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34,093 public-domain books, summarised. Page 703 of 711.

Men of Mawm
W. (William) Riley
A scheming outsider's ambition collides with the steadfast pride of a Yorkshire village, where buried gold and bitter rivalries test the limits of love, loyalty, and redemption.

Morale: A Story of the War of 1941-43
Murray Leinster
Panic strikes the American eastern seaboard as a massive, near-invulnerable enemy war machine rolls ashore, laying waste to infrastructure and crushing civilian spirit.

More "Short Sixes"
H. C. (Henry Cuyler) Bunner
A small-town scholar buying a home sight unseen finds himself hosting a displaced horse in his new kitchen.

Mrs Peixada
Henry Harland
A young attorney takes on a mysterious inheritance case and unwittingly falls in love with the woman he is hired to track down.

My robot
Henry Slesar
Separated from human warmth by his father's obsessive work, a young boy turns to a mechanical creation for solace and protection, discovering too late the dark cost of total obedience.

Nancy Brandon
Lilian Garis
A teenaged girl buys a sleepy village store for a summer lark, only to find herself managing neighborhood chaos, secret chimneypiece vaults, and a vanishing professor.

Not Without Thorns
Mrs. Molesworth
A young girl steps blindly into an impulsive marriage, only to discover that the romantic ideal she chased is built on quiet misunderstandings, unspoken resentments, and the painful weight of unexpected compromise.

Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 127, April 3, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
Step into a bustling nineteenth-century marketplace of ideas, where Victorian scholars, antiquaries, and curious readers gather to solve historical puzzles, debate translations, and trace obscure family lineages.

"O Thou, My Austria!"
Ossip Schubin
A young girl’s heart breaks open against the grand, indifferent backdrop of rural estates, garrison towns, and the suffocating expectations of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy.

Penny Nichols and the Black Imp
Joan Clark
An art competition turns into a high-stakes investigation when a priceless Rembrandt vanishes and an ambitious teenage amateur detective steps in to clear an innocent friend's name.

Poems
William Anderson
A devout, quiet contemplation of natural landscapes gives way to a restless search for spiritual certainty and moral order.

Police Operation
H. Beam Piper
A lethal alien predator stalks the Pennsylvania hills, leaving livestock mutilated and local authorities bewildered, while a cross-dimensional lawman works to eliminate the creature before humanity discovers the truth about alternate timelines.

Punch, or the London Charivari, October 28th 1893
Various
A single issue of a Victorian humor magazine captures late-nineteenth-century British society in its own words, skewering everything from theater critics and politicians to suburban housing and international diplomacy.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893
Various
An irreverent skewering of late-nineteenth-century British politics, academia, and popular theater through sharp satirical skits.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914
Various
Early twentieth-century English life reveals its absurdities, anxieties, and social postures under the swift, light blade of periodic satire.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 7, 1891
Various
Victorian society turns its mirror upon itself through quick-witted parodies, theatrical rivalries, parliamentary feuds, and sharp observations of daily life.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, June 4, 1919
Various
A country catching its breath after war finds its laughter in the absurdity of peace.

Roughing It, Part 5
Mark Twain
In the lawless boomtowns of the American West, high-stakes speculation transforms daily existence into a surreal theater of sudden fortunes, absurd violence, and instant ruin.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885
Various
Ingenious mechanical structures, rapid railroad expansion, optical testing, and practical home sanitation converge in a single historical issue, mapping the restless industrial drive of the late nineteenth century.

Second sight secrets and mechanical magic
Herman Pinetti
The curtain is pulled back on stage illusion, replacing claims of the occult with the clever mechanics of strings, trapdoors, and human psychology.

Somebody's Little Girl
Martha Young
A orphaned girl raised in a quiet convent finds her forgotten past slowly brought back to life when a summer in the mountains introduces her to the wider world.

St. Nicholas Book of Plays & Operettas (Second Series)
Various
A quiet girl falls asleep on Christmas Eve, and a fairy’s wand carries her out of her room into a shop where living toys dance.

Stopover Planet
Robert E. Gilbert
A bizarre morning delivery van stalks a quiet American town, harvesting unsuspecting citizens by turning their deepest personal longings against them.

