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1,474 public-domain books, summarised. Page 30 of 31.
On the Firing Line in Education
Adoniram Judson Ladd
A school system is only as strong as the people who know how to read, see, choose, and lead. This book argues that education succeeds when it serves society, not when it merely fills classrooms.
Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A young scientist’s quest to conquer death unleashes a tragic chain of events, where creation turns against creator and the boundaries of humanity blur in a haunting tale of ambition and despair.
Astronomy for Amateurs
Camille Flammarion
It begins by training the eye to see, then keeps widening the view until the sky becomes a map of motion, scale, and possible life.
A Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume
A mind tries to explain how belief begins, why justice feels binding, and how a person stays the same while every perception keeps changing.
Jeremiah
George Adam Smith
A prophet’s anguished voice echoes through a nation on the brink of collapse, wrestling with divine justice, human failure, and the hope for renewal amid exile and despair.
Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I
Fleury de Chaboulon, Pierre Alexandre Édouard, baron
HOOK An intimate, firsthand account of Napoleon’s daring escape from Elba and his meteoric reclamation of the French throne, revealing the fragile intersection of imperial ambition and a nation’s desperate longing for stability.
The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol
William John Locke
A charming rogue drifts through France and England, weaving mischief, romance, and unexpected kindness in a life as unpredictable as it is joyous.
The Posy Ring: A Book of Verse for Children
Unknown
Hook The Posy Ring is an exquisite treasury of verse, curated to reflect the wonder of childhood. Through a gentle blend of nature, whimsy, and domestic life, it offers a timeless map of the young imagination's first territories.
The Scottish Reformation: Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics
Alexander F. (Alexander Ferrier) Mitchell
A detailed journey through Scotland’s turbulent transformation from medieval Catholicism to a reformed Presbyterian Church, revealing the epochal struggles, key figures, and enduring structures that shaped Scottish religious identity.
The Hero of Garside School
Panting, J. Harwood, (James Harwood)
A school feud, a stolen flag, and a secret that turns classmates into rivals drive the story toward rescue, disgrace, and a hard-won reconciliation.
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
A profound exploration of how equality shapes the political, social, and moral fabric of a nation, revealing the unique character and challenges of democratic society.
De Officiis
Marcus Tullius Cicero
A Roman statesman writes as the republic breaks apart, turning public crisis into a hard, lucid argument about how to live well when power, fear, and duty pull in different directions.
The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 (of 3): James Mill
Leslie Stephen
James Mill appears as both a man of principle and a force of methodical pressure, turning utilitarian ideas into a public program and a private discipline.
Frank Merriwell's Bravery
Burt L. Standish
A young man’s courage and quick wit are tested in the wild American West, where danger lurks in outlaw hideouts, treacherous canyons, and the threat of lynch mobs.
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
A philosophy of life, power, and knowledge turns outward, then inward, then cosmic, until everything — science, art, society, morality, even the universe — is read as struggle.
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
William James
Philosophy meets practical life in a bold rethinking of truth, belief, and reality—where ideas are judged by their consequences and the promise they hold for human experience.
Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery
Jules Verne
HOOK A restless young heir seeks adventure beyond his privileged life, only to face a harrowing shipwreck and survival on a mysterious Pacific island where nothing is quite as it seems.
The Younger Edda
Snorri Sturluson
HOOK A vast cosmos unfolds from primordial chaos, where gods and giants clash, heroes rise, and the fate of worlds is sealed in a tapestry of myth, magic, and poetic art.
A Sheaf of Corn
Mary E. Mann
A poignant collection of rural English tales, A Sheaf of Corn uncovers the raw struggles and quiet indignities of life among the working poor, where survival often demands a heavy moral price.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
A man watches his own sickness turn into a spiritual map. Around the bed, ordinary objects, bells, wounds, and prayers become signs of how frail a human life is — and how close grace can still be.
Children of the Tenements
Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis
These stories turn the tenement district into a place of alarm, tenderness, and rescue, where children learn hunger early and kindness arrives late but unmistakably.
Isle o' Dreams
Frederick Ferdinand Moore
HOOK A mysterious island rumored to hold gold draws a disparate group into a tense voyage marked by mutiny, secrets, and shifting loyalties in the tropical seas near the Philippines.
Hypolympia
Edmund Gosse
A company of Greek gods arrives in a northern island world that makes immortality feel thin and unreal. Exile turns their habits, loves, and powers into strange, often comic tests of what they are without Olympus.
The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
José Rizal
A young man returns to his homeland only to confront the deep-rooted corruption, injustice, and social decay that plague his country under colonial rule.
