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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 297 of 988.
Charles Lamb: A Memoir
Barry Cornwall
A quiet, steady life defined by immense devotion, this memoir explores the spirit of a man who transformed personal tragedy into a legacy of gentle, enduring humor.
Cliges: A Romance
Chrétien, de Troyes, active 12th century
In this medieval tale, a young knight navigates the treacherous intersection of duty and desire, risking everything to reclaim the woman he loves from a false marriage.
Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain Ranges
Norman Collie
The high-altitude explorer traverses the world’s most formidable ranges, finding both sublime beauty and profound loss in the thin air of the Himalayas and the rugged wilderness of the North American Rockies.
Clotel
William Wells Brown
The tragedy of systemic enslavement is laid bare through the fractured lives of those seeking freedom, revealing a nation haunted by the contradiction between its professed Christianity and its brutal commerce in human bodies.
Crotchet Castle
Thomas Love Peacock
A sharp, conversational satire on the intellectual fashions of the early nineteenth century, this novel captures the absurdity of a world obsessed with progress, paper money, and pedantic disagreement. It remains a sparkling example of how to make a dinner party, a boat trip, and a philosophical lecture into a…
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A candid, obsessive, and remarkably intimate account of 17th-century life, this record captures the daily textures of a man navigating the corridors of power and the quiet corners of his own home.
Divine Songs
Isaac Watts
These simple verses, designed to furnish a child’s mind with devotion and moral clarity, transform the heavy weight of theological instruction into the rhythmic ease of song.
Dorothy Payne, Quakeress: A Side-Light Upon the Career of 'Dolly' Madison
Ella K. (Ella Kent) Barnard
This biographical study traces the life of Dolley Madison, moving from her strict Quaker upbringing in colonial Virginia to her central role in the social and political life of the early American republic.
Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625
J. Alfred (John Alfred) Gotch
This survey of English building captures the vibrant, experimental moment when medieval craftsmanship collided with the refined principles of the Italian Renaissance. It remains a foundational text for understanding how the great manor houses of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries acquired their distinct,…
Fifteen discourses
Reynolds, Joshua, Sir
True mastery in the arts is not a divine gift, but a product of rigorous, disciplined study and a commitment to the "grand style" over mere mechanical imitation. This collection of lectures serves as a foundational guide for the serious student of painting.
Foul Play
Charles Reade
HOOK A young woman is shipwrecked on a desert island with a man who carries a secret, while a criminal conspiracy unfolds back in London.
From the Bottom Up: The Life Story of Alexander Irvine
Alexander Irvine
This memoir traces a transformative journey from a childhood of crushing poverty in Ireland to a life of radical social ministry and political activism in America. It is a testament to one man’s relentless search for meaning amid the suffering of the urban poor.
His Excellency the Minister
Jules Claretie
The glittering machinery of the French Republic serves as a backdrop for the rapid rise and inevitable ruin of a naive, ambitious idealist. This portrait of political obsession reveals how easily public fervor masks private decay.
Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 06 (of 15), French
Charles Morris
A sweeping chronicle of Gallic history, this volume traces the evolution of a nation through the dramatic, often violent turning points that defined its path from antiquity to the modern era.
History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin. Vol. 2 (of 8)
J. H. (Jean Henri) Merle d'Aubigné
A quiet, steady revolution takes root in the shadows of the sixteenth century, as the shifting loyalties of princes and the quiet courage of scholars prepare the ground for a new spiritual order.
In the Midst of Alarms
Robert Barr
In a world of rapidly changing headlines and shifting loyalties, two men find that the most dangerous battleground is not a war, but the unpredictable human heart.
Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to his father and his youngest sister, 1857-78
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
These private letters offer an intimate, unvarnished window into the domestic life and evolving mindset of a man who rose from obscurity to lead a nation through its most harrowing existential crisis.
Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet: With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians
Benjamin Drake
A visionary Shawnee leader strives to unite the tribes of North America against encroaching settlers, culminating in a dramatic and doomed stand for sovereignty during the War of 1812.
Literature in the Making, by Some of Its Makers
Unknown
These conversations capture the voices of American writers at the brink of the modern era, revealing the messy, human process of turning contemporary life into lasting literature. It is an honest, unvarnished look at the craft behind the books.
Little Britain
Washington Irving
This neighborhood serves as a microcosmic study of a vanishing, tradition-bound London, where the stubborn charm of old English customs eventually crumbles under the weight of social vanity and newfound suburban aspirations.
Mammals of Northwestern South Dakota
J. Knox Jones
An essential scientific record of the mammalian life inhabiting the rugged buttes and rolling plains of Harding County, this survey documents the natural diversity found within a unique, often overlooked, ecological corridor.
Many cargoes
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
Salt-crusted sailors and wily captains navigate the treacherous waters of the Thames, where the most dangerous obstacles are rarely the tides, but the eccentric schemes of their own shipmates.
Moni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories
Johanna Spyri
This collection offers a window into the simple, rugged beauty of the Swiss Alps, where children find their way through isolation and hardship by tethering their hearts to nature, kindness, and faith.
Nell and Her Grandfather, Told from Charles Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop"
Charles Dickens
A young girl becomes the sole protector of her elderly, gambling-addicted grandfather as they flee the shadows of London for a precarious life on the road.
New Discoveries at Jamestown: Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America
John L. (John Lambert) Cotter
The soil of Jamestown holds the physical record of English America’s birth, revealing the daily lives of settlers through the broken pottery, rusted iron, and forgotten foundations they left behind.
