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3,125 public-domain books, summarised. Page 44 of 66.

Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore: With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planter
Robert H. (Robert Henry) Elliot
This memoir details nearly four decades of life as a British coffee planter in Mysore, capturing a vanishing era of colonial enterprise, agrarian management, and the complexities of local governance.

The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. 1 (of 5)
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of Navarre
A collection of tales framed by the refined conversations of noble travelers, these stories navigate the precarious intersection of desire, virtue, and wit in the sixteenth century. By turns playful and somber, the narratives invite readers to consider whether true honor is found in rigid conduct or in the clever…

Work and Win
Oliver Optic
The journey from a reckless, uneducated orphan to a man of substance is paved with trial, tragedy, and the quiet dignity of honest labor. A boy finds his moral compass not through lectures, but through the harsh, transformative realities of a life at sea.

Just Patty
Jean Webster
A spirited boarding-school girl navigates the strictures of her environment with equal parts mischief, kindness, and a persistent, infectious sense of humor.

Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863
Fremantle, Arthur James Lyon, Sir
A British officer witnesses the unraveling of the American South, chronicling a journey that culminates in the desperate, climactic heat of the Battle of Gettysburg.

In Apple-Blossom Time: A Fairy-Tale to Date
Clara Louise Burnham
A young woman escapes a predatory guardian to find refuge with a shopkeeper, only to discover that her liberation requires the help of an unlikely pilot who descends from the sky to rescue her.

The Arbiter: A Novel
Bell, Florence Eveleen Eleanore Olliffe, Lady
A dutiful daughter finds her life’s purpose in shielding her father from the consequences of a catastrophic moral lapse. This drama examines the heavy, invisible architecture of loyalty and the crushing weight of public disgrace.

Mission Furniture: How to Make It, Part 3
H. H. (Henry Haven) Windsor
HOOK This manual offers a straightforward, practical guide for home craftsmen to build durable mission-style furniture using simple tools and accessible materials.

Uncle Rutherford's Nieces: A Story for Girls
Joanna H. (Joanna Hooe) Mathews
A quiet, earnest look at the domestic life of a Victorian family, this story traces the moral growth of a young boy struggling to transcend his humble, troubled beginnings through honesty and personal discipline.

Six Girls: A Home Story
Fannie Belle Irving
This is a domestic chronicle of six sisters navigating the transition from comfortable middle-class security to the hard realities of sudden poverty. It is a portrait of a family weathering professional failure, illness, and the slow, often painful process of coming of age.

A general history of the pyrates
Johnson, Charles, active 1724-1731
The golden age of maritime plunder was a brutal reality, not a romantic myth, forged in the wake of war and tempered by the gallows. These accounts strip away the legend to reveal the desperate, often violent, machinery of the pirate life.

Lundy's Lane, and Other Poems
Duncan Campbell Scott
The past is a country of ghosts and glory, where the echoes of ancient wars and the whispers of the Canadian wilderness resolve into a single, aching meditation on the persistence of the soul.

L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Benevolence, when practiced as a rigorous discipline of the mind, serves as the bedrock of human character and social order. By untangling the intent of a gift from its material value, this work challenges us to reconsider the ethics of giving, receiving, and the weight of obligation.

The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
The struggle between the earthly city and the kingdom of God defines the human experience. Through the lens of faith, this work maps the history of mankind as a pilgrimage toward eternal peace.

Flora Lyndsay
Susanna Moodie
A young mother navigates the profound uncertainty of emigration, finding her strength tested by the chaotic preparations for a new life across the Atlantic. This is a story of transition, capturing the fragile space between the comforts of a settled home and the daunting, inevitable pull of the unknown.

A Manual of Moral Philosophy
Andrew P. (Andrew Preston) Peabody
This volume provides a structured, classical framework for moral inquiry, designed to ground the reader in the principles of ethical conduct, personal duty, and the historical development of philosophy.

Laura Middleton
Anonymous
This narrative follows a young man’s arrival at a country estate, where he discovers a hidden world of libertine indulgence shared among the inhabitants and their young guests. It is a candid, focused account of sexual initiation and the complex social maneuvers required to maintain such secret lives.

Myths and Legends of China
E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner
This comprehensive survey of Chinese mythology gathers the foundational stories, spirits, and celestial hierarchies that have shaped the moral and imaginative landscape of the Chinese people for centuries.

The Home Medical Library, Volume 2 (of 6)
Unknown
When illness strikes the home, knowledge is the first line of defense. This guide provides a clinical, no-nonsense look at how to manage everything from common ailments to the gravest threats to family health.

The symbolism of Freemasonry
Albert Gallatin Mackey
This exploration of Masonic philosophy reveals the hidden language of ritual, arguing that the craft is not merely a social club, but a profound, enduring science of symbols.

Tam o' the Scoots
Edgar Wallace
This collection of linked short stories captures the high-stakes, surreal atmosphere of the Great War’s early aerial combat. It follows the exploits of a singular Scottish aviator whose technical mastery and wry, philosophical outlook make him an unlikely legend among his peers.

Destruction and Reconstruction:: Personal Experiences of the Late War
Richard Taylor
The author recounts a lifetime of military service and political displacement, offering a perspective on the American Civil War that blends battlefield command with an embittered, sharp-eyed view of the subsequent Reconstruction era.

The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief
Morrison Heady
This account of George Washington’s early life frames the historical figure as a moral beacon, using the storyteller’s own warmth to bring the formative years of a future leader to life for young readers.

History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890
Alexander Sutherland
Australia and New Zealand emerged from distant maritime outposts into organized colonial societies through centuries of exploration, hardship, and growth. This chronicle traces that transformation, capturing the rugged spirit of pioneers and the complex evolution of their laws.

