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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 361 of 714.

Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself
Henry Bibb
A man born into bondage pursues freedom with relentless conviction, navigating the perilous landscape of the American South to rescue his family from the grip of human property laws.

O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919
Unknown
This collection captures the American spirit at a crossroads, gathering the finest short fiction of 1919 to honor a master storyteller. It is a portrait of a nation emerging from the shadow of the Great War.

Old Court Life in France, vol. 1/2
Frances Minto Dickinson Elliot
This vivid historical chronicle brings the volatile, intrigue-steeped corridors of the French royal court to life, following the personal and political destinies of the Valois and Bourbon monarchs.

One Day: A sequel to 'Three Weeks'
Unknown
The royal son of a forbidden romance struggles under the weight of his heritage, seeking to reconcile his duty to a throne with the uncontrollable, inherited fire of his parents’ love.

Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed: The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked: (2nd ed.)
C. H. Thomas
The Anglo-Boer War was not an accidental collision of empires, but the calculated result of a long-standing conspiracy to displace British influence from South Africa. This account argues that a hidden clique of agitators manipulated a deluded Boer population into a war that served only the interests of a select few.

Parallel Paths: A Study in Biology, Ethics, and Art
T. W. (Thomas William) Rolleston
Life and meaning do not emerge from random molecular collisions alone, nor are they dictated by an all-powerful external designer. A mysterious, living directive force shapes the living world, driving matter toward ever-expanding horizons of organic complexity, ethical responsibility, and artistic expression.

Pioneer Life among the Loyalists in Upper Canada
Walter Stevens Herrington
The first pioneers of Ontario built a new civilization from the forest floor up, trading the comforts of an old world for the rigors and self-reliance of the Canadian wilderness.

Political Pamphlets
Unknown
This collection gathers essential, hard-hitting political tracts from the 17th to the 19th centuries, capturing the urgent, often biting voices that shaped British public discourse during eras of profound national upheaval.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893
Various
HOOK A boisterous, satirical window into the late Victorian era, where political theater, social pretensions, and the absurdity of bureaucracy are skewered with sharp, rhythmic wit.

Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast
Kirk Munroe
This is an earnest tale of a sheltered boy who trades his inheritance for the rough, unvarnished education of the Pacific Northwest. It is a classic bildungsroman that equates physical endurance with moral growth, mapping a journey from the velvet-lined rooms of a wealthy home to the cold, dangerous majesty of a…

Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882
Various
This issue of a late-nineteenth-century technical weekly serves as a vivid time capsule of Victorian ingenuity, capturing the era’s restless drive to measure, refine, and master the physical world. It is a collection of reports on industrial progress and laboratory discovery.

Selections from the Kur-an
Unknown
This volume serves as a bridge into one of the world’s most foundational texts, curating essential passages to offer a clear, accessible entry point into its spiritual and narrative core.

Sir Walter Scott
Andrew Lang
A dedicated look at the life and legacy of a literary giant, this volume traces the journey of a man who transformed from a bright, lame schoolboy into the most celebrated novelist of his era.

Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XV, Tennessee Narratives
United States. Work Projects Administration
These transcripts capture the fading voices of individuals who lived through the transition from enslavement to emancipation, preserving a raw, unvarnished history of the American South. The collection serves as an invaluable primary record, documenting the intimate, often harrowing experiences of people whose…

Soldiers of the Queen
Harold Avery
A defiant schoolboy runs from a stifling life to enlist in the British Army, only to find that the true battle is proving his worth to those he loves.

Storm in a Teacup
Eden Phillpotts
The quiet routines of a Devon paper mill are shattered when an idealistic worker runs off with his coworker’s wife, only to discover that the reality of their intellectual union is far less harmonious than his lofty principles promised.

Tales of two people
Anthony Hope
These stories explore the whimsical intersections of high society and human folly, where the boundaries between play-acting and sincerity are perpetually blurred. In a world of aristocrats, impostors, and ambitious social climbers, the true cost of a gesture is often hidden behind a polished veneer of charm.

The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day
Harriet Stark
Can beauty be distilled into a science? When a young woman is transformed into an icon of perfection, the cost of her newfound glory threatens to consume her sanity and life.

The Battleship Boys in Foreign Service
Frank Gee Patchin
HOOK Two young American sailors find themselves in constant, hair-raising peril as their Mediterranean cruise transforms from a routine naval mission into a series of accidental encounters with international crime.

The Black Box: A Tale of Monmouth's Rebellion
W. Bourne Cooke
A young man is thrust into the violent heart of history when he becomes the keeper of a dangerous secret during the Monmouth Rebellion.

The Book of Missionary Heroes
Basil Mathews
These accounts of conviction and endurance trace a two-thousand-year lineage of travelers who braved the unknown to carry a single message across the globe. They are stories of lives defined by the resolve to go where others would not.

The Call of the Twentieth Century, an Address to Young Men
David Starr Jordan
The twentieth century arrives with a call for men of purpose, demanding not the hollow glory of the past, but the disciplined, truth-seeking labor of the present. Your future depends entirely on the stewardship of your own potential.

The Champdoce Mystery
Emile Gaboriau
A journey from the provinces to Paris unravels a tangled web of long-hidden secrets, where a father’s cold neglect and a woman’s calculated ambition collide. Lives are reshaped by the sudden discovery of a lost heir, proving that the past is never truly buried.

The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, February 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This magazine captures the earnest intellectual vigor of the late nineteenth-century American self-improvement movement, offering a sprawling curriculum designed to bring the fruits of culture to the common reader.

