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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 498 of 670.

The Strange Friend of Tito Gil
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
A young Spanish cobbler attempts suicide for love, only to find himself befriended by Death, who offers him instruction, political power, and a strange second chance at life.

The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A quiet, resolute dignity anchors the lives of those navigating the shifting currents of post-Emancipation America, where the promise of freedom often clashes with the rigid realities of prejudice and personal ambition.

The Uninhabited House
Riddell, J. H., Mrs.
A young law clerk accepts a challenge to occupy a house so profoundly haunted that no tenant can remain, only to discover that the malevolent force within is far more human than he imagined.

Time and Time Again
H. Beam Piper
A dying soldier in 1975 wakes up in 1945 inside his own thirteen-year-old body, carrying three decades of future history that he resolves to rewrite.

True, and Other Stories
George Parsons Lathrop
A single choice made across three centuries ripples forward, entangling an ambitious young scholar, a haunted fisherman, and an heiress in the mysterious inheritance of their shared past.

Turkish Prisoners in Egypt: A Report by the Delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
An official inspection of wartime internment facilities in Egypt reveals the conditions and daily experiences of thousands of Turkish prisoners held by the British during the First World War.

Under Handicap: A Novel
Jackson Gregory
In the scorched reaches of the Western desert, a spoiled playboy from Wall Street finds that his father’s millions carry no weight against heat, sand, and hard men—forcing him to trade his champagne habits for shovel work, dust, and a brutal reclamation project that will either destroy him or forge him into a man.

Whistler
T. Martin Wood
Like a moth drawn out from a warm London room into the cool blue dark, an artist leaves behind conventional rules to capture the luminous night.

Whitman's Ride Through Savage Lands, with Sketches of Indian Life
Oliver W. (Oliver Woodson) Nixon
A midwinter horseback ride across frozen mountains saves the Oregon Territory for the United States, yet ends in a tragic wilderness massacre.

Wild Heather
L. T. Meade
A motherless girl brought up by an austere aunt discovers her father's glittering high-society lifestyle conceals a shameful secret, leaving her to choose between wealth gained through deception and an honest, quiet life.
With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga
W. Bert (Walter Bertram) Foster
Before the American Revolution reached the world's stage, a wilder war burned across the Green Mountains, where border boys defended their cabins with broadaxes and loaded rifles.

A Candid Examination of Theism
George John Romanes
A rigorous, analytical mind dismantles every traditional argument for God's existence, tracing how modern scientific laws reduce the divine to a cold mechanical necessity.

A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of
An unsparing portrait of a reigning monarch gives way to an extraordinary collection of aphorisms on the dark mechanics of human nature, power, and statecraft.

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
Unknown
A young republic struggles to define its constitutional boundaries while projecting quiet strength across its expanding borders and distant seas.

A Critical Examination of the Position of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On the Origin of Species," in Relation to the Complete Theory of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature: Lecture VI. (of VI.), "Lectures to Working Men", at the Museum of Practical Geology, 1863, on Darwin's Work: "Origin of Species"
Thomas Henry Huxley
Scientific inquiry requires a rigorous testing of hypothesis against observable fact, leaving no room for sentimental dogma or premature certainty.

A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies
John Hoyland
A centuries-old global wanderer faces the tightening grip of modern law and social disdain, surviving on ancient crafts while holding the secret of its origins locked within an unwritten language.

A Minion of the Moon: A Romance of the King's Highway
T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight
A gentleman outlaw rides the northern post-roads, bound by honor to a secret past that entangles a disinherited heiress and a stolen boy.

A Positive Romance: 1898
Edward Bellamy
An old memory unfolds by a winter fire, revealing how a young man's philosophical ideal collapsed into a moment of pure reverence.

A Prince of Sinners
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
To return to London after years in the Canadian wild as a altered man is one thing; to find oneself face-to-face with a forgotten past, a son who preaches moral reform, and a society hungry for political salvation is quite another.

A warrior who fought Custer
Wooden Leg
A young Northern Cheyenne warrior coming of age during the plains wars of the late nineteenth century records his life, his community's customs, and the legendary clash at the Little Bighorn.

Almoran and Hamet: An Oriental Tale
John Hawkesworth
When a tyrant bends reality to steal his brother’s bride, magic grants every desire only to make his punishment absolute.

Annals of the early Caliphate from the death of Mahomet to the Omeyyad and Abbaside dynasties A.H. XI-LXI (A.D. 632-680) from original sources
Muir, William, Sir
In the half-century following the death of Mahomet, a desert faith shatters two ancient empires and rebuilds the Near East.

Autobiography of Z. S. Hastings
Z. S. (Zachariah Simpson) Hastings
A devoted preacher charts his journey through early pioneer midwestern life, endless rural travel, and the personal griefs that anchor a quiet faith.

Average Americans
Theodore Roosevelt
A warm, clear-eyed account of citizen-soldiers in the First World War, combining vivid frontline realism with an unsparing critique of national unpreparedness.

