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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 563 of 714.

Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic: With Notes on Canada & the United States, and Return to Great Britain in 1844
George Moore
A Victorian merchant’s rigorous travelogue captures the raw energy of mid-19th-century North America, offering a candid glimpse into the burgeoning commerce, political volatility, and social customs of a young nation.

Kalevala : the Epic Poem of Finland
John Martin Crawford
The songs of ancient heroes resonate through this landscape of mist, magic, and iron, where the spoken word has the power to reshape the world itself.

Karl Krinken, His Christmas Stocking
Susan Warner
A lonely boy discovers that the objects in his modest Christmas stocking hold secret histories, revealing the quiet lives and spiritual resilience of those who are often overlooked by the world.

Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl: Sister of that "Idle Fellow."
Jenny Wren
A sharp-tongued observer of Victorian life, this collection of essays finds humor in the tedious rituals of high society, from the performative nature of formal calls to the absurdity of the marriage market.

Learning to fly in the U.S. Army
E. N. (Elisha Noel) Fales
This manual serves as a concise, practical guide for early twentieth-century student aviators, stripping away complex engineering theory to focus on the essential mechanics of flight, maintenance, and safe operation.

Lessons of the War: Being Comments from Week to Week to the Relief of Ladysmith
Spenser Wilkinson
The South African War of 1899–1902 serves as a grim laboratory for the author, who observes the British military’s struggle against the Boers with a cold, analytical eye. He argues that the conflict exposes not just tactical errors, but a fundamental rot in the nation’s governance and its amateurish approach to…

Letters from Mesopotamia in 1915 and January, 1916: From Robert Palmer, who was killed in the Battle of Um El Hannah, June 21, 1916, aged 27 years
Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer
These letters offer a candid, unvarnished look at a young officer’s life in the Mesopotamian campaign, capturing the mundane struggles of military bureaucracy alongside the profound, quiet realization of a soldier’s duty.

Life on the Mississippi, Part 7
Mark Twain
The Mississippi River acts as both a majestic, ever-shifting highway and a keeper of dark, buried secrets in this travelogue of memory and reconstruction. It is a work of profound contrasts, where the beauty of the landscape collides with the lingering scars of war and the absurdity of human greed.

Lightning, Thunder and Lightning Conductors
Gerald Molloy
Nature’s most formidable electrical display meets the rigor of Victorian scientific inquiry. This exploration demystifies the flash and the peal, offering practical guidance for shielding human life and infrastructure from the sky’s unpredictable power.

Lille Before and During the War
Pneu Michelin (Firm)
This historical guidebook serves as a stark, on-the-ground record of a French city’s transformation from a cultural hub to a zone of occupation, bombardment, and systematic destruction during the First World War.

Little Tom
Václav Tille
A tiny prince, sole survivor of an underground kingdom, navigates a gargantuan world of humans and insects. He seeks his place in a landscape that is both beautiful and terrifyingly immense.

Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 4: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Benjamin Rush
An urgent chronicle of yellow fever in post-Revolutionary Philadelphia, this volume documents the struggle of early American medicine to understand, treat, and ultimately survive the recurring pestilence that haunted the young nation’s capital.

Mere literature, and other essays
Woodrow Wilson
This collection of essays serves as a meditation on the marriage of literary craft and political thought. It argues that true writing, like true statesmanship, requires an imaginative grasp of the human spirit rather than mere technical expertise.

Narrative of a Private Soldier in His Majesty's 92d Regiment of Foot
George Billany
A soldier’s plain account of the Napoleonic Wars reveals the quiet, persistent struggle to maintain a moral life amidst the brutality and physical degradation of military service.

Nautilus
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
A lonely, imaginative orphan finds his life transformed when a mysterious, charismatic sailor arrives in his small town, offering him a gateway to the wide, wonders-filled world he has always dreamed of.

Neville Trueman, the Pioneer Preacher
W. H. (William Henry) Withrow
The borders of a young nation fray under the pressures of imperial conflict, testing the resolve of those caught between ancestral loyalties and the immediate demands of faith and home.

Notes and Queries, Number 239, May 27, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This weekly periodical functions as a nineteenth-century clearinghouse for intellectual curiosity, inviting readers to exchange obscure facts and solve historical, literary, and scientific mysteries through collaborative investigation.

On the Equator
Harry De Windt
A Victorian gentleman ventures into the heart of Borneo, documenting a world of head-hunting tribes, colonial outposts, and the encroaching modern era.

One in a Thousand
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
A nobleman of simple heart and an ambitious count collide amidst the shifting loyalties and religious warfare of sixteenth-century France. This sweeping historical romance traces the struggle for a young woman’s hand against the backdrop of the rise of Henry IV.

Out of the briars
A. H. (Alexander Herritage) Newton
From a life bound by indentured servitude in North Carolina to the pulpit of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a veteran’s journey chronicles the struggle for dignity and spiritual freedom in post-Civil War America.

Pan-Worship, and Other Poems
Eleanor Farjeon
The ancient pulse of nature beats beneath the surface of the modern world, waiting for those who can still hear the echoes of a pagan past.

Peeps at Many Lands: Burma
R. Talbot (Robert Talbot) Kelly
The world is a tapestry woven from geography, and this vibrant account invites readers to look beyond the atlas to discover the living, breathing heart of a far-off land.

Peru: a land of contrast
Millicent Todd Bingham
The vast, silent desert of the coast, the thin, piercing air of the Andes, and the dense, teeming mystery of the Amazon jungle define a land shaped by extremes. This landscape serves as a stage where the remnants of ancient empires, Spanish colonial excess, and the enduring resilience of nature collide.

