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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 288 of 714.
Penshurst Castle in the Time of Sir Philip Sidney
Emma Marshall
This historical portrait captures the fleeting brilliance of the Elizabethan era through the eyes of those orbiting the life and tragic early death of a legendary statesman and poet.
Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals
William Franklin Gore Shanks
These firsthand portraits strip away the mythic varnish of the Civil War, revealing the fallible, often contradictory men who commanded the Union armies.
Pierre and His People: Tales of the Far North. Complete
Gilbert Parker
The vast, unforgiving expanse of the Canadian North serves as a crucible for the human spirit, where survival, morality, and honor are stripped of civilization’s veneer.
Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California: Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861
Stockton State Hospital (Calif.)
This document serves as a precise administrative manual defining the rigid hierarchy and moral expectations governing a nineteenth-century psychiatric institution. It offers a stark window into the institutional philosophy of the era.
School education
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Maria) Mason
Education is a living, breathing process, not a mechanical routine of facts to be memorized. By nurturing a child’s natural curiosity and character, guardians can open the door to a lifetime of intellectual and moral growth.
Slavery in Pennsylvania: A Dissertation Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Conformity with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1910
Edward Raymond Turner
Pennsylvania was a unique laboratory for human bondage, where economic realities and a distinct moral culture gradually dismantled a system of slavery long before the rest of the nation followed suit.
Some Problems of the Peace Conference
Charles Homer Haskins
The map of Europe is a fragile construction of history, ambition, and shifting populations. This work illuminates the complex, often painful labor of drawing new borders in the wake of the First World War.
Spenser
R. W. (Richard William) Church
This biographical study explores the life and complex artistry of the man who gave English poetry its modern foundation. It offers a measured look at a poet caught between the allure of courtly ambition and the harsh realities of colonial administration.
St. Nicholas Vol. XIII, September, 1886, No. 11: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks
Various
This September 1886 issue of a celebrated children’s magazine captures the Victorian era’s spirit through a blend of fine art history, moral tales, natural science, and intricate word puzzles.
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. II
Charles Gore
The Apostle Paul’s complex logic finds a clear, modern voice in these pages, bridging the gap between ancient theological struggle and the practical demands of daily Christian living.
Tales from a Rolltop Desk
Christopher Morley
The literary life is a fragile, frantic pursuit where the boundary between the printed page and the pulse of reality often dissolves into shadow. This collection of linked narratives captures the precarious, bittersweet nature of ambition among those who live by the ink.
That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's: A Story for Young People
Jean K. (Jean Katherine) Baird
A quiet, isolated woman’s life is transformed when she adopts a mysterious foundling. This gentle narrative explores how the choice to love a stranger can reshape a soul and open the world to hidden beauty.
The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607
Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
Three hundred years after the first English settlers landed in a strange, wild landscape, a history unfolds that captures the fragile, desperate beginnings of a nation born in the wilderness.
The Black Man, the Father of Civilization, Proven by Biblical History
James Morris Webb
This work serves as a theological and historical argument reclaiming the ancient prominence of Black people, asserting that they were the original architects of civilization. It presents a robust defense of racial dignity, framing the Black experience through a biblical lens to challenge prevailing 20th-century…
The boys' life of Edison
Wm. H. (William Henry) Meadowcroft
A relentless curiosity drives a young newsboy from the baggage cars of Michigan trains to the center of the electrical revolution. This account captures the restless, unvarnished life of an inventor who treated sleep as a luxury and failure as a necessary experiment.
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, May 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This publication serves as a window into the Victorian-era quest for universal education, capturing the earnest intellectual ambitions of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. It stands as a time capsule of nineteenth-century American didactic culture, blending history, physiology, and literature to…
The Desert of Wheat
Zane Grey
A young farmer’s life is torn between his devotion to the golden wheat fields of the American Northwest and the brutal, encroaching reality of the First World War.
The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders
Edwin H. Porter
A quiet morning in a Massachusetts home erupts into the most infamous double murder of the nineteenth century, leaving a nation to wonder how a daughter could stand accused of such violence. This is a sober, meticulous reconstruction of the crime and the subsequent legal struggle that captivated the American public.
The history of our Navy from its origin to the present day, 1775-1897, vol. 4 (of 4)
John Randolph Spears
This final volume chronicles the United States Navy’s transition from the age of sail to the era of steel, capturing the pivotal naval conflicts of the American Civil War.
The History of the Fifty-ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteers
David Lathrop
This chronicle of the Fifty-ninth Illinois Volunteers captures the raw, gritty reality of the American Civil War through the eyes of the men who marched from Missouri to the Deep South.
The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates
Ezra Baldwin Strong
This grim survey of maritime lawlessness chronicles the rise and inevitable ruin of the Atlantic world’s most notorious outlaws, balancing accounts of romanticized rebellion with the cold, bureaucratic finality of the gallows.
The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Curé of Ars: With a Novena and Litany to this Zealous Worker in the Vineyard of the Lord
Anonymous
A humble country priest transforms a village of religious indifference into a beacon of faith, laboring in near-total poverty to guide thousands of souls toward reconciliation and grace.
The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac
Eugene Field
The obsession with books is a noble, incurable disease that transforms the collector into a lifelong student of history, friendship, and the imagination. These reflections celebrate the eccentric, often humorous journey of finding, buying, and living among one’s own library.
The Magic of the Middle Ages
Viktor Rydberg
The Middle Ages were not a void of ignorance, but a vibrant, terrifying world where the boundary between divine miracle and demonic sorcery governed every breath of human life.