Ivanhoe: A Romance
Walter Scott
A tale of clashing loyalties and ancient grudges unfolds amid the turbulent reign of King Richard, where Saxons and Normans vie for power, and love and honor are tested on the medieval stage.
With Haig on the Somme
D. H. Parry
A young officer keeps stumbling into the kind of war that turns luck into duty, and duty into a series of near-miracles.
Electricity for Boys
James Slough Zerbe
Discover the fascinating world of electricity through hands-on experiments and clear explanations designed to turn curiosity into practical knowledge.
Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence
Alice B. Emerson
A young woman’s journey into the world of early motion pictures leads her to the mysterious Thousand Islands, where friendship, danger, and cultural clashes intertwine in a tale of courage and discovery.
The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII
Guy de Maupassant
A family inheritance turns into a question of blood, loyalty, and betrayal, and the answer tears open every private certainty. What begins as a legal surprise becomes a cold, intimate catastrophe.
The Gulf and Inland Waters: The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3
A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
A detailed chronicle of naval warfare on America’s inland waters during the Civil War, revealing how control of rivers shaped the conflict’s outcome.
Left Guard Gilbert
Ralph Henry Barbour
A school football season turns into a test of nerve, loyalty, and self-respect, where one boy’s supposed weakness matters less than the courage to face it.
Tales of Space and Time
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
A collection of speculative tales that traverse the vast reaches of time and space, exploring humanity’s place in the cosmos, the dawn of civilization, and the future of society with a blend of wonder and sober reflection.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
A rich tapestry of 19th-century American life unfolds through essays, stories, poetry, and reflections, capturing the era’s social, political, and cultural currents with a blend of earnestness and literary craft.
The Convert
Elizabeth Robins
A woman moves through drawing rooms and street meetings, discovering that the language of politics, love, and shame all lead back to the same question. What happens when private feeling collides with public conviction?
The Slave of Silence
Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White
A ruined family, a hidden crime, and a house full of silent machinery drive this mystery toward a reckoning that keeps changing shape.
The Grand Inquisitor
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A silent Christ returns to 16th-century Spain, only to be arrested by the Grand Inquisitor, who confronts Him with a dark truth about freedom, power, and human nature’s deepest needs.
The Standard Oratorios: Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers
George P. (George Putnam) Upton
HOOK Explore the rich history, music, and stories behind the world’s most enduring oratorios, revealing the sacred narratives and masterful compositions that have shaped this unique musical form.
The Aesop for Children: With pictures by Milo Winter
Aesop
Timeless tales of cunning, folly, and wisdom unfold through animals’ voices, revealing human nature’s truths in simple, sharp fables that have echoed across centuries.
The Two Great Retreats of History
George Grote
Two famous retreats become one long lesson in endurance: a Greek army fights for a road home through mountains and betrayal, while Napoleon’s grand army unravels in fire, frost, and panic.
The New Tenant
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
A murdered man on the moor, a cottage with a hidden room, and a love story shadowed by suspicion draw a country household into accusation, secrecy, and a trial that seems to leave no room for innocence.
Two little travellers
Frances Browne Arthur
HOOK Two young siblings, orphaned and alone, embark on a perilous journey through the English countryside, seeking safety, belonging, and a place to call home.
The Art of Stage Dancing: The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession
Ned Wayburn
HOOK: A stage dance manual can read like a showman’s autobiography, a health guide, and a backstage ledger all at once. Here, the glitter of performance is always tied to discipline, labor, and exacting craft.
Anne of the Island
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
A young woman’s journey from the familiar shores of Prince Edward Island to the wider world of college life and self-discovery unfolds with warmth, humor, and the bittersweet trials of growing up.
The Long Portage
Harold Bindloss
A rugged expedition into the wilds of British Columbia unearths more than just untamed landscapes—it reveals the tangled human struggles of ambition, loyalty, and the clash between old-world gentility and new-world grit.
The Coast of Bohemia
William Dean Howells
A young woman from a small Pennsylvania town journeys to New York to pursue art, confronting the harsh realities of ambition, love, and self-discovery in a world both inspiring and unforgiving.
Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold
Charles A. Eastman
Ancient voices gather around the fire, weaving tales where animals speak, heroes journey, and the spirit of the Sioux people lives in every whispered legend.
The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour
George A. Warren
A troop sets out for a wilderness hike and keeps finding trouble already waiting ahead of them. What begins as camp craft and banter turns into a chase through a mountain country where thieves, storm, and bad luck keep changing the ground under their feet.
Shoe-Bar Stratton
Joseph Bushnell Ames
HOOK A man returns to a troubled ranch haunted by secrets, rustlers, and a mysterious foreman, where loyalty and justice clash under the vast, unforgiving Western sky.