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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 472 of 670.

The Champagne Standard
Lane, John, Mrs.
This collection of essays serves as a sharp-eyed critique of early 20th-century social pretensions, exploring the hollow rituals of status and the domestic absurdities found in both England and America.

The Details of the Rocket System
Congreve, William, Sir
A specialized guide to the deployment of Congreve rockets, this technical manual serves as an early nineteenth-century blueprint for mobile, high-intensity artillery. It reveals the mechanical ingenuity and logistical ambition behind a weapon that once promised to revolutionize warfare.

The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 11
Unknown
The survival of a new nation often hinges not on the battlefield, but on the quiet, desperate mechanics of credit, diplomacy, and the fragile trust between allies. This collection of documents illuminates the machinery of the American Revolution from behind the curtain.

The Early Introduction of Bogus Freemasonry in the United States of America and Texas Among Colored Masons
C. L. (Charles L.) Mitchell
This polemical account exposes the fractious history of 19th-century African American Freemasonry, arguing that many established grand lodges were illegitimate due to their failure to adhere to original, ancient organizational requirements.

The face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkestan
E. G. (Emily Georgiana) Kemp
A journey across the rapidly changing landscapes of early twentieth-century Asia offers a rare glimpse into a world caught between ancient traditions and the encroaching forces of modern imperialism.

The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest
Lilian Garis
An inquisitive patrol of Girl Scouts spends a summer at the shore, where they trade their domestic chores for the high-stakes mystery of a forbidden island and a missing inheritance.

The Golden House
Sarah S. (Sarah Schoonmaker) Baker
A young Italian boy finds a loving, humble home in Sweden, where his artistic soul and gentle spirit touch the lives of both impoverished neighbors and wealthy aristocrats. This heartwarming tale of belonging crosses cultural boundaries with quiet grace.

The Grammar School Boys Snowbound
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
When a group of resourceful schoolboys head into the wilderness for a winter camping trip, they find themselves locked in a battle of wits against both a brutal blizzard and a dangerous, desperate intruder.

The Inferno
Henri Barbusse
A solitary man finds an aperture in the wall of his boarding-house room, transforming himself into an accidental witness to the hidden, unvarnished lives of his neighbors. This voyeuristic experiment becomes a harrowing descent into the fundamental truths of human desire and mortality.

The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S
George John Romanes
This biography captures the intellectual intensity and personal warmth of a prominent Victorian naturalist, documenting a life defined by rigorous scientific inquiry and an earnest, lifelong struggle to reconcile faith with the burgeoning theory of evolution.

The Little Cryptogram: A Literal Application to the Play of Hamlet of the Cipher System of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly
Joseph Gilpin Pyle
This sharp-witted critique satirizes the Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship by applying its own convoluted mathematical logic to the play of *Hamlet*, ultimately revealing the "hidden" prophecies of a nineteenth-century politician.

The Little Schoolmaster Mark: A Spiritual Romance
J. H. (Joseph Henry) Shorthouse
This evocative, meditative work explores the collision between aesthetic beauty and spiritual sincerity in an eighteenth-century German court, examining whether art and holiness can ever truly reconcile.

The Little Violinist
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
This narrative essay serves as a quiet, somber meditation on the cost of childhood fame. It contrasts the protected, imaginative lives of two young brothers with the exhausting reality of a child performer, ultimately grappling with the tragedy of a life cut short by the demands of the stage.

The Mentor: Walter Scott, Vol. 4, Num. 15, Serial No. 115, September 15, 1916
Hamilton Wright Mabie
The Wizard of the North stands as a towering figure whose literary genius and personal integrity defined the romantic spirit of an age. His life and works remain a testament to the enduring power of storytelling.

The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin (Louis XVII)
Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de
The mystery of the lost Bourbon heir breathes through a world of shadows, spies, and royal secrets. It captures the haunting persistence of a past that refuses to stay buried, weaving a tale where the line between history and legend blurs.

The Nameless Island: A Story of Some Modern Robinson Crusoes
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
After a violent hurricane leaves them shipwrecked on a remote Pacific island, a small band of survivors must master the terrain and defend their newfound home against hostile invaders to secure their ultimate rescue.

The Paradise of Children: (From: "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A lingering curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially when it concerns a mysterious box left in the care of two children who have never known a single day of sorrow.

The Pilgrim's Shell
Eugène Sue
A legacy of feudal tyranny drives a desperate quarryman to the Crusades, sparking a generational struggle that pits the raw labor of the common people against the entrenched cruelty of the medieval nobility.

The Pioneers
Katharine Susannah Prichard
Two families forge lives in the rugged Australian bush, bound by shared secrets, the heavy weight of the past, and the slow, inexorable pull of a new, untamed land.

The Preacher and His Models: The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891
James Stalker
The Preacher and His Models A timeless guide for the modern minister, this exploration of the craft of preaching finds its ultimate examples in the lives and writings of the apostles and prophets.

The Principles of Breeding
S. L. (Stephen Lincoln) Goodale
Success in agriculture requires a precise understanding of the physiological laws governing domestic animals. Careful selection, rather than chance, determines the profitability and long-term improvement of a farm’s livestock.

The Saint's Tragedy
Charles Kingsley
The tragedy of a saint is often found not in the martyrdom she endures, but in the human cost of the perfection she pursues.

The School System of Norway
David Allen Anderson
Norway’s commitment to education reflects the resilience of a sturdy people determined to secure a prosperous future through the careful cultivation of every citizen's mind. This study serves as a structural blueprint for those seeking to understand the institutional foundations of a nation’s intellectual life.

