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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 301 of 714.

The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
The tall, weary figure of the Civil War’s most enigmatic leader finds his soul tested by the crushing weight of a fracturing nation. This historical novel reimagines the President’s private struggles as he navigates the chasm between war-torn North and South.

The Story of John Wesley, Told to Boys and Girls
Marianne Kirlew
The life of a legendary preacher is here reimagined as an epic of moral endurance, transforming historical biography into a series of vivid, instructive lessons for the young.

The Strand Magazine, Vol. 17, February 1899, No. 98
Various
A window into the late Victorian imagination, this collection gathers the curious, the scientific, and the dramatic into a singular, bound experience. It captures the rhythm of a world accelerating toward a new century.

The Terrible Twins
Edgar Jepson
The Terror and Erebus Dangerfield are a pair of fourteen-year-old siblings whose formidable intellects and lack of moral inhibition make them the undisputed, if unwanted, masters of their quiet English village. They view the world not as a place to live, but as a series of problems to be solved through strategic…

The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish
James Fenimore Cooper
This story of the American frontier captures the stark, heavy tension of life in a Puritan settlement during the terror of King Philip’s War, where faith and survival are inextricably linked. It is a somber, meditative examination of how violence reshapes identity and leaves behind only the ghosts of what once was.

Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea
James O. Brayman
The world is a precarious place, filled with sudden reversals of fortune, narrow escapes from catastrophe, and the persistent, quiet courage of those who refuse to succumb to despair.

Through the Dark Continent, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Henry M. (Henry Morton) Stanley
Through these records, a Victorian explorer documents the harrowing navigation of the African interior, mapping vast lakes and rivers while struggling against the immense physical and cultural barriers of a continent then largely unknown to the West.

Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel
Victor Appleton
The young inventor Tom Swift journeys to the high Andes to solve a crisis in a massive construction project, pitting his scientific ingenuity against sabotage and the challenges of a treacherous mountain range.

Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
The Spanish Main and the high seas of the Elizabethan age serve as the backdrop for this saga of four young men whose accidental separation from Francis Drake’s fleet launches them into a world of peril.

Verdun, Argonne-Metz, 1914-1918
Unknown
An exhaustive record of the Great War’s most harrowing struggle, this guide transforms the scarred landscapes of northern France into a living, tactile monument for the visitor.

Wanderings in Patagonia
Julius Beerbohm
The vast, unforgiving plains of South America hold secrets for those brave enough to traverse them. Through endurance and unexpected encounters, a journey across the wild Patagonian interior reveals a rugged, untamed beauty.

Whitefoot the Wood Mouse
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess
A tiny mouse navigating the vast, predator-filled Green Forest finds that survival requires more than just sharp senses—it demands a capacity for joy and the resilience to build a home in the most unexpected places.

Winona of the Camp Fire
Margaret Widdemer
HOOK A group of spirited young women finds that leadership, responsibility, and community service are not burdensome duties, but the very ingredients for a life of high-spirited adventure.

With Beatty off Jutland: A Romance of the Great Sea Fight
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
Two brothers thrust into the center of the First World War face the fury of the North Sea and the dark designs of enemy saboteurs.

Wounds in the rain: War stories
Stephen Crane
This collection of war stories captures the chaotic, unglamorous reality of the front lines through the eyes of those who endure them, stripping away the pageantry of combat to reveal the strange, ragged dignity of the soldier.

Young Readers Science Fiction Stories
Richard M. (Richard Mace) Elam
These tales explore the boundless frontier of the solar system, where young people face the physical perils of space travel and discover that courage is the most essential tool for survival.

A Book of Exposition
Homer Heath Nugent
This collection of essays serves as a practical guide to the craft of technical and scientific communication. By curating diverse models of exposition, it demonstrates how complex mechanisms, natural processes, and abstract ideas can be rendered clear, engaging, and precise for a general audience.

A woman's hardy garden
Helena Rutherfurd Ely
A woman’s guide to cultivating a hardy, enduring garden, this manual transforms the daunting prospect of professional landscaping into the accessible, daily joy of personal labor and thoughtful planning.

A Woman Tenderfoot
Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
The wilderness is not a place to be observed from a distance, but a theatre of physical endurance, sudden danger, and profound, unvarnished beauty. This account serves as both a gritty memoir of the American West and a spirited manual for the adventurous woman of the nineteenth century.

After Prison--What?
Maud Ballington Booth
True redemption begins when society stops seeing a convict as a criminal and starts recognizing the human being underneath. This work serves as an urgent, compassionate plea for the dignity and rehabilitation of those behind bars.

Alphabetical Vocabularies of the Clallum and Lummi
George Gibbs
This mid-nineteenth-century linguistic survey preserves the vanishing vocabularies of two distinct Salish-speaking peoples through meticulous, firsthand documentation of their words and geography.

Arrows of the Chace, vol. 2/2: being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly in the daily newspapers 1840-1880
John Ruskin
This collection captures the restless, combative, and deeply principled mind of a Victorian polymath speaking directly to his contemporaries through the ephemeral medium of the daily press. It serves as a fervent record of one man’s attempt to sharpen the moral conscience of a nation distracted by the machinery of…

Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See
C. King Eley
This architectural portrait maps the physical scars and spiritual endurance of a cathedral that has survived sieges, fire, and the tumultuous shifting of centuries.

