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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 344 of 714.

Outspinning the Spider: The Story of Wire and Wire Rope
John Kimberly Mumford
A fine strand of drawn metal can outspin the spider, carrying the weight of modern civilization on invisible, unbreakable threads.

Poems of American Patriotism
Unknown
A nation’s history echoes not merely in its recorded battles, but in the enduring lyrics born from its most desperate hours and quietest sacrifices.

Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough
Beliefs falter and certainty dissolves, yet life moves forward through the daily necessity of choice, work, and honest, unpretentious human connection.

Pomander Walk
Louis Napoleon Parker
Set in a tranquil riverfront enclave, this Regency romance explores how old secrets, eccentric neighbors, and rekindled flames reshape a quiet London street.

Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins
Eugène Sue
A wealthy heiress hides her identity, a proud hunchback fights for orphans, and two sisters unwittingly race toward the truth of their shared bloodline in 1830s Paris.

Prize Money
Quincy Wright
How state authority seized control of private naval warfare, transforming sea plunder from legal piracy into a strictly regulated instrument of public law.

Psychology and parenthood
H. Addington (Henry Addington) Bruce
Every child possesses hidden mental reserves that remain largely untapped because typical home environments fail to nurture them properly.

Rollo at Play
Jacob Abbott
A young boy's adventures teach valuable lessons about responsibility and nature.

Rudder Grange
Frank R. Stockton
An improvised houseboat on a abandoned canal barge becomes the comic launching pad for a young couple’s domestic misadventures.

Rudolph Eucken
Abel J. (Abel John) Jones
A human life cannot find its true meaning in naturalistic routine or social utility alone, but only through a conscious, heroic struggle toward a higher, universal spiritual reality.

Sea Poems
Cale Young Rice
A solitary watcher stands where the rising tide hits the rocks, seeking a quiet mind within the endless, churning rhythm of the ocean.

Shavings: A Novel
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
In a coastal Massachusetts village, a gentle eccentric who carves wooden windmills finds his quiet life upended when he shelters a young widow, her child, and a secret that threatens the entire town's peace.

Short Stories and Essays (from Literature and Life)
William Dean Howells
To step into these pages is to wander through a vanishing turn-of-the-century America with a quiet observer who catches the exact weight of frozen brine on an East River pier and the soft hypocrisy of modern life.

Sky Island: Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill after their visit to the sea fairies
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A magical umbrella whisks a boy away on a fantastical adventure to Sky Island, where he meets a sailor, a girl, and a host of colorful characters.

Social Life in England Through the Centuries
H. R. Wilton Hall
A silent, centuries-old hollow in the turf turns out to be an ancient hearth, revealing how the everyday physical spaces of the past shape the modern social landscape.

St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11
Various
A bound treasury of nineteenth-century imagination offers young readers an eclectic mix of whimsical poetry, instructive natural science, serialized domestic adventures, and moral fables.

Stand by for Mars!
Carey Rockwell
Three disparate teenagers enter Space Academy, face ruthless exams, survive a harrowing rescue mission, and endure a grueling march across the Martian desert to become a unified rocket crew.

Stories of the Gorilla Country, Narrated for Young People
Paul B. (Paul Belloni) Du Chaillu
A traveler ventures into the little-known forests of nineteenth-century Equatorial Africa, recording encounters with fierce wildlife, unfamiliar human cultures, and the legendary giant ape that haunts the dense jungle canopy.

Studies in Life from Jewish Proverbs
W. A. L. (William Alexander Leslie) Elmslie
Old maxims are treated not as stale rules but as vivid, living footprints left by real people surviving turbulent historical change.

The Bab Ballads, with Which Are Included Songs of a Savoyard
W. S. (William Schwenck) Gilbert
In a world where pomposity reigns supreme, logical absurdity becomes the only sensible response.

The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, December 1884, No. 3
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This Victorian monthly guide balances rigorous classical study with practical household management and community updates for ambitious self-directed readers.

The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Charles Nordhoff
A firsthand exploration of America's communistic societies in the 19th century.

The Fall of British Tyranny
John Leacock
British intrigue encounters American resolve across a continent at war in a fiery political drama. Written during the dawn of the American Revolution, this satirical play transforms military clashes and cabinet schemes into a rallying cry for independence.

The Feeding of School Children
M. E. (Mildred Emily) Bulkley
The challenge of ensuring children are nourished enough to learn remains a quiet but urgent social struggle. This study traces the historical transition from indifferent charity to a recognized public responsibility.

