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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 399 of 670.
The Blindman's World: 1898
Edward Bellamy
The stars hold a mirror to humanity in this haunting exploration of a world where the future is as visible as the past. A professor’s accidental journey through space exposes the profound, tragic fragility of the human condition.
The Burglars' Club: A Romance in Twelve Chronicles
Henry Augustus Hering
The idle rich often hunger for danger, leading a group of bored aristocrats to turn their lives into a high-stakes game of larceny and nerve.
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
This pioneering autobiography offers a startlingly candid portrait of an Enlightenment thinker’s inner life, tracing the development of a sensitive, complicated spirit from his wandering youth to his eventual literary success.
The Count's Chauffeur
William Le Queux
The life of a high-speed criminal is lived in the rearview mirror, where every winding European road promises either a fortune or a prison cell. This collection of linked tales follows a master driver navigating the dangerous slipstream of an international jewel thief.
The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915
Basil L. (Basil Lanneau) Gildersleeve
The memories of a lost cause endure as a poignant, haunting testament to the convictions of a generation that saw its world dismantled and its allegiances redefined by war.
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Samuel
William Garden Blaikie
A profound meditation on the complexities of power, divine favor, and the moral fragility of a legendary king, this volume offers a bridge between ancient scripture and the Victorian theological imagination.
The Fight for the Republic in China
B. L. (Bertram Lenox) Putnam Weale
The survival of a fragile Republic depends on its internal strength, yet foreign ambitions and the weight of imperial history constantly threaten to dismantle the newborn state.
The Fool: A Play in Four Acts
Channing Pollock
The story of a man who attempts to live by the literal teachings of Christ in modern New York, this play explores the friction between spiritual ideals and the cold realities of industrial capitalism. It is a work that asks, with quiet intensity, what would happen if a man actually tried to live like the Master.
The Frontier
Maurice Leblanc
The shadow of an encroaching war looms over a quiet, fortified household, forcing a scholar to choose between his pacifist ideals and the visceral reality of his homeland’s defense. This tense, atmospheric drama examines how abstract principles fracture under the weight of an inevitable national crisis.
The Grip of Desire: The Story of a Parish-Priest
Hector France
This narrative follows the internal and external disintegration of a village priest, exploring the friction between his religious vows and his human nature. It is a work of grim realism that prioritizes the visceral truth of the body over the ideals of the pulpit.
The Hero
Elaine Wilber
This story follows a crew of soldiers whose mission to occupy a seemingly primitive planet takes an unexpected turn when their own arrogance blinds them to the true nature of the inhabitants.
The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church
A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton) Thompson
The ancient stones of the English parish church tell a story not of grand monastic decree, but of local pride, changing rituals, and the quiet, persistent labor of common people.
The Iron Game: A Tale of the War
Henry F. (Henry Francis) Keenan
The "iron game" of the American Civil War serves as the backdrop for a tale of love, duty, and the tragic ironies that bind families across battle lines.
The Isles of Scilly
Jessie Mothersole
This evocative account captures the unique geography, history, and daily life of the Isles of Scilly. It serves as an affectionate, artistic portrait of an isolated archipelago, blending practical travel observations with deep local lore.
The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories
Charles Fletcher Lummis
This collection of Pueblo Indian folk-stories brings to life a world where animals speak, magic hums in the landscape, and every natural wonder has a name and a history.
The Mountainy Singer
Joseph Campbell
The world of these verses is one of elemental struggle, where the sacred and the savage exist side by side beneath the heavy, shifting skies of the Irish hills. It is a song of labor, land, and the enduring pulse of a people tethered to the soil.
The Mystery Girl
Carolyn Wells
The mystery of a locked-room death in a New England college town hinges on a young woman who refuses to explain her presence or her past. A master detective must untangle a web of inheritance, secret relationships, and academic scandal to uncover the truth.
The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne
Anthony Trollope
The rugged beauty of the Devonshire moors frames a quiet, intense struggle between a determined clergyman’s daughter and a man who seeks to possess what he cannot truly value.
The Pearl Story Book: A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected
Mrs. (Pamela Chandler) Colman
This nineteenth-century miscellany gathers together gentle narratives and rhythmic verses meant to instruct, comfort, and stir the moral imagination of young readers. It is a quiet, earnest book that bridges the gap between folklore and the domestic realities of childhood.
The Planet Mars and Its Inhabitants, a Psychic Revelation
J. L. Kennon
This account of a utopian Martian society, channeled by a spiritual medium, offers a radical blueprint for terrestrial reform through the lens of divine, extraterrestrial wisdom. It serves as a visionary manifesto for those seeking to reconcile technological advancement with profound spiritual enlightenment.
The Red Mouse: A Mystery Romance
William Hamilton Osborne
A marriage unravels against the backdrop of high-stakes gambling and political corruption, forcing a husband and wife to redefine their lives through the harsh lens of poverty and redemption.
The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment
Joseph Bates
A devout mid-19th-century believer argues that the seventh-day Sabbath was never abolished, urging fellow Christians to return to the original commandment to prepare for the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ.
The Star-Chamber: An Historical Romance, Volume 2
William Harrison Ainsworth
A young knight battles the corrupt machinations of a notorious extortioner in the treacherous, intrigue-filled court of King James I.
The Station
William Carleton
The traditions of rural Ireland are captured here with a sharp, observant eye, revealing the strange intersection of profound religious devotion and the earthly, often chaotic, realities of peasant life.