Peter Plymley's Letters, and Selected Essays
Sydney Smith
These letters and essays offer a masterclass in the power of wit as a weapon against institutional injustice, proving that a sharp mind can dismantle political bigotry more effectively than a formal decree.

Philippa
Mrs. Molesworth
Philippa Raynsworth, a spirited young woman, orchestrates an elaborate, secret deception to assist her sister’s social ambitions, only to discover that the most important truths are those she must eventually confront within herself.

Plain Words for Christ, Being a Series of Readings for Working Men
Reginald G. Dutton
HOOK This collection of readings offers a direct, practical guide for Victorian working men to navigate the moral complexities of daily life through faith, stoicism, and a disciplined commitment to Christian service.

Poetry for children
Charles Lamb
Everyday domestic scenes, sibling squabbles, and childhood moral dilemmas are rendered through structured, instructional verse designed to shape the character of young readers.

Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform
S. A. (Samuel Augustus) Barnett
In the heart of Victorian London, a dedicated couple observes the crushing weight of urban poverty, arguing that true social reform requires not just systemic policy, but the personal, quiet influence of character.

Preferred Risk
Edson McCann
HOOK In a future where a global insurance monopoly controls life and death, an adjuster discovers that the "safety" of his corporate masters is a facade built upon a foundation of absolute, calculated control.

Preservation of Bull Semen at Sub-Zero Temperatures
N. L. VanDemark
Preservation of Bull Semen at Sub-Zero Temperatures is a foundational technical manual from 1957. It documents the rigorous scientific investigations required to stabilize bovine sperm for long-term storage and eventual artificial insemination.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914
Various
This volume gathers the satirical wit, whimsical verse, and sharp political commentary of a storied British institution during the final winter of the pre-war era. It offers a candid, laughter-filled window into a world poised on a precipice.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, August 29, 1917
Various
A snapshot of British life during the First World War, this collection captures the biting wit, domestic anxieties, and resilient humor of a nation navigating its most uncertain hour.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, August 16, 1890
Various
This volume captures the sharp, satirical heartbeat of late-Victorian London, where political maneuvering and social pretension are dissected with a keen blade. It offers a window into a world of empire, etiquette, and the relentless machinery of public opinion.

Pussy and Her Language
Marvin R. Clark
The cat is a creature of deep intelligence and singular grace, whose silent companionship masks a sophisticated, musical language awaiting human discovery.

Revolution
Mack Reynolds
A Cold War operative infiltrates the Soviet Union to spark a revolution, only to realize the rebels he is helping might be a greater threat to Western interests than the regime they intend to replace.

Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet
Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin
HOOK A young lieutenant and his squad must outwit a rival power to secure a drifting, thorium-rich asteroid. Survival depends on their grit and technical ingenuity in the unforgiving vacuum of space.

Robert Coverdale's Struggle
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A young man fights to preserve his integrity and support his aunt while navigating the schemes of a greedy uncle and a mysterious, reclusive neighbor.

Sea Legs
Frank Quattrocchi
A veteran spaceman finally returns to his home planet, only to discover that the freedom of the cosmos has been replaced by the stifling, bureaucratic nightmare of Earth.

Second Base Sloan
Christy Mathewson
After fleeing home and living as transients, two young friends chase a dream of baseball glory in a gritty, fast-paced world that demands resilience, talent, and a little bit of luck.

Sporting Scenes amongst the Kaffirs of South Africa
Alfred W. (Alfred Wilks) Drayson
A colonial officer’s candid account of frontier life and hunting expeditions in mid-19th-century South Africa, blending natural history with the gritty realities of bush travel.

St. Augustine, Florida's Colonial Capital
J. T. Van Campen
For over three centuries, a single sandy harbor on the Atlantic coast served as the violent, contested frontier of three global empires. It survived massacres, pirate raids, and sieges to become a quiet monument to American antiquity.

Star of Mercia
Blanche Devereux
This collection of historical tales breathes life into the rugged borderlands of Wales and the English Marches, casting the distant past as a theater for raw human ambition, piety, and sudden, violent upheaval.

Stop Look and Dig
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
In a world where mental powers are common, a weary private investigator finds that telepathy and ESP have merely given criminals more sophisticated ways to ruin lives.

Stories of Comedy
Unknown
This collection of nineteenth-century narratives showcases the quick-witted, often absurd, and deeply human spirit of British and Irish storytelling. It invites readers to laugh at the folly of pride and the unpredictability of life.

Sugar Plum
Reginald Bretnor
In a future obsessed with the stuffy rigidity of a second Victorian Age, a wealthy couple flees their stifling Boston life to homestead a distant, forgotten planet. They soon discover that this new world has a way of stripping away their social pretenses.

Tekla: A Romance of Love and War
Robert Barr
A young emperor travels in disguise through a land of fracturing alliances, finding that the sharpest weapon in a chaotic realm is not a sword, but a well-timed truth.

The Adventures of a Bear, and a Great Bear Too
Alfred Elwes
This is a cautionary tale about a bear who lacks the one virtue that makes any life bearable: good temper. It is a story of appetites, anger, and the social consequences of selfishness.

The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into an Uproar
Allen, William G., active 1849-1853
This account chronicles a man’s harrowing escape from an American mob, a journey fueled by the courage to defy a nation’s obsession with racial purity and the rigid, often violent, boundaries of color.