The Girls of St. Cyprian's: A Tale of School Life
Angela Brazil
Driven by a dead father's legacy, a gifted young violinist navigates boarders' rivalries, artistic rivalries, and family claims at an English girls' school to earn a career in music.

The Great American Canals (Volume 2, The Erie Canal)
Archer Butler Hulbert
A single engineered ditch across the New York wilderness re-routed the trade of a continent, reshaping American commerce and political geography through sheer mechanical ambition and stubborn legislative will.

The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
William Z. Foster
A grueling twelve-hour workday, seven days a week, meets the unyielding wall of corporate monopoly in a battle for the soul of American labor.

The hand of power
Edgar Wallace
A treacherous gale on Dartmoor launches an orphan into a labyrinth of identity theft, criminal cults, and ocean-going murder.

The Harvest of Ruskin
John W. (John William) Graham
An impassioned Victorian social critic challenges the moral foundations of industrial capitalism, arguing that a nation's true wealth resides not in standard economic ledgers, but in the spiritual integrity and physical vitality of its people.

The Harwich Naval Forces: Their Part in the Great War
E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight
Nightly sirens pierce the coastal air, driving officers from quiet drawing rooms to the violent, unpredictable waters of the North Sea.

The Herd Boy and His Hermit
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A young herd boy's journey to reclaim his noble birthright during the Wars of the Roses.

The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2): A Narrative and Critical History
George Cary Eggleston
The initial attempt to bind loose states together through voluntary compact unravels into a terrifying scale of industrialized slaughter across North America.

The Household of Sir Thomas More
Anne Manning
A devoted daughter chronicles the warmth, intellectual brilliance, and tragic downfall of her father as his unyielding conscience brings him into fatal conflict with his King.

The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893: An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr
Various
A varied showcase of late-Victorian popular writing, this issue balances sharp fiction, stage memoirs, and casual editorial banter with effortless readability.

The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain
An American traveler sets out on a grand steamship tour across the Mediterranean, determined to look past romantic myths and describe the Old World exactly as he finds it.

The jungle folk of Africa
Robert H. Milligan
A white observer steps into the West African interior, encountering a world of dense forests, complex human bonds, and unyielding natural forces.

The Ladies Delight
Anonymous
An elaborate eighteenth-century botanical parody uses double entendre to turn sexual anatomy, social scandal, and London night-life into a ribald satirical guide.

The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls
L. T. Meade
Under the shadow of ancient oak and beech trees, an ancient English estate awaits its true heir, weaving together lost silver, buried family secrets, and the fragile lives of children caught in the schemes of their elders.

The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, Volume 2
Trenck, Friedrich, Freiherr von der
Stripped of liberty and buried alive in a Prussian fortress, an indomitable officer uses sheer muscle, forged tools, and raw stubbornness to break his chains and outwit a vengeful monarchy.

The making of a mountaineer
George Ingle Finch
To stand atop a remote, frozen precipice requires more than raw nerve; it demands a disciplined mind, an eye for terrain, and an unyielding devotion to the summit.

The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886
Various
A treasure trove of New England history, culture, and literature from the late 19th century.

The Night Riders: A Romance of Early Montana
Ridgwell Cullum
A young Englishman arrives in the wild cattle country of 1880s Montana, only to find himself entangled in a deadly struggle against mysterious rustlers and a tyrannical, blind rancher.

The Pig Brother, and Other Fables and Stories: A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth School Year
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
Moral clarity meets whimsical imagination in this collection of fables, where everyday choices—like cleaning a nursery or sharing a cake—carry surprising, far-reaching consequences.

The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, 1636?-1674, from the original manuscripts
Thomas Traherne
A lost seventeenth-century visionary reclaims the divine light of early childhood, urging a fallen world to remember its original innocence.

The Power-House
John Buchan
A brilliant mind turns its back on society to build a hidden machinery of ruin, and only a dry London lawyer stands between him and total collapse.

The Privet Hedge
J. E. Buckrose
A small seaside town resists the tide of modernity, but youth and change sweep past the barrier anyway.

The Puddleford Papers
Henry Hiram Riley
In an isolated frontier town, eccentric settlers, aspiring elites, and makeshift legal authorities turn everyday rustic survival into a series of theatrical misunderstandings.

The Three Admirals
William Henry Giles Kingston
A life spent upon the open ocean yields a rare harvest: enduring bonds forged in peril, sudden tragedy, and the quiet dignity of a long career brought home to safe harbor.