The Children's Six Minutes
Bruce S. (Bruce Simpson) Wright
This collection offers a series of brief, warm-hearted lessons designed to bridge the gap between childhood curiosity and spiritual growth. It serves as a gentle guide for young readers seeking to understand their place in a world of faith.

The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea
Edward Money
This manual serves as a meticulous guide for the aspiring tea planter, detailing the precise agricultural and mechanical requirements necessary to cultivate and manufacture tea for a global market.

The desert home
Mayne Reid
The vast, untamed expanse of the American West hides a secret refuge where a displaced family constructs a life of independence and wonder amidst the wilderness.

The Diary of a Man of Fifty
Henry James
A middle-aged man returns to Florence and attempts to steer a young compatriot away from a romance that mirrors his own failed past. It is a cautionary tale about the high cost of cynicism.

The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved in 50 Arguments
William A. (William Asbury) Williams
This work serves as a polemical manual designed to dismantle the theory of evolution through a combination of arithmetic calculations, biblical interpretation, and critiques of early 20th-century scientific literature. It functions as a foundational text for those seeking a rigorous, faith-based rejection of human…

The Expansion of Europe
Ramsay Muir
This exploration of global history examines how Western political ideas—and the rival conceptions of empire—reshaped the modern world. It offers a structured analysis of the expansion of European powers from the age of discovery to the early twentieth century.

The Father of British Canada: a Chronicle of Carleton
William Wood
Guy Carleton, first Baron Dorchester, emerges from these pages not merely as a colonial administrator, but as the steady architect of a British Canada that successfully bridged two distinct cultures. Through war and political evolution, his tenure ensured the survival of the northern colonies during the upheaval of…

The First Canadians in France: The Chronicle of a Military Hospital in the War Zone
F. McKelvey (Frederick McKelvey) Bell
The soldiers of the Great War were often defined by their bravery, but this account reveals the quiet, persistent humanity of those tasked with mending the broken bodies left behind by the conflict.

The Girl of the Golden West
David Belasco
The untamed spirit of the California frontier meets the transformative power of love in this rugged, atmospheric tale of redemption and escape.

The guests of Hercules
C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson
HOOK A convent-bred innocent arrives at the glittering, treacherous world of Monte Carlo, where she is caught in a web of gambling, dark secrets, and a romance that tests her soul.

The Halo
Hutten zum Stolzenberg, Betsey Riddle, Freifrau von
A young woman finds herself entangled in a forbidden, agonizing attraction to her fiancé’s father, a magnetic yet volatile violinist. This story explores the wreckage left by desire when duty and passion collide.

The Handbook to the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk & Suffolk
G. Christopher (George Christopher) Davies
An immersive guide to the winding waterways and shallow lakes of East Anglia, providing both a practical manual for the yachtsman and a lyrical celebration of a unique, water-bound landscape.

The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge"
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
This guide navigates the winding, hilly corridor from London to the Sussex coast, blending historical inquiry with the practical observations of a traveler. It transforms a familiar route into a vivid tapestry of English life and lore.

The Heart of a Woman
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
A young man faces a murder charge for a crime he refuses to deny, while the woman who loves him fights to uncover the truth behind his cryptic sacrifice.

The History of Mendelssohn's Oratorio 'Elijah'
F. G. (Frederick George) Edwards
This scholarly account documents the creative evolution and triumphant 1846 premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah. It provides an intimate, granular look at the meticulous labor behind one of the nineteenth century’s most enduring choral masterworks.

The Homesteader: A Novel
Oscar Micheaux
A visionary Black pioneer stakes a claim on the South Dakota frontier, only to find that his ambition for self-reliance is met with the relentless, encroaching prejudice of the world he left behind.

The Laughing Prince: Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales
Parker Fillmore
A collection of spirited Balkan folklore, these tales pulse with the clash of empires and the endurance of ancient, magical spirits. They offer a vivid window into a world where peasants and princes trade places.

The Lay of the Land
Dallas Lore Sharp
The observant eyes of a dedicated naturalist turn the quiet rhythms of a small farm into a vast, unfolding drama of survival and seasonal grace. Every field holds a secret, and every creature is a neighbor worth knowing.

The Literary Sense
E. (Edith) Nesbit
The world is a stage, and for these characters, life is merely a script they desperately hope to follow. They navigate their desires through the lens of romantic artifice, often sacrificing genuine happiness for the sake of a "better scene.

The Little House
Coningsby Dawson
HOOK An anthropomorphic house in London, acting as a silent witness and guardian, orchestrates a Christmas miracle to unite two lonely souls amidst the backdrop of the First World War.

The Little Review, April 1916 (Vol. 3, No. 2)
Various
This April 1916 edition of a vital Chicago-based literary magazine captures the restless, combative spirit of early 20th-century modernism. It serves as a vital record of a generation struggling to define art against the suffocating weight of tradition and commerce.

The Mentor: Famous English Poets, Vol. 1, Num. 44, Serial No. 44
Hamilton Wright Mabie
The literature of the nineteenth century stands as a towering legacy, defined by six distinct voices that reshaped the English imagination. This survey captures the essence of that era’s poetic revolution through the lives and works of its most enduring figures.

The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Parts 2, 3 and 4
Hurlothrumbo
Graffiti serves as the ultimate mirror of a society, capturing the unfiltered thoughts, grievances, and bawdy humor of eighteenth-century England through the scribbled verses left on tavern windows and washroom walls.

The Necromancers
Robert Hugh Benson
A grieving young man turns to spiritualism to contact his deceased beloved, only to discover that the doors to the beyond are not as easily closed as they are opened.