Openings in the Old Trail
Bret Harte
This collection offers a series of vignettes from the American West, capturing the intersection of rugged, high-stakes frontier life and the fragile, often absurd, social aspirations of its inhabitants. It portrays a world where men and women, isolated by the vastness of the Sierras, navigate sudden fortunes,…
Pembroke: A Novel
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
This study of stubbornness in a remote New England village explores how the human will, when pushed beyond the bounds of reason, can act like a slow-moving disease. It suggests that the only cure for such rigidity is a love so unselfish that it forces the individual to drop their defenses and reclaim their humanity.
Psychoanalysis, Sleep and Dreams
André Tridon
Dreams are the gatekeepers to our deepest selves, revealing hidden desires and the underlying structure of our personality. By treating the unconscious as a vital, active landscape, this exploration provides a foundational perspective on the mechanics of the mind during sleep.
Royal English Bookbindings
Cyril Davenport
A survey of English craftsmanship through the centuries, this study chronicles the evolution of royal bookbinding from the medieval era to the nineteenth century. It serves as a meticulous catalog of artistic technique, heraldry, and the personal tastes of monarchs.
Society, Manners and Politics in the United States: Being a Series of Letters on North America
Michel Chevalier
HOOK A keen-eyed French observer ventures into the raw, restless American wilderness of the 1830s, documenting a nation transforming itself through iron, steam, and unbridled democratic ambition.
Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants: An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature and Lamentable Effects
Anthony Benezet
The trade in human beings, born of greed and enforced by violence, destroys the humanity of the oppressor as surely as it breaks the body of the captive. This foundational antislavery text dismantles the myth of a "civilizing" mission, exposing the brutal mechanics of an industry built upon the systematic…
Submarines, Mines and Torpedoes in the War
Charles W. (Charles William) Domville-Fife
This technical account captures the dawn of the undersea era, detailing how early twentieth-century naval powers weaponized the ocean’s depths at the onset of the Great War.
The Amateur Garden
George Washington Cable
The art of gardening is a slow, patient conversation between the soul of the homeowner and the quiet possibilities of the earth. Cultivating the land is not merely an aesthetic pursuit, but a foundational act of domestic and civic health.
The American Missionary
Various
This publication serves as a window into the expansive, turn-of-the-century mission network that sought to reshape American society through education, evangelism, and the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.
The Arabian Nights, Volume I of IV
Antoine Galland
A collection of frame-stories and nested legends, these tales unfold within a single, desperate night of storytelling to delay an inevitable execution.
The Circular Study
Anna Katharine Green
A seasoned detective finds his waning enthusiasm reignited by a bizarre, high-stakes murder in a historic mansion, thrusting him into a labyrinthine plot of familial vengeance. This atmospheric mystery challenges an aging investigator to reconcile his traditional methods with the volatile secrets of a younger…
The Days of My Life: An Autobiography
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
This is a story of a young woman’s headstrong pride and the sobering realities of marriage, inheritance, and the quiet, persistent demands of duty. It traces how a sheltered, isolated girl finds her way to a more grounded life.
The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters
Reuben Briggs Davenport
Two young sisters ignited a global obsession with the dead by cracking their toe joints. This account chronicles their long-delayed confession and their final, desperate bid to dismantle the spiritualist movement they birthed.
The Delicious Vice
Young Ewing Allison
This meditation on the life of an imaginative reader explores the profound, often invisible, bond between a person and the fictional worlds that shape their character. It argues that the "delicious vice" of novel reading is not merely a leisure activity, but an essential, formative experience of the human spirit.
The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928
Robert B. Meyer
The Packard Model DR-980 was a daring attempt to bring the efficiency of the diesel engine to the skies. This account chronicles the rise and fall of a technological pioneer that promised to revolutionize aviation.
The Footlights, Fore and Aft
Channing Pollock
This account of early twentieth-century American theater serves as a candid, behind-the-scenes guidebook to the machinery of the stage. It demystifies the chaotic, high-stakes industry of the Great White Way, capturing a period when live performance was the dominant form of mass entertainment.
The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873
Joel Tyler Headley
New York City’s history is scarred by eruptions of violence, from colonial-era panics to the bloody urban warfare of the mid-19th century. This chronicle documents the repeated failure of civil order and the brutal costs of restoring it.
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1861
Various
This early 1861 edition offers a candid, multifaceted window into the American mind on the brink of the Civil War, balancing polished essays on European travel with the intimate struggles of urban merchants.
The Last Boer War
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
This historical account chronicles the volatile rise and fall of British authority in the Transvaal during the late 19th century, offering a firsthand perspective on the tensions that ignited the Boer War.
The Legislative Manual, of the State of Colorado: Comprising the History of Colorado, Annals of the Legislature, Manual of Customs, Precedents and Forms, Rules of Parliamentary Parliamentary Practice, and the Constitutions of the United States and the History of Colorado, Annals of the Legislature, Manual of Customs, Precedents and Forms, Rules of Parliamentary Practice, and the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Colorado. Also, Chronological Table of American History, Lists and Tables for Reference, Biographies, Etc
Thomas B. Corbett
This volume serves as a foundational blueprint for Colorado’s governance, bridging the transition from a rough-hewn territory to a formal state through essential records, legislative rules, and constitutional frameworks.
The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl, as Told by Herself
Dorothy Richardson
This is an unvarnished account of survival in the industrial belly of early 20th-century New York. It chronicles the grinding reality of a young woman who trades her autonomy for a grueling, precarious existence as a wage-earner.
The Lost Lady of Lone
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A secret wedding, a murdered father, and a fugitive bride drive a high-stakes search for identity and truth across the Highlands and the Continent. This labyrinthine drama follows a noble couple whose union is shadowed by past deceptions and the haunting presence of a double.
The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children
Various
A collection of vintage tales and verse captures the wonder, mischief, and moral instruction that defined the holiday season for children at the turn of the twentieth century.