The Story of Manhattan
Charles Hemstreet
This book traces the transformation of a small, precarious Dutch fur-trading outpost into the bustling, foundational city of a new nation. It captures the rapid layering of history upon the geography of Manhattan.
The Three Fates
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A young writer navigates the treacherous waters of professional obscurity, social ambition, and the unpredictable nature of the heart in late nineteenth-century New York.
The Tracer of Lost Persons
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
A mysterious detective agency uses elaborate, orchestrated coincidences to nudge hesitant, mismatched, and often bewildered lovers into each other’s arms.
The War With the United States
William Wood
The struggle of 1812 serves as a grim reminder that when nations trade peace for the perceived necessity of conflict, the resulting chaos often defies the intentions of those who summoned it.
The Weathercock: Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias
George Manville Fenn
The village of Mavis Greythorpe serves as the stage for a young inventor’s restless mind, where mechanical curiosity and clashing personalities turn a quiet life into a series of unintended, high-stakes adventures.
The Widow's Dog
Mary Russell Mitford
This account of a widow, a young boy, and a spaniel captures the quiet, enduring bonds between people and their animals in a remote English hamlet. It is a gentle, observational work that finds profound significance in the simple life of a struggling household.
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Unknown
These are the voices of the pulpit’s most formidable architects, charting the intersection of the finite human spirit and the infinite demands of the divine.
The Young Engineers in Arizona
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
Young civil engineers, far from home and facing a treacherous desert landscape, must outmaneuver corrupt local gamblers and saboteurs to finish a vital railroad line. Their grit and technical skill determine whether the project succeeds or is swallowed by the earth.
Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. 1 (of 5)
Heinrich Barth
A sprawling, meticulous chronicle of an mid-19th-century expedition into the heart of Africa, capturing both the vast, unforgiving desert and the intricate lives of those who traverse it.
Type Cases and Composing-room Furniture: A Primer of Information About Type Cases, Work Stands, Cabinets, Case Racks, Galley Racks, Standing Galleys, &c
A. A. (Alexander A.) Stewart
HOOK This technical primer provides a foundational look at the physical architecture of the early twentieth-century printing office, detailing the essential storage and workstations required for the craft.
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 04
Unknown
These collected narratives preserve the fading echoes of the Scottish Borders, weaving history, folklore, and personal struggle into a tapestry of life at the edge of the Highlands.
Working Women of Japan
Sidney Lewis Gulick
A firsthand account of Japanese women navigating the harsh realities of a rapidly industrializing society, this 1915 study details the struggles of laborers, domestic servants, and factory workers.
Yule Logs: Longmans' Christmas Annual for 1898
Unknown
A collection of eleven adventurous tales from the waning years of the nineteenth century, these stories capture the rugged spirit of global exploration, military conflict, and daring rescues across land and sea.
A Cynic Looks at Life
Ambrose Bierce
The world is a stage of fools, and the author is a spectator who has long since grown weary of the performance. Through a series of biting essays and sharp epigrams, this collection exposes the vanity, hypocrisy, and inherent stupidity of the human race.
A Lover's Diary, Complete
Gilbert Parker
A haunting sequence of sonnets, this work maps the terrain of a forbidden, lifelong devotion, where the heart finds its only sanctuary in the quiet, agonizing space between duty and desire.
A Rich Man's Relatives (Vol. 1 of 3)
Robert Cleland
A wealthy man’s inheritance casts a long shadow over his surviving kin, revealing the vanities and hidden struggles of those who covet his fortune. This story of social ambition and domestic maneuvering captures the peculiar tensions of a stratified society.
A Slave is a Slave
H. Beam Piper
The transition of a slave-run society into an imperial province reveals that liberation is often a matter of semantics. A rigid social hierarchy built on centuries of oppression cannot be undone by a simple decree.
A Stake in the Land
Peter A. (Peter Alexander) Speek
A pragmatic guide to the early twentieth-century American dream, this study examines the vital intersection of immigrant settlement, land ownership, and the role of public education in fostering national belonging.
About Peggy Saville
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
The lively, perceptive new girl at a country vicarage discovers that the true measure of character lies not in quick-witted arrogance, but in the difficult, unglamorous work of caring for others.
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium
George Catlin
HOOK This account captures the disorienting, often humorous friction that occurs when Indigenous travelers from the American frontier encounter the rigid social hierarchies and bustling urban sprawl of mid-19th-century Europe.
Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher
Eleanor Gates
HOOK A devoted cowpuncher navigates the rough-and-tumble life of an Oklahoma frontier town, using his matchmaking instincts to secure his own future with the woman he loves.
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
John Foster
Ignorance is not merely a lack of information; it is a profound moral catastrophe that blinds society to its own potential and perpetuates unnecessary human suffering. This urgent analysis examines the systemic failure to educate the masses, arguing that the true cost of neglected minds is a civilization that…
An ice cream laboratory guide
W. W. (Walter Warner) Fisk
This practical manual offers a rigorous, laboratory-based education in the science of frozen confections, bridging the gap between small-batch experimentation and commercial manufacturing. It provides the essential technical foundation for anyone interested in the chemistry and mechanics of professional-grade ice…
Ancient Chinese account of the Grand Canyon, or course of the Colorado
Alexander McAllan
A curious investigation links ancient Chinese geographic records to the geological wonders of the American West. It proposes that cryptic Eastern texts describe the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon with startling accuracy.