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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 318 of 714.

Stories of Achievement, Volume III, Orators and Reformers
Unknown
The secret of greatness often lies in the quiet, persistent labor of those who refuse to be defined by their origins or their obstacles. This collection celebrates individuals who transformed personal struggle into public service.

Strange Visitors: A series of original papers, embracing philosophy, science, government, religion, poetry, art, fiction, satire, humor, narrative, and prophecy, by the spirits of Irving, Willis, Thackeray, Brontë, Richter, Byron, Humboldt, Hawthorne, Wesley, Browning, and others now dwelling in the spirit world
Henry J. Horn
A collection of spectral dispatches from the afterlife, this curious volume features famous poets, statesmen, and thinkers explaining the mechanics of a world that mirrors our own.

Studies in the Art of Rat-catching
Henry C. Barkley
This unconventional handbook blends practical instruction on vermin control with heartfelt reminiscences of rural life, dog training, and the enduring bonds formed between humans and animals in the English countryside.

Tales of the Wilderness
Boris Pilniak
This collection of narratives captures the disorientation of post-revolutionary Russia, where the old world disintegrates into the snow-swept silence of the wilderness. It is a haunting, fragmented portrait of a society unmoored from its past.

The Agony Column
Earl Derr Biggers
A chance encounter in a hotel leads a young American to initiate a daring, long-distance courtship via a newspaper's personal column. As he spins a tale of mystery and murder to capture the woman's attention, he finds himself ensnared in a genuine, high-stakes international conspiracy.

The Alhambra: being a brief record of the Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture and decoration
Albert Frederick Calvert
This record of the Alhambra invites readers into the heart of Granada’s most storied fortress, capturing the exquisite fusion of Islamic architectural genius and the dramatic, shifting tides of medieval Spanish history.

The Annals of the Parish
John Galt
A humble country minister chronicles fifty years of quiet change in his Scottish parish, recording the small triumphs, tragedies, and shifting customs of his flock.

The Basis of Early Christian Theism
Lawrence Thomas Cole
The search for God through pure reason often ends in uncertainty, yet early Christian thinkers found a stable alternative in the concrete revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Black Man's Place in South Africa
Nielsen, Peter, active 1922-1937
The white minority in South Africa faces a critical choice: either reconcile with an awakening black majority or brace for inevitable, escalating conflict.

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume IV
John Payne
A storyteller’s tapestry of shifting fates and sudden fortunes, these pages gather the restless spirits of Baghdad and beyond into a cycle of wit, peril, and the inescapable whims of divine decree.

The Boss of Little Arcady
Harry Leon Wilson
A man of grandiloquent spirit and questionable character descends upon a small, unsuspecting community, sparking a battle of wits that tests the town’s collective patience and the ingenuity of its self-appointed leader.

The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas
George S. (George Shepard) Chappell
The South Seas are a playground for the absurd in this deadpan satire of early 20th-century travelogues, where explorers discover islands that sound like groceries and fall in love with "Mother of Pearl." It is a sharp, affectionate poke at the era’s obsession with "tropic-scented" discovery.

The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them
Charles Loring Brace
This nineteenth-century chronicle offers an urgent, firsthand account of the struggle to rescue New York City’s neglected youth from a cycle of poverty and criminality. It serves as a foundational text in the history of American social reform.

The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks
Edwin Pears
The final days of the Byzantine Empire arrive not with a whisper, but with the roar of heavy artillery against the ancient walls of Constantinople. This account captures the inevitable collapse of a thousand-year civilization under the pressure of a rising Ottoman power.

The English at the North Pole: Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras
Jules Verne
A relentless captain leads a hand-picked crew toward the North Pole, only to find that the icy wilderness is as much a test of their humanity as it is of their endurance.

The Fallen Star, or, the History of a False Religion by E.L. Bulwer
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
The humble and the ambitious are easily led astray, for history proves that humanity’s inherent craving for mystery and miracles consistently outweighs its commitment to demonstrated truth.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
This collection of seventeenth-century archival records captures the precarious administration of the Spanish Philippines, detailing a world of colonial bureaucracy, religious mission work, and strategic naval anxiety.

The planet of peril
Otis Adelbert Kline
A bored socialite is whisked from a Chicago opera house to a lethal, alien world, where he must trade his tuxedo for a sword and his privilege for survival.

The Poor Little Rich Girl
Eleanor Gates
A lonely child, trapped within the sterile, gilded confines of her parents' mansion, discovers that the only way to reach those she loves is to cross the borders of a dream.

The Saxons: A Drama of Christianity in the North
Edwin Davies Schoonmaker
The struggle for the soul of the North pits ancient, wild traditions against the encroaching shadow of a rigid, institutionalized faith. Through a lyrical, dense, and dreamlike drama, the clash between forest dwellers and an expansionist abbey reveals the fragile line between divinity and human cruelty.

The Scholfield Wool-Carding Machines
Grace Rogers Cooper
The mechanical secrets of wool processing transformed a young nation’s economy, bridging the gap between laborious hand-carding and the industrial age. This study traces the arrival of two English innovators and the machines that became their legacy.

The School of Recreation (1696 edition): Or a Guide to the Most Ingenious Exercises of Hunting, Riding, Racing, Fireworks, Military Discipline, the Science of Defence
R. H. (Robert Howlett)
A practical compendium of seventeenth-century pastimes, this guide offers a window into the structured leisure and necessary skills of the English gentry, from the art of the hunt to the science of fireworks.

The Shogun's Daughter
Robert Ames Bennet
HOOK A young American naval officer survives a shipwreck on the coast of Japan, only to be thrust into a high-stakes power struggle within the isolationist Shogunate.

