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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 303 of 714.

Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2
Carl Wilhelm Scheele
A rigorous, hands-on journey through eighteenth-century pneumatic chemistry, where simple glassware and animal bladders unlock the fundamental secrets of the atmosphere.

Down Under with the Prince
Everard Cotes
Navigating ancient maritime rituals, lush Pacific landscapes, and post-war colonial diplomacy, a traveling correspondent captures a grand imperial tour at the precise historical moment when world order begins to shift beneath the crown.

Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason Corner Folks
Charles Felton Pidgin
A saga of familial reconciliation and professional intrigue, this novel traces the lives of the Sawyer family as they navigate the complexities of class, morality, and the long-reaching effects of past secrets.

Georges Guynemer: Knight of the Air
Henry Bordeaux
This biography chronicles the meteoric life and final flight of Georges Guynemer, the legendary French fighter pilot of the First World War. It serves as a study of singular, sacrificial courage during one of history's most grueling conflicts.

Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard
Mary Ethel McAuley
An American art student documents the daily realities of life in Germany during the first two years of World War I, capturing the spirit and sacrifices of a nation under siege.

Haunted Places in England
Elliott O'Donnell
Uneasy presences linger in hidden spaces, as ordinary rooms, dusty furniture, and quiet country lanes reveal horrifying, otherworldly disturbances to those who dare to observe them.

Idolatry: A Romance
Julian Hawthorne
The pursuit of worldly perfection often masks a deeper spiritual hunger, leaving the seeker to grapple with the hollow idols of his own making.

Illustrated History of Furniture, fifth ed.: From the Earliest to the Present Time
Frederick Litchfield
Long before modern assembly lines simplified home design, human hands shaped wood, ivory, and precious metals into lasting monuments of functional art. This study tracks the evolving form and cultural importance of domestic woodwork through the ages.

In and About Drury Lane, and Other Papers Vol. 1 (of 2): Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' Magazine
Dr. (John) Doran
A lively stroll through the vanished corners of Georgian and Victorian London reveals the brilliant actors, eccentric nobility, and forgotten scandals that once filled its streets and stages.

Industrial Progress and Human Economics
James Hartness
Efficiency is the heartbeat of industrial life, and mastering the delicate balance between mechanical precision and the needs of the human worker is the ultimate key to lasting prosperity.

Jack and the Bean-Stalk: English Hexameters
Tennyson, Hallam Tennyson, Baron
A classic fairy tale reimagined through rolling, grand meter, where high literature meets playful absurdity.

Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life
Clara Louise Burnham
A lonely child brings warmth and Christian Science to her cold grandfather’s estate, quietly transforming a divided family through unyielding cheer and gentle faith.

Kingless Folk, and Other Addresses on Bible Animals
John Adams
Nature becomes a pulpit where humble creatures teach timeless spiritual lessons, reminding us that even the smallest insect can mirror divine wisdom.

Knole and the Sackvilles
V. (Victoria) Sackville-West
Inside the soaring timbered galleries and cold stone corridors of Knole, four centuries of an English dynasty unfold through private letters, domestic squabbles, and the quiet decay of velvet furnishings.

Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens
C. J. (Charles John) Cornish
A Victorian naturalist strolls through the enclosures of London's famous menagerie, discovering that behind every cage door lies a masterclass in adaptation, aesthetic instinct, and animal psychology.

Manners and Conduct in School and Out
Anonymous
This guide serves as a manual for the development of character, teaching that true social grace is the outward expression of a kind, disciplined, and purposeful mind.

Millbank
Mary Jane Holmes
An innocent child, a lost inheritance, and a house filled with secrets shape the fate of a resilient young woman struggling to reclaim her name, her home, and her heart.

Money Magic: A Novel
Hamlin Garland
A mountain town's rough charm yields to sudden, boundless fortune, forcing a sharp young clerk to choose between the life that made her and the wider world her husband's wealth unlocks.

My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum: By a Sane Patient
Herman Charles Merivale
Unchecked legal power can convert a temporary nervous breakdown into a lifelong sentence, locking a sane man inside a private asylum where his every attempt to prove his sanity is weaponized against him as further evidence of madness.

Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times: And a History of the War in the North against the Chief Heke, in the Year 1845
Frederick Edward Maning
Rough-hewn, irreverent, and acutely observed, this chronicle captures the chaotic early collision between British settlers and Māori society from the vantage point of a European who went native.

Once Upon a Time, and Other Child-Verses
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
A parent's quiet affection and a child's vivid, untamed imagination meet in these verses, where everyday village life gently bends toward fairy-tale magic.

Paint & Colour Mixing: A practical handbook for painters, decorators and all who have to mix colours, containing 72 samples of paint of various colours, including the principal graining grounds
Arthur Seymour Jennings
This classic manual cuts through trade confusion with exact ratios, practical recipes, and rigorous chemical guidance for mixing durable, accurate paints.

Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge
Hastings Rashdall
The pursuit of theological truth requires a rigorous, honest examination of metaphysical foundations rather than a blind reliance on inherited dogma. These lectures offer a path toward reconciling a modern philosophical worldview with the foundational tenets of the Christian faith.

Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett: With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes
Samuel Johnson
This collection gathers the voices of four distinct eighteenth-century minds, showcasing the era’s mastery of sharp-witted satire, melancholic reflection, and the rigorous discipline of poetic form. It offers a portal into a time when poetry served as the primary instrument for social critique and intellectual debate.

Proverbs and Their Lessons: Being the Subject of Lectures Delivered to Young Men's Societies at Portsmouth and Elsewhere
Richard Chenevix Trench
An investigation into how brief, popular sayings capture the collective wisdom, national characters, and moral truths of humanity across centuries.

Rivers to the Sea
Sara Teasdale
An aching heart seeks fulfillment through urban streets and quiet waters, turning everyday encounters into monuments of longing.

Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes
Harry Graham
These verses offer a delightfully macabre guide to domestic life, where the minor frustrations of the household are resolved through spectacular, often hilarious, acts of violence. It is a masterclass in the dry, unflinching subversion of Victorian morality.

Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
A miser is murdered in a locked room, his drudge vanishes into thin air, and an innocent young man faces the gallows while a criminal mastermind operates from the dark corners of Victorian London.

Seven Little People and their Friends
Horace Elisha Scudder
Whimsical, gentle, and quietly moral, this 1862 collection weaves rich allegories of sacrifice, magic, and kindness across oceans, mountain peaks, and backyard gardens.

Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics: In the Grades of the Common School
Charles A. (Charles Alexander) McMurry
A transformative vision of public education replaces fragmented text excerpts with complete, unbroken works of classic literature to shape the minds and character of children.

Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems
Jesse Johnson
An aging, unremembered poet writes verses of desperate devotion to a younger companion, unintentionally leaving behind the true clue to who actually wrote the world’s greatest plays.

Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 1 (of 5)
James Law
A disciplined investigation into animal disease, this systematic treatise outlines the diagnostic frameworks, physiological mechanics, and clinical interventions required to understand and treat livestock ailments across the American continent.

The adventuress
Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
A corporate titan dies, a deadly invention vanishes, and a trail of blackmail leads straight into the glittering night-world of Jazz Age New York.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This issue of a prominent nineteenth-century literary magazine captures a nation caught in the throes of the American Civil War. It blends somber reflection on the nature of combat with mid-century intellectual curiosity and imaginative fiction.

The Backwoodsman
Unknown
A self-reliant pioneer carves a life on the edge of the Texas frontier, where the boundless prairie meets the rugged mountains and the shifting boundaries of indigenous territories.

The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry
Alfred Austin
To harness the power of poetry, one must possess both the imaginative spirit of the winged horse and the restraining, golden discipline of reason to guide it toward greatness.

The composition of Indian geographical names, illustrated from the Algonkin languages
J. Hammond (James Hammond) Trumbull
Every Indian place name acts as a precise, self-interpreting description of the landscape, functioning not as an arbitrary label but as an enduring, linguistically woven map of the natural world.

The Count of the Saxon Shore
Alfred John Church
When Rome pulls its legions back from the edge of the world, a vulnerable island is left to face the incoming tide alone.

The Englishwoman in America
Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird
This nineteenth-century travelogue offers a keen, observant account of a young woman’s journey through the burgeoning landscapes of Canada and the United States during the mid-1850s. It captures the social, political, and physical textures of a rapidly changing North American continent.

The Flower Princess
Abbie Farwell Brown
The journey through these pages feels like stepping into a sun-drenched, overgrown garden where the air is thick with the scent of flowers and the quiet magic of childhood wonder. It is a collection of four distinct, gentle tales that embrace the classic spirit of the fairy story while grounding its whimsy in the…

The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of natural history and rural life (Illustrated)
Richard Jefferies
A gamekeeper moves through wet woods and quiet hedgerows, defending his master's preserves while observing the secret, constant machinery of nature.

The Grimké sisters
Catherine H. Birney
Born into the Southern aristocracy, two sisters turned their backs on the comfort of their slave-holding heritage to become the country’s most vocal and courageous pioneers for abolition and women’s rights.

The Leopard Woman
Stewart Edward White
HOOK A seasoned ivory hunter and a mysterious, high-born woman compete to reach a powerful African chieftain first. Their rivalry deepens into a dangerous, high-stakes game of manipulation amidst the unforgiving isolation of the veldt.

The Machinery of the Universe: Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena
A. E. (Amos Emerson) Dolbear
A universe built entirely on mechanical motion replaces mysterious forces with tangible, rotatory models of physical law.

The Man and the Moment
Elinor Glyn
The impulsive marriage of two headstrong strangers leads to a years-long separation, only for fate to reunite them through a tangled web of secrets and shifting loyalties.

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation
Richard Hakluyt
The world expands through the eyes of those who dared to sail beyond the known horizon. This vast collection preserves the firsthand accounts of the Elizabethan age’s most ambitious maritime explorers.

The Story of Electricity
John Munro
Electricity remains one of the most vital forces of modern life, yet its fundamental principles are often obscured by the complexity of their application. This accessible survey demystifies the invisible currents that power our world.

The Story of Paul Boyton: Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World
Paul Boyton
A man in a rubber suit traverses the great rivers of the world, testing his endurance against whirlpools, predators, and the sheer unpredictability of the elements.