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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 618 of 670.
Notes and Queries, Number 53, November 2, 1850
Various
This collection serves as a Victorian forum for the curious, where obscure historical, literary, and bibliographic riddles are posed by readers and solved by a community of dedicated, erudite correspondents.
On Being Negro in America
J. Saunders (Jay Saunders) Redding
Living as a Black person in America means enduring a constant, exhausting double-consciousness where every private action and public movement is shaped by the unyielding weight of caste and prejudice.
On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the Tigris
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
A young Indian Army officer uses his specialized knowledge of Mesopotamia to lead high-stakes scouting missions, escape enemy capture, and rescue his beloved mentor behind Turkish lines.
Our Little Swedish Cousin
Claire Martha Coburn
Through bright seasonal celebrations, historical folklore, and domestic routines, a young Swedish girl experiences the vibrant, traditional customs of her turn-of-the-century homeland.
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre
Hugh Walpole
An American tourist's Cornish vacation turns into a struggle against a sadist's madness after he intervenes to rescue a young woman.
Practical Basketry
Anna A. Gill
Hands learn patience and precision through the ancient craft of interweaving reeds, turning simple raw fibers into functional, beautiful objects for daily life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914
Various
This period anthology captures the fragile, defiant levity of a nation standing on the precipice of the First World War. It is a snapshot of an empire attempting to maintain its composure through relentless, biting wit.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914
Various
A weekly chronicle of British life, this collection captures the fleeting anxieties and absurdities of a nation standing on the precipice of the Great War.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914
Various
This weekly periodical captures the spirit of a nation at war, blending biting political satire with the absurdities of daily life during the early months of the Great War. It serves as both a historical record of public sentiment and a masterclass in resilient, stiff-upper-lip humor.
Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914
Various
A nation’s private habits, public anxieties, and absurdity under fire are recorded in quick strokes.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, February 21, 1917
Various
A singular window into the anxieties, absurdities, and grim endurance of British home life during the deep winter of the Great War.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, October 17, 1917
Various
In the grim autumn of 1917, a nation finds refuge in the absurdity of the everyday, transforming the anxieties of global conflict into a shared, defiant chuckle.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, August 30, 1890
Various
The London season has ended, the city is sweltering, and the elite have fled to the moors; here, caught in the stagnant heat of 1890, the wit of the age holds its final, biting post-mortem.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, October 25, 1890
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, kaleidoscopic snapshot of late-Victorian British life, capturing the era’s preoccupations through a sharp, satirical lens. It presents a world where the earnestness of the intellectual classes and the absurdity of the political stage collide with the emerging pressures of modern…
Puss Junior and Robinson Crusoe
David Cory
A wandering feline in tall red boots travels through the familiar landscapes of nursery rhymes and classic literature, seeking his legendary father. This episodic adventure blends whimsical encounters with a gentle, timeless search for family.
Queer questions and ready replies
Samuel Grant Oliphant
This volume turns curiosity into an art form, gathering hundreds of historical, linguistic, and scientific oddities into a single compendium for the inquiring mind.
Quite So
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A quiet schoolmaster from Maine, burdened by a broken heart, finds an unlikely home among soldiers in the American Civil War. His mysterious, stoic presence masks a deep, self-sacrificing devotion that ultimately defines his end.
Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer
Charles Lever
A restless soldier navigates the absurdities of nineteenth-century military and social life, where an appetite for romance and wine consistently leads him into ridiculous predicaments. This picaresque adventure captures the wit and folly of a young man determined to charm his way through Ireland and beyond.
Red Fleece
Will Levington Comfort
A war correspondent and a mysterious woman navigate the shifting front lines of the First World War, where the brutal machinery of conflict collides with the fragile, transcendent power of human connection.
Rhymes of the Rookies: Sunny Side of Soldier Service
W. E. Christian
These rough-hewn verses capture the grit, humor, and melancholy of the American soldier serving at the dawn of the twentieth century. They offer an unvarnished look at life beneath the flag during a restless era.
Second to None: A Military Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
James Grant
Stripped of romantic illusion, war is a sequence of cold maneuvers and sudden, arbitrary violence.
Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume III)
William Black
A lover's resolute search across ocean lines ultimately yields to a bittersweet reckoning with family pride and fragile human illusions.
State of the Union Addresses
James K. (James Knox) Polk
These collected annual messages offer a direct, unfiltered view of the mid-nineteenth-century American presidency, mapping the expansionist fervor and ideological conflicts that defined a tumultuous era of growth and conflict.
Stories Pictures Tell. Book 1
Flora L. (Flora Leona) Carpenter
This instructional guide presents a gentle, human-centered approach to art history designed specifically for young students. It transforms iconic paintings into accessible narratives, inviting children to look closely at the lives, play, and emotions depicted on the canvas.
Synthetic Tannins, Their Synthesis, Industrial Production and Application
Georg Grasser
The synthesis of leather-tanning agents marks a pivotal shift from reliance on scarce, imported organic materials to the controlled, repeatable chemistry of the laboratory. This work provides a comprehensive technical survey of how coal-tar derivatives and synthetic compounds were adapted to solve the urgent…
Tales of an Old Sea Port: A General Sketch of the History of Bristol, Rhode Island, Including, Incidentally, an Account of the Voyages of the Norsemen, So Far as They May Have Been Connected with Narragansett Bay: and Personal Narratives of Some Notable Voyages Accomplished by Sailors from the Mount Hope Lands
Wilfred Harold Munro
This historical account documents the adventurous spirit of Bristol, Rhode Island, tracing its evolution from colonial settlement to a hub of maritime daring and privateering. It captures the rugged, often ruthless, ambition that defined early American seafaring life.