The Masquerader
Katherine Cecil Thurston
The story of a desperate, drug-addicted politician who swaps lives with his identical double to escape his failures, only to find the deception brings him both the power he craved and the love he didn't expect.
The Measure of a Man
Randall Garrett
The measure of a man is often the ability to distinguish between the desirable and the necessary, and then acting on that distinction when the cost is everything.
The Monikins
James Fenimore Cooper
A wealthy Englishman journeys to the poles and discovers a hidden society of tail-bearing monkeys whose absurd political habits mirror the vanities, legalisms, and hypocrisies of human civilization.
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 32, 1640: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Diego Aduarte
The Chronicle of Faith A meticulous account of seventeenth-century mission life, this work details the relentless efforts of Dominican friars to plant Christianity in the Philippine Islands, Japan, and beyond.
The Pioneer Woodsman as He Is Related to Lumbering in the Northwest
George Henry Warren
The pioneer woodsman vanishes into the unbroken forest to map the nation’s timber, living by his wits and an ax in a world where civilization is only as close as the nearest land office.
The Red Acorn
John McElroy
Amid the brutal churn of the American Civil War, a young man struggles to shed his reputation for cowardice while a woman finds her own battlefield in the chaos of the front lines.
The Red Rover: A Tale
James Fenimore Cooper
A mysterious captain stalks the Atlantic under a blood-red flag, his vessel’s true purpose hidden from both the law and his own restless crew.
The Salvaging of Civilization
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
Humanity stands at a precipice following a catastrophic global war, requiring an urgent, unified shift in consciousness to prevent complete social dissolution. Only a deliberate, worldwide educational revolution can replace destructive nationalism with a stable, functioning World State.
The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan
Honoré de Balzac
The Parisian aristocracy finds its most dangerous player in a woman who uses the mask of virtue to survive her own ruin. This is a masterclass in the theater of high society, where the most profound deceptions are performed with perfect grace.
The Story of Porcelain
Sara Ware Bassett
This volume invites readers into the meticulous, fire-tempered world of ceramic creation, blending a boy’s quiet recovery with the history of a craft that turned mud into civilization. It is an exploration of how humanity’s oldest vessels have shaped our understanding of the past and the possibilities of our own…
The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
The young soldier stands at the center of a national storm, his path defined by the clash of vast, unforgiving armies and the fragile endurance of his own convictions.
The Thrall of Leif the Lucky: A Story of Viking Days
Ottilie A. (Ottilia Adelina) Liljencrantz
HOOK Driven by the clash of ancient beliefs and the promise of a New World, a young thrall finds his destiny entwined with the legendary Viking explorer Leif Eriksson.
The Usurper: An Episode in Japanese History
Judith Gautier
In the shadow of a crumbling empire, a loyal prince and a desperate ruler weave a doomed resistance against a rising usurper. This tale of political intrigue and tragic devotion unfolds amidst the shifting landscapes of a Japan caught between ancient tradition and total war.
The Veiled Man: Being an Account of the Risks and Adventures of Sidi Ahamadou, Sheikh of the Azjar Maraude
William Le Queux
This collection of desert memoirs follows a nomadic warrior through a landscape of lost cities, forbidden treasures, and the brutal realities of Saharan tribal life. It is a vivid, if darkly adventurous, portrait of a world governed by blood feuds and shifting allegiances.
Turned Adrift
Harry Collingwood
A crew cast adrift by mutineers must rely on ingenuity and sheer grit to survive the perils of the open ocean and a remote volcanic island.
Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry
Wilhelm Alfred Braun
To understand the melancholic ache of the nineteenth-century German soul, one must look past mere sadness to the cultural phenomenon of Weltschmerz. This study dissects the anatomy of that existential grief through the lives of three poets.
Vandemark's Folly
Herbert Quick
The frontier is not merely a place of grand vistas, but a rugged crucible where the vulnerable are forged into something resilient and new. This story captures the immense, shifting weight of the American prairie as it transforms an orphaned boy into a man.
When William IV. Was King
John Ashton
The reign of William IV was a brief, turbulent bridge between the Georgian era and the Victorian age. This account captures the messy, transformative pulse of 1830s England, where steam power and social reform collided with ancient tradition.
Wyoming: A Story of the Outdoor West
William MacLeod Raine
HOOK A young woman drives her automobile into the vast, silent heart of Wyoming, only to find herself caught in a deadly feud between a rugged sheepman and a ruthless local king.
A Fool and His Money
George Barr McCutcheon
An inheritance, a crumbling German castle, and a runaway countess collide in this tale of an impulsive young man discovering that the price of romance is often higher than gold.
A Second Home
Honoré de Balzac
An ambitious, unhappily married judge finds emotional refuge in a hidden, clandestine family, only to face the inevitable collision between his rigid public duty and his private, illicit longing for domestic warmth.
Abbé Aubain and Mosaics
Prosper Mérimée
In these meticulously crafted tales, the boundaries between the rational world and the uncanny dissolve, revealing the cold, sharp precision of human desire and its capacity for ruin.
Advice to Singers
Frederick James Crowest
This guide offers a grounded, practical manual for the aspiring vocalist, emphasizing that artistry is a craft built upon discipline, health, and a rigorous rejection of shortcuts. It serves as a sober reminder that a beautiful voice is merely the raw material for a lifetime of dedicated, disciplined study.
Association Football, and How To Play It
John Cameron
This guide captures the spirit of Edwardian-era soccer, blending technical instruction with the rugged, principled philosophy of a professional player-manager who navigated the game’s transition from local pastime to organized industry.