Bert Wilson on the Gridiron
J. W. Duffield
Determined to lift their football team to glory, three college athletes navigate harsh coaches, academic setbacks, and wild off-field distractions to secure the ultimate gridiron victory.

Birds and All Nature, Vol. 6, No. 3, October 1899: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Nature reveals its deepest secrets through patient observation, whether watching the quiet growth of ancient forest trees or tracking the subterranean fires that shape our planet.

Brooks's Readers, Third Year
Stratton D. (Stratton Duluth) Brooks
A vast and varied world sits waiting to be discovered, one short story, moral fable, and natural lesson at a time.

Cambridge Pieces
Samuel Butler
Irreverent, sharp, and intensely observational, these early writings capture a brilliant young mind gleefully picking apart the absurdities of mid-Victorian university life, pious grandstanding, and the pompous art of writing itself.

Canadian Scenery, Volume 1 (of 2)
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Over a landscape of sweeping rivers, thunderous waterfalls, and vast forests, competing empires and Indigenous nations shape the contested foundation of nineteenth-century Canada.

Catcher Craig
Christy Mathewson
A steady, observant catcher learns that leadership requires restraint, whether calming a rattled pitcher or choosing an honest path to college.

Catty Atkins
Clarence Budington Kelland
Determined to shed the stigma of vagrancy, a young boy pulls his easygoing father out of the woods and turns them both into thriving, respectable businessmen through grit, quick thinking, and shear force of will.

Christmas in Poetry: Carols and Poems
Unknown
Gathering medieval carols, folk songs, and nineteenth-century lyrics into a single choir, this collection frames the nativity through human eyes, woodland creatures, and winter revelers alike.

Chronicle of the Cid
Robert Southey
A warrior rides across medieval Spain, winning kingdom after kingdom for an ungrateful monarch while forging an unshakeable legacy of honor.

Colin Clink, Volume 3 (of 3)
Charles Hooton
The third volume of Charles Hooton’s Victorian trilogy concludes the trial of Colin Clink, resolving long-buried familial secrets, dark criminal plots, and an agonizingly tested romance across rural England and London.

Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754)
Unknown
A sharp mind pulls back the curtain on mid-eighteenth-century literary sensations, exposing the moral hypocrisies hiding behind popular prose.

Daisy in the Field
Susan Warner
A Southern heiress stands between the sharp demands of her Confederate family and her pledge to a Union soldier, choosing quiet faith over every temptation to compromise.

Dick Hamilton's Airship
Howard Roger Garis
A gifted cadet builds a pioneer flying machine to race across the American continent, facing high winds, mechanical sabotage, and his own eccentric uncle along the way.

Dorothy Dale's Camping Days
Margaret Penrose
When a group of high-spirited schoolgirls set off for a summer getaway, a series of frantic misdirections transforms their quiet vacation into an unexpected wilderness rescue mission.

Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen
John Scudder
A passionate 19th-century missionary manual uses vivid, harrowing depictions of foreign religious customs to urge Western children toward urgent personal conversion, dedicated financial support, and lifelong missionary work.

Echoes from the Sabine Farm
Horace
These free-wheeling American paraphrases of Horace's ancient Latin odes transform classical Rome's timeless meditations on wine, aging, and love into sharp, humorous, and affectionate verse.

Empire Partnership
John Wesley Dafoe
An address from the 1920 Imperial Press Conference outlines a vision of imperial relations transformed by world war.

Father Henson's Story of His Own Life: Truth Stranger Than Fiction
Josiah Henson
A harrowing journey from chattel slavery to international prominence yields a testament to human resilience, moral courage, and the transformative power of practical faith.

Five Months at Anzac: A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force
Joseph Lievesley Beeston
Amid the chaos and carnage of the Gallipoli campaign, a field ambulance officer captures the daily reality of rescue, survival, and soldierly camaraderie under constant enemy fire with remarkable composure and dry Australian humor.

Forever is so long
John Jakes
This story explores the heavy price of personal advancement when a man is granted a lifespan of three centuries. It is a quiet, melancholic study of how the promise of eternity can isolate an individual from the very people he hopes to save.

Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology
E. R. (Elsie Riach) Murray
Early childhood hides the roots of all adult thought, and true education begins by honoring the child's natural impulse toward self-directed activity.

General Bramble
André Maurois
Amid the mud and quiet absurdity of the Western Front, a young French interpreter sits among a staff of British officers who face war with gramophone records, rigid manners, and impenetrable calm.

Half a Rogue
Harold MacGrath
An ambitious playwright-turned-politician faces down a shadowy smear campaign in his industrial hometown while trying to win the heart of a proud, high-minded young woman.

Historical record of the Eighty-eighth Regiment of Foot, or Connaught Rangers
Richard Cannon
Raised amidst the harsh trials of late eighteenth-century campaigns, an Irish regiment marches through decades of fierce combat across global battlefields, forging an unyielding reputation for discipline, bravery, and absolute resilience under fire.