Book of monsters
David Fairchild
These portraits of common creatures reveal the hidden, often harrowing, struggle for existence occurring right beneath our feet. Through striking photography and keen observation, the natural world is reframed as a realm of fierce competition and surprising sophistication.

Buffon's Natural History. Volume 04 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
An ambitious survey of human life, this volume examines our biology from cradle to grave. It seeks to reconcile the vast diversity of global cultures with a unified theory of human origins.

Communism and Christianism: Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View
William Montgomery Brown
Radical changes in human society are inevitable, driven by the scientific laws of nature and the economic realities of history. Salvation is not a divine gift, but a collective achievement of the working class.

Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 3: Condorcet
John Morley
This study examines the life and intellectual legacy of the Marquis de Condorcet, a central figure of the French Enlightenment whose tragic end in the Revolution contrasts sharply with his boundless optimism for human progress.

Dimbie and I—and Amelia
Mabel Barnes-Grundy
This book offers a window into the quiet, resilient heart of an invalid wife, finding beauty and humor in the constrained landscape of a garden and the spirited, if unconventional, household life of early twentieth-century England.

Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
This Victorian tale captures the stark transition from the desperate squalor of London’s slums to the redemptive promise of the Canadian wilderness. It is an earnest, episodic chronicle of salvation, both social and spiritual.

Duval's artistic anatomy
Mathias Duval
An essential guide for the visual artist, this volume bridges the gap between cold anatomical science and the expressive, living form of the human figure. It provides a foundational understanding of how internal structure dictates surface appearance.

Four Young Explorers
Oliver Optic
Four young men embark on an extensive voyage through tropical waters, seeking adventure, scientific discovery, and a deeper understanding of the diverse cultures inhabiting the East.

History of electric light
Henry Schroeder
This brief, technical chronicle traces the transformation of electric light from a curious laboratory spark into the foundational technology of the modern world. It is a work of disciplined documentation, mapping the steady march of engineering progress through the early twentieth century.

Home Again
George MacDonald
The story follows a young man’s painful transition from arrogant, superficial poetic ambition to a grounded life of genuine purpose. It captures the quiet, often invisible struggle of a father and son learning to bridge the distance between them.

Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus: with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History
William MacGillivray
To trace the development of natural history is to witness the slow, meticulous accumulation of knowledge, where each generation of observers builds upon the fractured records of the past to map the living world.

Love's Old Sweet Song: A sheaf of latter-day love-poems gathered from many sources
Unknown
A collection of lyrical verse, this anthology captures the fleeting, perennial ache of romantic longing. It gathers the voices of poets from the turn of the century to explore the endurance of love across time.

McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 4, March, 1896
Various
This collection serves as a time capsule from 1896, blending meticulous historical inquiry, short fiction, and practical science to capture the intellectual spirit of the late nineteenth century.

Miss Prudence: A Story of Two Girls' Lives
Conklin, Nathaniel, Mrs.
A story of two sisters navigating the transition from girlhood to womanhood, this novel explores the challenge of aligning personal desires with one's faith and the quiet, often overlooked work of building a meaningful life.

More cargoes: 1897
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
The sea is rarely as dangerous as the men who sail upon it, particularly when they are bored, hungry, or scheming to avoid work. This collection of linked stories captures the droll, often frantic life of small-vessel sailors in the late nineteenth century.

Mr. Justice Raffles
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A legendary gentleman thief finds his composure tested when a ruthless moneylender threatens to dismantle his carefully curated life of crime and cricket.

Mr. Meeson's Will
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A young woman finds herself the sole vessel for a dead man's fortune, her back literally serving as the legal instrument of his final, revised will.

Mr. World and Miss Church-Member: A Twentieth Century Allegory
W. S. (William Shuler) Harris
A perilous journey along the Broad Highway explores the spiritual dangers of compromise and the seductive deceptions of worldly influence on a professing believer.

Obed Hussey, Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap
Unknown
A persistent, principled inventor fights decades of commercial hostility to secure recognition for his mechanical reaper, a machine that fundamentally changed the nature of global agriculture.

Omega, the Man
Lowell Howard Morrow
The last man on a dying Earth clings to his pride and his memories while battling a creature that threatens the final drop of water.

Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition
James Alton James
This textbook offers a foundational exploration of American civil government at the dawn of the twentieth century, bridging the gap between colonial origins and the administrative complexities of a rapidly expanding nation.

Pausanias, the Spartan
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A Spartan regent risks his reputation and his life by embracing the decadence of the East and the allure of an Athenian alliance. This unfinished historical drama captures the unraveling of a legendary hero.

Ravished Armenia: The Story of Aurora Mardiganian, the Christian Girl Who Lived Through the Great Massacres
Aurora Mardiganian
This harrowing personal narrative documents the systematic destruction of a culture and the resilience of a young girl forced to witness the unraveling of her world. It serves as a stark, indelible testament to the Armenian Genocide.

Ruggles of Red Gap
Harry Leon Wilson
A refined English valet finds himself traded in a poker game to an American rancher, an accident of fate that forces him to navigate the peculiar social wilderness of the Western frontier.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882
Various
This document serves as a time capsule of Victorian technical ambition, capturing the late nineteenth-century obsession with mechanical precision, industrial progress, and the relentless application of scientific inquiry to the natural world.