Witch-Doctors
Charles Beadle
A professor of anthropology finds himself thrust into a collision of cultures, where he must adopt the role of a god to survive in the heart of colonial Africa.

Simon
J. Storer (Joseph Storer) Clouston
A solitary, guarded traveler arrives in a desolate northern region, sparking a chain of events that exposes a lethal deception hidden behind a lawyer’s inscrutable mask. This mystery unfolds as a quiet study of identity and the chilling lengths to which a desperate man will go to protect a stolen life.

Palmistry for All
Cheiro
This guide offers a systematic method for interpreting character and destiny through the study of the hand. It provides a practical, detailed framework for observing lines, mounts, and physical shapes to reveal an individual’s innate tendencies.

A brother to dragons, and other old-time tales
Amélie Rives
A collection of period tales, this volume traverses themes of sacrifice, unrequited love, and the complex moral landscapes of the seventeenth century. These narratives offer a glimpse into the vanished manners and intense emotional lives of their time.

A Shropshire Lad
A. E. (Alfred Edward) Housman
A collection of sixty-three poems, this work captures the fleeting nature of youth and the inevitability of death with a haunting, musical simplicity. It remains a definitive portrait of the ache of being alive.

Aunt Jo's scrap bag, Volume 2
Louisa May Alcott
Three American women cast off the conventions of traditional tourism, opting to trade cumbersome trunks for light baggage and a spirit of unapologetic independence. Their year-long journey through Europe serves as both a travelogue and a manifesto for self-reliance.

Stories of Authors, British and American
Edwin Watts Chubb
Great writers are often best understood not through their formal histories, but through the small, human habits that shaped their daily lives. This collection of biographical sketches invites readers to see the person behind the page.

Victorian Songs: Lyrics of the Affections and Nature
Unknown
This collection gathers the lyrical heartbeat of the nineteenth century, distilling the era’s preoccupation with fading beauty, romantic longing, and the immutable cycles of the natural world. It serves as an intimate gallery of verse that captures the Victorian spirit not through grand political narratives, but…

Panther Eye
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
A young miner’s quest for gold in the frozen North spirals into a desperate struggle against mysterious saboteurs and the chaos of post-revolutionary Russia. This adventure blends rugged exploration with the intrigue of a high-stakes detective mystery.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
Beyond the bustle of the nineteenth-century parlor, the silent depths of limestone caverns, and the precise mechanics of the telegraph, a world of intellectual ambition and quiet domesticity unfolds. This collection captures the pulse of a transformative era, weaving together the intimate complexities of human…

Education and the Higher Life
John Lancaster Spalding
To pursue an education is not merely to amass information, but to cultivate the soul for a life of purpose, moral clarity, and intellectual freedom.

Mother West Wind "How" Stories
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess
Through fables of how the animals earned their stripes—or wings, or songs—this collection offers a gentle, mythic look at the natural world, framed by the inquisitive mind of a rabbit.

Walter and the Wireless
Sara Ware Bassett
An energetic teenager discovers that mastering the mysterious technology of the air is the key to saving his family from financial ruin and recovering a prized stolen dog.

The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy: A Book for Young and Old
Florence Partello Stuart
A Moro boy navigates the wild jungles and treacherous waters of the Philippines, relying on his wits, his heritage, and an unwavering belief in his own destiny as a "charm boy.

Terribly Intimate Portraits
Noël Coward
This collection of lampoons offers a sharp, satirical look at the pomposity of historical biography, framing the lives of absurd, invented figures with the mock-earnestness of a scholar. It is a playful exercise in sustained irony, where the pretense of rigorous research serves only to highlight the ridiculous…

In Her Own Right
John Reed Scott
HOOK A gentleman inherits a mysterious estate, only to find himself entangled in a high-stakes search for buried pirate gold and the affections of a captivating heiress.

The Lady and the Pirate: Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive
Emerson Hough
This is a story of a man who attempts to win the woman he loves by kidnapping her, a desperate gamble that reveals the fragile boundary between romantic obsession and the genuine search for connection.

Labrador Days: Tales of the Sea Toilers
Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir
In the unforgiving reaches of the Labrador coast, the sea demands everything from those who dare to harvest its bounty. These stories capture the quiet courage of people living on the knife-edge of survival.

High Noon: A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks'
Unknown
HOOK A grieving English gentleman travels to Switzerland to escape his past, only to find himself entangled in a dangerous, romantic struggle for the soul of a Russian noblewoman.

A Little Traitor to the South: A War Time Comedy with a Tragic Interlude
Cyrus Townsend Brady
The honor of the South and the unpredictable nature of the human heart collide in this tense, atmospheric story set within the besieged city of Charleston.

The Beautiful and Damned
F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald
The victor belongs to the spoils, but the spoils are often hollow. This haunting portrait of aimlessness tracks the slow disintegration of a young couple who mistake their beauty and privilege for a life purpose.

Murder in the Gunroom
H. Beam Piper
A private detective, himself a connoisseur of antique firearms, is hired to appraise a collection, only to find himself untangling a cold-blooded murder hidden behind a facade of high-society respectability.

Woodward's Country Homes
George E. (George Evertson) Woodward
This architectural manual presents a curated collection of designs for the nineteenth-century American landscape, advocating for suburban expansion as a solution to urban density. It serves as both a practical guide and a philosophical argument for the harmony between domestic life and the natural environment.

Pride and Prejudice, a play founded on Jane Austen's novel
Jane Austen
A sharp-witted young woman and a reserved, aristocratic landowner must overcome their own misconceptions before they can acknowledge a growing attraction in this classic tale of social standing and true character.