The Secret Chart
James Otis
A retired sea captain and two curious boys set sail for Haiti to recover buried treasure, only to find themselves trapped by mutineers and the dark mysteries of a coastal cave.

The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib
Sara Jeannette Duncan
A young woman leaves the comforts of England for the stifling, sun-drenched social hierarchies of colonial Calcutta, discovering that domestic life in the tropics is a delicate, often absurd negotiation with custom and climate.

The Story of the Guides
G. J. (George John) Younghusband
This history recounts the formation and legendary exploits of the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides, a unique frontier regiment defined by its independence, local expertise, and endurance in the face of impossible odds.

The Vanity Girl
Compton MacKenzie
Ambition is a mirror that reflects only what we desire to see, and for those born outside the gates of aristocracy, the climb toward the summit often demands a cost that cannot be repaid.

Underground Treasures: How and Where to Find Them: A Key for the Ready Determination of All the Useful Minerals Within the United States
James Orton
A practical field guide for the 19th-century amateur, this work offers systematic methods for identifying minerals and prospecting for precious ores across the American landscape.

Venice
Dorothy Menpes
This immersive travelogue captures the fleeting soul of a fading city, blending historical observation with an artist’s sensory devotion to the light, color, and crumbling majesty of the Adriatic’s greatest jewel.

Verses for Children, and Songs for Music
Juliana Horatia Ewing
In these verses, the natural world acts as both a gentle teacher and a stage for the small, vivid dramas of childhood.

Viking Boys
Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
Two spirited Shetland children, yearning for the legendary past, launch a game of make-believe Viking raids that unexpectedly heals a bitter, multi-generational neighborhood feud.

Wide Courses
James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
Hook These tales capture the salt-stung reality of life on the water, where survival depends as much on a man’s grit as it does on the wind.

William Cobbett: A Biography in Two Volumes, Vol. 2
Edward Smith
A pugnacious voice for the common man, this biography traces the tumultuous middle and later years of a self-taught polemicist who rattled the foundations of the British establishment.

With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia: 1916—1917
Anonymous
The mud-soaked, sun-scorched story of a Highland battalion in the Mesopotamian campaign captures the brutal, unglamorous realities of a forgotten theater of the Great War. It serves as a stark, intimate record of endurance.

Women and economic evolution
Theresa Schmid McMahon
The struggle for gender equality is not a sudden modern development, but the inevitable consequence of a long, grinding transformation of human industry and social organization.

Woodcraft Boys at Sunset Island
Lillian Elizabeth Roy
The sun-drenched waters of the Maine coast provide the backdrop for a summer of spirited exploration, where the simple joys of fishing and scouting bloom into unexpected adventures for a group of resourceful young friends.

A Man from the North
Arnold Bennett
An aspiring writer leaves his provincial home to conquer London, only to discover that the metropolis is a cold mirror reflecting his own mediocrity.

A Popular Account of Thugs and Dacoits, the Hereditary Garotters and Gang-Robbers of India
James Hutton
The Thugs and Dacoits of India operated for generations as hereditary criminal fraternities, viewing their violent work as a divinely sanctioned duty. This account chronicles their rise, their elaborate rituals, and their eventual systematic suppression.

A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin
A. Woodward
This work functions as an intense, reactionary polemic written in 1853, serving as a direct rebuttal to the antislavery sentiments sweeping the United States at the time.

Abroad
Unknown
A Victorian family embarks on a grand springtime excursion across the English Channel, discovering the vibrant markets, ancient history, and hidden charms of France through the eyes of five curious siblings.

Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute
Theophilus F. (Theophilus Francis) Rodenbough
The Great Game looms over the nineteenth century, as two empires collide in the rugged, unforgiving valleys of Central Asia. The shadow of a Russian advance creates a desperate, high-stakes countdown for British India.

An American Girl in London
Sara Jeannette Duncan
This narrative follows a young, observant American woman as she navigates the rigid social hierarchies of late Victorian London, armed only with her sharp wit and a complete lack of deference for established traditions.

An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825)
Hillary, William, Sir
Driven by the frequent, harrowing loss of life along the British coast, this earnest appeal proposes the creation of a unified, national organization to save shipwrecked mariners and protect stranded property.

Annals, Anecdotes and Legends: A Chronicle of Life Assurance
Francis, John, of the Bank of England
Life insurance is a gamble on the inevitability of death, a financial necessity for the prudent, and a dark playground for the unscrupulous. This chronicle reveals the strange, often morbid history of how humanity learned to place a monetary value on the ticking clock of existence.

As the Goose Flies
Katharine Pyle
A lonely child discovers that the boundaries between nursery rhymes and reality are porous, embarking on a sky-bound quest to recover a story her grandmother has lost. This gentle fantasy reimagines the classic inhabitants of folklore as living, breathing neighbors in a sprawling, magical landscape.

Australasia: Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office
A. J. (Arthur John) Sargent
These lectures provide a structured, turn-of-the-century survey of the geography, industry, and colonial development of Australasia and the surrounding Pacific territories. They function as a curated educational tour, mapping the physical landscape alongside the rapid economic expansion of the early 1900s.

Autumn Leaves: Original Pieces in Prose and Verse
Unknown
This collection of domestic reflections and gentle verse captures the quiet, observant spirit of a mid-19th-century New England circle. It offers a window into the everyday joys, small frustrations, and evolving affections of a thoughtful, close-knit community.

Banking
William Amasa Scott
A clear, dispassionate analysis of the mechanics and social purpose of banking, written to demystify the complex financial systems that underpin modern life. This work serves as both a primer for the layperson and a critique of early twentieth-century American economic policy.