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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 692 of 988.

Tales from the Arabic
John Payne
These tales reveal the intricate art of Middle Eastern storytelling, where wit, cunning, and the unpredictable turns of fate converge in a tapestry of moral lessons and vibrant human experience.

The Adventure of Elizabeth Morey, of New York: 1901
Louis Becke
Abandoned in the Pacific after a massacre, a young American woman survives fifteen terrifying months among her captors before a daring leap into the surf changes her fate.

The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3
Various
This August 1885 issue of a Massachusetts periodical serves as a time capsule, capturing the intellectual, political, and cultural preoccupations of late nineteenth-century New England through a collection of biographical sketches, travelogues, and social commentary.

The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge
Laura Lee Hope
Winter brings a whirlwind of ice-boating, runaway sleds, and frozen mysteries for four spirited siblings sharing a rural retreat.

The Boy Scout Explorers at Treasure Mountain
Don Palmer
Four young Scouts venture into the rugged Peruvian wilderness to find a lost Inca city, only to find themselves pitted against a treacherous sea captain and the mysteries of a hidden civilization.

The Colloquies of Edward Osborne, Citizen and Clothworker of London
Anne Manning
This quiet, reflective narrative captures the sixteenth-century apprenticeship of a young man whose rise from a country lad to a London master is defined as much by his inner discipline as by his outward success. It is a portrait of a life built on integrity, steady labor, and a long, unspoken devotion.

The Coxswain's Bride
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
The sea is a stage for both salvation and catastrophe, where the courage of the lifeboatman meets the fragile hope of the destitute. Through storms and urban winters, lives are anchored by faith and the quiet, persistent work of charity.

The Curlytops Snowed In
Howard Roger Garis
When an early snowfall settles over the neighborhood, two energetic siblings turn the winter landscape into a series of playful outdoor adventures.

The Demagogue and Lady Phayre
William John Locke
The rise of an ambitious labor leader is shadowed by the secret, suffocating reality of his disastrous marriage. This story traces the heavy toll that social ascent takes on a man caught between two worlds.

The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Purgatory, Volume 5
Dante Alighieri
Ascending through the final terraces of a purging mountain, a mortal traveler passes through refining flame to reach the lost innocence of Earth's primal garden.

The doom trail
Arthur D. Howden (Arthur Douglas Howden) Smith
In the dense, contested forests of eighteenth-century America, an outlawed Jacobite exile and an Iroquois chief fight to dismantle an illicit fur-smuggling cartel that threatens to ignite a bloody war between empires.

The Everlasting Arms
Joseph Hocking
A man discovers that a haunting, supernatural presence acts as his moral anchor, guiding him through a treacherous landscape of political intrigue, occult temptation, and a stolen inheritance.

The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 6, February 1935: The Fan's Own Magazine
Various
This final issue of a pioneering fan magazine offers a fascinating window into the early days of speculative fiction fandom, capturing both the scholarly passion and the precarious reality of independent publishing.

The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters
Aunt Fanny
A collection of moral tales uses strict constraints on word length to teach tiny readers lessons about obedience, kindness, and safety.

The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson: Being the History of What They Saw, and Did, in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland & Italy
Richard Doyle
Three bumbling Englishmen set out for a continental tour, only to find that foreign customs, language barriers, and their own peculiar personalities make for a journey of constant, absurd catastrophe.

The Frame Up
Richard Harding Davis
The truth is rarely as simple as a confession, and in the high-stakes game of New York politics, the most dangerous lies are the ones wrapped in a grain of fact. A principled public servant finds himself walking into an elaborate trap, where his own reputation becomes the primary currency for blackmail.

The Frontier Boys in the Sierras
Wyn Roosevelt
The Frontier Boys in the Sierras follows a band of resourceful brothers and their companions as they navigate the perils of the Pacific and the rugged California mountains in pursuit of a legendary lost gold mine.

The generals of the last war with Great Britain
John S. (John Stilwell) Jenkins
Courage, duty, and tactical fortitude define the leaders who forged a young nation's military identity during its second war for independence.

The Girl from Malta
Fergus Hume
HOOK A passenger on a steamer from Malta is found murdered, sparking a desperate race to uncover the killer among a group of travelers bound for England.

The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 996, January 28, 1899
Various
This periodical serves as a vibrant time capsule, capturing the domestic preoccupations, moral instruction, and literary tastes of Victorian young women at the close of the nineteenth century.

The Gladiolus: A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus
Matthew Crawford
To cultivate the gladiolus is to participate in a living history of botanical discovery and patient, methodical improvement. This guide offers a clear, expert pathway for anyone seeking to master the cycle of this elegant flower.

The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome
Unknown
An ancient prince, condemned to silence by a celestial prophecy, must survive his stepmother’s lethal machinations with the help of seven cryptic sages. This intricate web of frame-stories reveals how wisdom, when wielded with patience, can dismantle even the most calculated lies.

The Man Inside
Natalie Sumner Lincoln
The death of a powerful senator in a locked carriage serves as the opening move in a high-stakes game of international espionage and hidden domestic trauma.

