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13,367 public-domain books, summarised. Page 266 of 279.

A Little Pilgrimage in Italy
Olave M. (Olave Muriel) Potter
A sweeping, sensory-rich travelogue, this work follows three companions on a leisurely exploration of Italy’s hill towns, seeking the spirit of the Middle Ages in landscapes where history and nature remain inextricably intertwined.

A Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy
Ida Pfeiffer
An intrepid traveler from Vienna defies the social conventions of her time, venturing alone across the Middle East and Egypt to witness the cradle of civilization with her own eyes.

Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance
Morris Jastrow
This scholarly examination explores the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian practice of interpreting birth abnormalities as divine messages, tracing their profound influence on the development of Western superstition and early scientific thought. It bridges the gap between the clay tablets of Mesopotamia and the…

Bat Wing
Sax Rohmer
A man of singular intellect investigates the dark secrets of a remote estate, where a supposedly supernatural "death-token" masks a web of human obsession and long-simmering vengeance.

Beautiful Gardens in America
Louise Shelton
This survey of early 20th-century landscape design celebrates the personal passion of home gardeners who transformed American soil into private sanctuaries of color and serenity.

Border Raids and Reivers
Robert Borland
The Scottish Borderlands were once a land of perpetual fire and steel, where the only law was the swift, lethal justice of the sword and the reiver’s midnight raid.

British Policy in the Illinois Country, 1763-1768
Clarence Edwin Carter
The Illinois Country served as a pivotal, yet unstable, frontier in the mid-18th century, where the transition from French to British rule exposed the profound disconnect between imperial ambition and the realities of colonial administration.

Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887: Volume 1, Number 1
Unknown
A collection of essays and editorial commentary, this periodical serves as a manifesto for a nineteenth-century scientific movement that claimed to unify the physical, psychic, and moral aspects of human existence. It stands as a historical artifact of a time when fringe science and social reform were often…

Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887: Volume 1, Number 9
Unknown
A radical shift in how science and spirit intersect, this periodical offers a window into the late nineteenth-century obsession with mapping the human brain and soul.

Charlestown Navy Yard: Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts
United States. National Park Service
From its 1800 founding to its 1974 closure, the Charlestown Navy Yard served as the backbone of American maritime defense, evolving alongside the nation’s warships from timber sailing vessels to complex steel engines of war.

Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)
Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius) Sargent
An aging sexton observes the passing of Boston’s old aristocracy, using the solemnity of the graveyard to meditate on the foibles, follies, and fading fashions of the living.

Educational Toys: Consisting Chiefly of Coping-Saw Problems for Children in School and the Home
Louis Christian Petersen
This manual provides a practical, step-by-step guide to woodworking for children, teaching them to transform simple scraps of wood into functional toys through the precision of the coping saw.

Egypt (La Mort de Philae)
Pierre Loti
A haunting meditation on an ancient landscape, this work captures the fleeting beauty of Egypt’s crumbling temples as they face the encroaching tide of modernization and loss.

Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician
Frederick Niecks
The life of Frédéric Chopin is a study in the intersection of fragile genius and complex human connection. This biography meticulously documents the composer’s artistic evolution and his often-troubled personal history with clinical, grounded detail.

George Crabbe: Poems, Volume 2 (of 3)
George Crabbe
A meticulous chronicler of the human heart, this poet strips away the pastoral veneer of English life to reveal the grit, longing, and moral complexity hidden behind quiet village doors and country estates.

He Who Gets Slapped: A Play in Four Acts
Leonid Andreyev
A man retreats from the hollow life of the intellectual elite to join a traveling circus, hoping to find truth in the stinging sting of a clown’s slap. He soon discovers that the mask of a fool is the only honest way to love a world that prefers the comfort of illusions.

History of Friedrich II of Prussia
Thomas Carlyle
This sprawling, eccentric chronicle traces the rise of the Prussian state from its murky, prehistoric beginnings to the emergence of its most formidable architect, Friedrich II. It is a dense, idiosyncratic work of history that blends meticulous scholarship with the author's deeply moralizing, often cranky, and…

History of Friedrich II of Prussia
Thomas Carlyle
The life of a legendary monarch unfolds here, tracing the harsh, transformative crucible of his youth and the iron-willed foundations of his eventual reign. This expansive history examines the collision of private anguish and public duty, detailing the volatile, often brutal, relationship between a stern father and…

Hyde Park from Domesday-book to Date
John Ashton
A chronicle of London’s most famous greenspace, tracing its transformation from a feudal manor to a stage for public spectacle and political unrest.

In the Footprints of Charles Lamb
Benjamin Ellis Martin
The gentle, melancholic figure of Charles Lamb emerges from these pages not as a static historical relic, but as a man defined by his deep attachments to London’s streets and his lifelong, sacrificial devotion to his sister.

In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
A vision of global governance emerges from the ashes of the Great War, arguing that lasting peace requires a fundamental restructuring of international relations and democratic institutions.

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz
Ruth Plumly Thompson
A boy from Philadelphia returns to the magical Land of Oz, joining forces with a sentient pumpkin-headed man to thwart a tyrannical baron’s plot to conquer the Emerald City.

Legends of Charlemagne
Thomas Bulfinch
A collection of medieval romantic cycles, these tales follow the legendary Emperor and his paladins through a world of enchanted forests, magic weapons, and moral trials.