The 4-D Doodler
Graph Waldeyer
A young man’s absent-minded sketches accidentally bridge the gap between our world and a higher, chaotic plane, bringing a terrifying, cosmic mimic into his laboratory. The result is a frantic struggle to survive a breach that threatens to turn the physical world inside out.
The Actress in High Life: An Episode in Winter Quarters
Sue Petigru Bowen
In the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars, a spirited noblewoman and an enigmatic colonel navigate a web of social performance, military duty, and deepening affection within the desolate winter quarters of Portugal.
The American Navy
French Ensor Chadwick
A nation born on the Atlantic seaboard learns early that sea power is not an luxury, but the baseline requirement of national survival.
The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine: Wherein is Deciphered All the Conueyances of Legerdemaine and Iugling, How They Are Effected, and Wherin They Chiefly Consist
Samuel Rid
This guide to the mechanics of deception offers a rare, unflinching look at how the street-level magicians, card-sharps, and confidence men of the early seventeenth century separated the gullible from their coin.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This issue of a venerable literary magazine captures the fractured spirit of 1865, weaving together the tranquil observations of nature with the visceral, lingering grief of a nation finally emerging from civil war.
The Automobile Girls at Newport
Laura Dent Crane
Young women navigate the golden age of motoring, blending high-society galas with amateur sleuthing to expose a dangerous criminal in the seaside playground of Newport.
The Benefit of the Doubt
Arthur Wing Pinero
When a Victorian divorce court clears a young wife with a compromised verdict, the social reprieve proves far more dangerous than open condemnation.
The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire
Erckmann-Chatrian
The terrors of the Napoleonic Wars are distilled into the intimate, stifling confines of a besieged French town, viewed through the wary eyes of a merchant trying to keep his family alive.
The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 13
William Curtis
An exquisite botanical periodical documenting global plant species with hand-colored copperplate engravings, formal Linnaean classifications, and practical instructions for eighteenth-century British horticulturists, nurserymen, and curious garden enthusiasts.
The bride's fate: The sequel to "The changed brides"
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
Left behind in America while her highborn husband pursues his inheritance in London, a devoted young mother guards her child and waits for a reconciliation that only heartbreak and scandal can delay.
The Choice: 1916
Edith Wharton
A stifling summer night becomes a stage for hidden desperation, where the suffocating weight of a loveless marriage leads to a moment of irrevocable, dark decision.
The Cream of the Jest: A comedy of evasions
James Branch Cabell
A middle-aged novelist escapes his dull existence by traveling through historic eras via a broken metal disc, only to discover that the magic he seeks was quietly beside him all along.
The Dances of Death: Through the Various Stages of Human Life: Wherein the Capriciousness of that Tyrant is Exhibited
Unknown
No one escapes the universal dance, where kings, beggars, and clerics are dragged alike into the shadows by an indifferent, grinning skeleton.
The Disappearing Eye
Fergus Hume
A gentleman driver stumbles into a rural shop for petrol, finds a dead woman missing her glass eye, and finds himself accused of her murder.
The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election
Robert Wallace
Seeking to reconcile the character of a loving God with the rigid constraints of traditional theology, this inquiry challenges the doctrine of unconditional predestination. It asserts that human freedom and divine justice are fundamentally inseparable.
The Duke of Gandia
Algernon Charles Swinburne
This historical drama peers into the dark heart of the Borgia dynasty, capturing the cold, calculated ambition of a son who would stop at nothing to secure his father’s legacy. It is a chilling study of power, betrayal, and the hollow nature of divine authority.
The Early History of the Post in Grant and Farm
James Wilson Hyde
Before efficient networks spanned the British Isles, carrying a single letter meant navigating royal monopolies, abusive local postmasters, and unpaid wages. This detailed history uncovers the fragile, chaotic beginnings of a public postal system built from scratch.
The Fighting Retreat To Paris
Roger Ingpen
Outnumbered and relentlessly pursued, the British Expeditionary Force fights a grueling, day-by-day retreat across northern France, holding the line until the Allied front can finally turn and strike back.
The Firebug
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
When a serial arsonist strikes the city, a sharp young inspector and his circle of allies must unravel a network of mechanical traps, hidden identities, and criminal underworlds before more lives go up in smoke.
The Girls of Central High on the Stage
Gertrude W. Morrison
A young high school playwright faces poverty and local scandal while chasing a literary prize. Her journey toward success reveals the true character of those around her in this classic tale of ambition.
The Great Conspiracy, Volume 1
John Alexander Logan
This dense historical account chronicles the systematic efforts of pro-slavery politicians to dismantle the American Union, tracing the origins of the Civil War from the earliest days of the Republic to the mid-1860s.
The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860
Charles Greville
Political intrigue and personal rivalry collide behind closed doors as a seasoned insider observes the high-stakes shifting of power in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.