The Mill Mystery
Anna Katharine Green
This is a tense, atmospheric mystery that unspools through the eyes of a desperate woman caught in the web of an aristocratic family’s dark secrets. It balances a classic "locked-room" feel with the psychological weight of a tragedy unfolding in a secluded mill.

The Money Gods
Ellery H. (Ellery Harding) Clark
The world of high finance is a predator’s playground where the public, blinded by greed, serves only as fodder for the insatiable appetites of the money gods.

The New Optimism
H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole
A profound look at human progress through the lens of evolution, this work argues that the world is steadily ascending toward goodness, driven by the material realities of our shared existence rather than by abstract dogma.

The Noble Spanish Soldier
Thomas Dekker
A king breaks his promise, a discarded lover demands justice, and an old soldier refuses to sell his soul to the court.

The North Shore Mystery
Henry Fletcher
When a prominent sportsman is found stabbed to death in a Sydney boarding-house, a webs of greed, racing schemes, and hidden villainy unravels across colonial Australia.

The Nuts of Knowledge: Lyrical Poems Old and New
George William Russell
A collection of verse that seeks to bridge the chasm between the fleeting, fragile beauty of the human experience and the vast, eternal stillness of the divine.

The PanGerman Plot Unmasked: Berlin's formidable peace-trap of "the drawn war"
André Chéradame
A masterclass in geopolitical exposure, this 1916 study dissects the quiet, deliberate strategy behind the First World War before the rest of the world caught on.

The Passing Throng
Edgar A. (Edgar Albert) Guest
A quiet warmth radiates from this collection, offering an unpretentious celebration of domestic routine, small civic virtues, and the deep emotional bonds that hold a home together.

The Persecution of Bob Pretty: Odd Craft, Part 9
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
The tale of a village poacher who turns the tables on the men hired to stop him, this story is a masterclass in rural wit and the art of the long con.

The play that won
Ralph Henry Barbour
A fresh perspective on early twentieth-century high school athletics through Nine standalone tales of sweat, grit, and clever campus schemes.

The River's End
James Oliver Curwood
A man wrongly accused of murder assumes the identity of his dead pursuer, only to find that his new life demands a sacrifice far greater than the freedom he once sought.

The Romancers: A Comedy in Three Acts
Edmond Rostand
Two idealistic young neighbors fall in love across a garden wall, unaware that their fathers' bitter feud is a sham engineered to push them together.

The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories
Frank R. Stockton
A collection of lighthearted tales weaves together domestic travel, romantic mishaps, and elaborate tall stories told by the hearth.

The Scottish Cavalier: An Historical Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
James Grant
A nation torn by shifting loyalties provides the backdrop for a young cavalier's turbulent journey through love, war, and political upheaval in late seventeenth-century Scotland and England.

The Second Boys' Book of Model Aeroplanes
Francis A. (Francis Arnold) Collins
A hands-on manual capturing the brief, electric moment when aviation was young and boys built wooden gliders in armories.

The social basis of consciousness
Trigant Burrow
We struggle with persistent emotional isolation because we are trapped in a self-centered social game that forces us to view life as a series of personal victories or failures. This work challenges the foundations of modern psychiatry by arguing that our neuroses are not personal flaws, but inevitable symptoms of…

The southern literary messenger, Vol. II., No. 6, May, 1836
Various
A vibrant sampler of early nineteenth-century American thought, this periodical captures a young nation wrestling with its literary identity, social manners, and historical memory.

The Story of Mrs. Tubbs
Hugh Lofting
A hundred-year-old woman is evicted from her cottage, but her faithful dog, duck, and pig hatch a plan to reclaim her home.

The Survey, Volume 30, Number 1, April 5, 1913
Various
This edition of a progressive social-reform periodical captures the urgent, shifting landscape of early twentieth-century American life, documenting the collision between industrial power and humanitarian concern.

The Torch Bearer
Reina Melcher Marquis
HOOK A young woman struggles to reconcile her private, burning ambition to be a writer with the restrictive expectations of early 20th-century Southern marriage and motherhood.

The Travels and Extraordinary Adventures of Bob the Squirrel
Anonymous
A young squirrel’s impulsive decision to abandon his home for the "largest liberty" leads to a harrowing series of misadventures in the wild. This cautionary tale serves as a mirror for the disobedience of children.

The Upas Tree: A Christmas Story for all the Year
Florence L. (Florence Louisa) Barclay
A man’s obsession with his craft creates a wedge between him and his wife, leading to a profound misunderstanding that only a season of grace can heal. This is a story of domestic devotion, psychological trial, and the quiet, persistent nature of love.

The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
This tale of the Arctic follows a daring young hunter and an exiled daughter as they bridge the divide between two disparate worlds through courage, discovery, and a burgeoning peace.

The war of the Carolinas
Meredith Nicholson
A whimsical turn-of-the-century farce pits two neighboring Southern states against each other when their respective leaders mysteriously vanish, leaving an eccentric millionaire and a brilliant scholar to rule by proxy.

The Woods-Rider
Frank Lillie Pollock
Deep in the Alabama swamps, a desperate gamble over wild bees and stolen resin pits sets a displaced young woods-rider and his Canadian cousins against ruthless river pirates.