Marionettes, masks and shadows
Winifred H. (Winifred Harrington) Mills
Crafting a puppet is an act of creation that breathes life into inanimate materials, transforming a simple collection of wood, wire, and cloth into a performer capable of grace and drama. This guide invites readers to step behind the curtain and master the mechanics of imagination.

Meadow Grass: Tales of New England Life
Alice Brown
This collection of stories captures the quiet, interior lives of a rural New England village, where the weight of long-held tradition and the stirrings of personal desire pull against one another in constant, gentle friction.

'Midst the Wild Carpathians
Mór Jókai
The rugged mountains of seventeenth-century Transylvania serve as the backdrop for a high-stakes collision between feudal tradition, political intrigue, and the personal ruin of a once-powerful magnate.

Mother, Nurse and Infant: A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies
S. P. Sackett
A practical 1889 handbook for mothers and nurses, this volume provides systematic instructions on prenatal care, safe delivery practices, and the medical management of infants in the home.

Nicolaus of Damascus' life of Augustus
of Damascus Nicolaus
The life of the man who became Augustus is a story of calculated rise, familial loyalty, and the turbulent transition of Rome from a fractured republic to a singular empire.

Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver
William Carleton
A master of deception navigates the harsh realities of nineteenth-century Ireland, where survival depends as much on a well-timed lie as on hard work and cold-blooded cunning.

Priests, Women, and Families
Jules Michelet
The quiet sanctity of the domestic hearth is a battleground, where the intimate influence of the priest clashes with the natural bonds of the family.

Quotes and Images From The Novels of Georg Ebers
Georg Ebers
A noble mind can never swim with the stream, and in this collection, the echoes of antiquity offer a timeless map of the human condition. These fragments serve as an invitation to consider the delicate balance between the weight of history and the fleeting sweetness of the present moment.

Rembrandt's Amsterdam
Frits Lugt
The canals and cobblestones of the seventeenth-century Dutch capital pulse with a new vitality when viewed through the eyes of its most famous resident, the painter Rembrandt.

Romantic castles and palaces
Unknown
Stone walls hold the echoes of history, from the silent gaze of a watchful Doge to the iron-willed ambition of a Medici prince, revealing how architecture mirrors the turbulence of human power.

Shakespeare the Boy: With Sketches of the Home and School Life, Games and Sports, Manners, Customs and Folk-lore of the Time
W. J. (William James) Rolfe
A portrait of Elizabethan life, this book reconstructs the world of a young William Shakespeare, grounding his formative years in the tangible details of 16th-century Warwickshire.

Sixpenny Pieces
A. Neil (Albert Neil) Lyons
This narrative offers a candid, unsentimental portrait of life among the London poor, centered on a weary but dedicated doctor navigating the messy realities of his patients’ daily struggles.

Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent
W. W. (William Wortley) Baggally
A meticulous investigator examines the boundary between genuine mental phenomena and the clever deceptions of stage performers in early 20th-century spiritualist culture.

The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
A celebrated author retreats to an ancestral English estate only to find his life haunted by a child who mirrors a ghost from the past.

The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
The return of the deposed Emperor from exile sets the stage for a desperate struggle between political loyalty and personal devotion. In the shadow of a changing France, old enemies and lovers must reconcile their pasts.

The Burgomaster's Wife
Georg Ebers
Amidst the desperate, starving siege of 1574 Leyden, a husband and wife struggle to reconcile their personal devotion with the crushing demands of a city fighting for its very existence.

The Cock and Anchor
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
A young woman finds herself ensnared in a web of deceit and forced marriage, relying on a long-lost love to navigate the shadows of a dangerous and atmospheric eighteenth-century Dublin.

The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
This pioneering autobiography strips away the artifice of eighteenth-century memoir to expose the raw, unvarnished nerves of a man who felt the world far more deeply than he understood it. It stands as the foundational document of modern confessional writing.

The Crimes of England
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
HOOK This analysis strips away diplomatic pleasantries to argue that the true path to patriotism lies in a cold-eyed confession of one's own country’s historical sins.

The Ecclesiastical Orders of Knighthood
James Herman Van der Veldt
This authoritative guide traces the origins, evolution, and modern legacy of the Catholic Church’s chivalric and military honors. It offers a clear, structured survey of the traditions that bridge medieval crusading ideals and contemporary papal recognition.

The Garden Without Walls
Coningsby Dawson
The struggle to reconcile desire with the suffocating expectations of Victorian morality haunts the life of a young man caught between his upbringing and his restless spirit. This narrative explores the tension between the safety of the garden and the unpredictable, dangerous world beyond its walls.

The Hispanic Nations of the New World: A Chronicle of Our Southern Neighbors
William R. (William Robert) Shepherd
The long, complex struggle for independence across the Americas remains a defining chapter in the formation of the modern world. This chronicle maps the shift from colonial rule to the tumultuous birth of sovereign nations.

The history of silhouettes
Emily Jackson
The silhouette—that humble, elegant shadow of a face—captures the ghost of a personality in a single, unadorned outline. This account traces the art from its origins as a social grace to its scientific and mechanical ends.

The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard Taylor
Russell H. Conwell
This biography traces the journey of a restless American spirit, from the quiet Pennsylvania countryside to the far reaches of the globe, capturing the life of a poet and traveler dedicated to the pursuit of truth.

The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2
Gilbert White
A patient observer documents the hidden rhythms of a Hampshire village, revealing how the lives of birds, plants, and local creatures mirror the intricate, changing pulse of the natural world.