The Strand Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 97, January to June 1899: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
HOOK This collection captures the Victorian zeitgeist through a vibrant mosaic of suspenseful fiction, travel reportage, and the era’s burgeoning fascination with science, technology, and the curiosities of the wider world.

The Three Midshipmen
William Henry Giles Kingston
Three young schoolboys embark on a lifetime of adventure in the British Navy, facing pirates, slavers, and the perils of the sea in a relentless pursuit of duty and glory.

The treatment of nature in English poetry between Pope and Wordsworth
Myra Reynolds
The landscape of English poetry did not transform overnight; it evolved through a quiet, century-long shift in how writers observed the woods, the mountains, and the shifting skies of their own world.

Trail Tales
James David Gillilan
HOOK A minister’s collection of frontier sketches captures the raw, human pulse of the American Northwest, where arid sagebrush plains transformed into blooming settlements through faith, grit, and the relentless labor of pioneers.

Trivia
Logan Pearsall Smith
A collection of brief, luminous observations, this work captures the fleeting ironies of human existence through the eyes of a self-aware, whimsical observer. These prose sketches transform the mundane into the profound, offering a sharp, witty meditation on what it means to be alive.

True Irish Ghost Stories
Unknown
The restless dead of Ireland rarely stay in their graves, preferring to walk the halls of old mansions and schoolrooms, leaving behind only the cold air of their passing and the terror of those who encounter them.

Uther and Igraine
Warwick Deeping
A tale of star-crossed devotion set against the brutal, mist-shrouded backdrop of a world transitioning from ancient chaos to the dawn of a new order.

Vagabondia: 1884
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The charm of this domestic portrait lies in its candid, affectionate gaze at a struggling household of artists, where love and loyalty serve as the only reliable currency. It is a story of resilience, finding grace in the small, chaotic triumphs of a family living on the frayed edges of Victorian society.

White Lies
Charles Reade
A proud, impoverished aristocratic family attempts to preserve their crumbling chateau through a web of desperate, tangled deceptions. Amidst the chaos of the Napoleonic era, honor clashes with the urgent, hidden desires of the heart.

Why Lincoln Laughed
Russell H. Conwell
Laughter was not merely a respite for the wartime leader, but a profound survival strategy and a tool for intellectual clarity.

With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement
Dalton, Hugh Dalton, Baron
The front lines of the First World War rarely felt more beautiful or more harrowing than in the high, jagged reaches of the Italian Alps. This account offers a rare, ground-level perspective of a British artillery officer navigating the camaraderie, the logistical nightmares, and the profound moral exhaustion of a…

Woman in Sacred History: A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Historical, and Legendary Sources
Harriet Beecher Stowe
These biographical sketches explore the lives of biblical women, revealing how their stories of faith, trial, and domestic influence shaped the foundations of religious history.

Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)
John Ruse Larus
The history of a nation is, at its core, the history of its women. This sweeping survey examines the shifting status of women across the Americas, tracing their evolution from the original inhabitants through the colonial era and into the dawn of the twentieth century.

A Book on Vegetable Dyes
Ethel Mairet
Quality in craft is a fragile inheritance, easily lost to the relentless hum of industrial efficiency. This guide serves as a manual for those who wish to reclaim the ancient, deliberate art of hand-dyeing.

A brief narrative of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, Wheeler's Corps, Army of Tennessee
George B. Guild
The remnants of a cavalry unit recount their service, moving from the excitement of initial mobilization to the quiet, melancholy reflections of men who have outlived their cause.

A Likely Story
William De Morgan
A portrait that remembers its own creation holds the key to a modern marriage caught in a tangle of jealousy, war, and miscommunication. Within these pages, the past is not merely prologue; it is a speaking participant in the present.

A Man of Business
Honoré de Balzac
In a city where debt is a social language, the most dangerous man is not the one with the most money, but the one who best understands the art of avoiding payment.

A Master of Fortune: Being Further Adventures of Captain Kettle
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
Captain Owen Kettle is a diminutive, iron-willed sea captain who navigates the brutal realities of late-Victorian maritime life with a Bible in one pocket and a revolver in the other. He is a man of relentless competence, a master of salvage and survival who treats every crisis—whether a mutiny on the Congo or a…

Ancient rhetoric and poetic
Charles Sears Baldwin
To interpret the ancient arts of composition is to uncover the foundational theories that shaped Western literature. By examining the essential precepts of oratory and poetry, the evolution of human expression becomes clear.

Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers
J. Walker (Joseph Walker) McSpadden
The Great War has passed, but the shadows of the men who fought it—and the titans who preceded them—remain fixed in history. This collection explores the formative years that transformed boys into the generals of the modern era.

Bracebridge Hall
Washington Irving
A nostalgic portrait of an English country estate captures a vanishing way of life through its eccentric inhabitants and timeless rituals. This gentle, observational work celebrates the enduring charm of tradition and the quiet hum of rural society.

Bunyan Characters (1st Series)
Alexander Whyte
To study the moral landscape of the soul, one must look past the surface of human affairs to the hidden springs of character, where the deepest battles between shadow and light are fought and won.

Buried Cities, Volume 3: Mycenae
Jennie Hall
The hunt for lost civilizations captures the imagination, turning dusty ruins into gateways to the past. This exploration reveals how a legendary Greek city was pulled from the earth, uncovering treasures that confirm the truth behind ancient songs.

Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins
John Fiske
This foundational text explores the historical evolution and practical mechanics of the American political system, framing the government as a living institution built upon centuries of English precedent.

Directions for Collecting and Preserving Insects
Charles V. (Charles Valentine) Riley
To capture the hidden life of the meadows and forests, one must master the humble tools of the field. This guide serves as a foundational manual for the systematic collection, preservation, and study of insect life.