sea explores the collision between rigid high-society life and the raw, unvarnished power of the Pacific.

Original Short Stories
Guy de Maupassant
These short stories capture the fragility of the human condition, exposing the vanity, cruelty, and sudden, dark obsessions that often hide behind the mundane masks of nineteenth-century French society.

Our Cavalry
Michael Frederic Rimington
A disciplined horseman needs more than bravery to survive a modern battlefield; he requires calculating intellect, relentless conditioning, and a total devotion to his mounts.

Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)
Frederick Palmer
Two million American soldiers march into the mud, wire, and machine-gun fire of the Western Front in 1918 to smash the German line.

Phantom Fortune, a Novel
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
An ambitious matriarch, a hidden fortune, and two sisters driven by radically different desires collide in a dark, Victorian tale of pride, deception, and moral reckoning.

Quotes and Images from the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
Giacomo Casanova
Wealth, wit, and the pursuit of pleasure define this expansive chronicle of a life spent traveling the corridors of eighteenth-century Europe, where every encounter is a gamble and every vanity a potential folly.

Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain
Edwin Chadwick
Unsanitary living conditions, polluted air, and contaminated water systems systematically destroy the health and economic stability of Britain's working class.

Romances of Old Japan: Rendered into English from Japanese Sources
Yei Theodora Ozaki
A woman discovers her missing daughter only after her husband accidentally kills the child, setting off a quiet cascade of grief and redemption.

Round the Corner in Gay Street
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
A hard-working family moves in near a wealthy, isolated household, sparking an enduring cross-street friendship that transforms both lives.

The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly
Charles Lever
A wealthy English family’s claim to an Irish estate collapses under a surprise heir’s challenge, testing their alliances and character as they rebuild their lives abroad.

The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 01
Ambrose Bierce
A world without stability yields only mockery, violence, and the cold quiet of lost civilizations.

The English Housekeeper
Anne Cobbett
A well-managed home relies on disciplined foresight, practical skill, and a quiet refusal to live beyond one’s true financial means.

The Forbidden Way
George Gibbs
A ruthless financier discovers that his greatest rival in the worlds of high-stakes business and love is also the man who shares his own hidden, illegitimate bloodline.

The Golden Dog
William Kirby
In the twilight of New France, a noble house fractures under the weight of political corruption, doomed romance, and a fatal stroke of treachery.

The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28: The Independent Health Magazine
Various
Natural health and living in early-twentieth-century Britain were governed by rigorous, often eccentric debates over proper nutrition, physical exercise, and the holistic unity of body and mind.

The Lady of the Lake
Walter Scott
A fugitive king finds sanctuary among the enemies of his throne, sparking a dangerous dance of honor, jealousy, and hidden identities in the rugged heart of the Scottish Highlands.