Successward: A Young Man's Book for Young Men
Edward William Bok
To navigate the fierce competitive drive of modern life, one must anchor ambition in personal integrity, clear boundaries, and quiet self-knowledge.

Tessa, Our Little Italian Cousin
Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade
A young Italian peasant girl steps from her rustic village into the ancient wonder of Rome, finding unexpected doors opened by friendship.

That Unfortunate Marriage, Vol. 2
Frances Eleanor Trollope
A quiet, sharply observed novel of nineteenth-century provincial manners, exploring how class pride, shifting fortunes, and family obligations reshape a young woman’s choices.

The Adventures of Herr Baby
Mrs. Molesworth
A four-year-old boy attempts to fix a broken household treasure and ends up wandering through a foreign city in search of a replacement.

The Americanism of Washington
Henry Van Dyke
To understand the true character of George Washington, one must look beyond the myths of perfection and the cynical claims that he was merely a lucky English gentleman. His greatness lay in a deeply moral, shared American ideal.

The Avenger
Damon Knight
A lone scientist breeds a logic-driven superman in deep space to destroy Earth's alien conquerors, only to discover too late that cold reason recognizes no human allegiance.

The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
Samuel Adams Drake
Two vast armies collide across the rolling fields and ridges of a quiet rural town, locked in three days of relentless, bloody conflict that permanently alters the course of the American Civil War.

The botanist's repository for new and rare plants
Andrews, Henry Cranke, active 1799-1828
A botanical work from the golden age of specimen hunting captures the thrill of bringing exotic plants into blossom for the first time on British soil.

The British North America Act, 1867
Anonymous
Four distinct British colonies bind themselves into a single northern federation, setting down in exacting legal detail how a new nation will govern its land, divide its powers, and manage its shared wealth.

The Copper-Clad World
Harl Vincent
Drifting off course near the asteroid belt, a cargo ship carrying a fortune in rare metal is hijacked and driven deep into the Jovian system, where its crew discovers a hidden civilization plotting to rip its own moon from orbit to invade Earth.

The Evil Shepherd
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
He saved a murderer from the gallows only to discover the man was guilty; now, a brilliant London barrister finds himself dragged into a dark world of mysterious deaths, hidden grudges, and a enigmatic host who manipulates human souls.

The Florentine Dagger: A Novel for Amateur Detectives
Ben Hecht
A brooding playwright believes his ancestral bloodline carries a curse of violence and madness, until a macabre murder in a theatrical apartment forces him to untangle a web of staged clues and inherited secrets.

The Flutter of the Goldleaf, and Other Plays
Olive Tilford Dargan
An ambitious vision of human potential unites these four brief, ideas-driven plays. Though varied in setting—from a cold New England attic to a lotus-scented Chinese garden, a symbolic dreamscape, and an ancient Greek courtyard—the collection consistently pits visionary thinkers against a world bound by material…

The Gilded Age, Part 1
Mark Twain
A family’s wild scheme to get rich off thousands of acres of wilderness plunges them into an intoxicating world of speculation, where big talk consistently replaces real money.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
A late-nineteenth-century news digest for young readers offers a vivid, unfiltered glimpse into global diplomacy, imperial skirmishes, and everyday Gilded Age life.

The Haunts of Old Cockaigne
Alexander M. (Alexander Mattock) Thompson
An affectionate, sharp-eyed, and often hilarious defense of a city that most people love to hate, this Victorian chronicle uncovers the splendid and tragic heart of old London through the eyes of a devoted outsider.

The history of the condition of women in various ages and nations
Lydia Maria Child
Across disparate centuries and continent-wide divides, humanity has consistently defined the status, rights, and daily existence of women through rigid cultural customs, legal bounds, and domestic expectations.

The history of the rise, progress, and establishment of the independence of the United States of America, Vol. 1 (of 3)
William Gordon
A meticulous observer stands in the dust of a young continent, recording the quiet shifts in law and the sudden fractures of empire before the ink of revolution is even dry.

The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 15, October 10, 1840
Various
A brief shift in fashion transforms a beloved landscape into an forgotten wasteland, while simple rural figures silently steer the romantic destinies of their neighbors.

The Iron Boys in the Steel Mills
James R. Mears
Rushing into the roaring heat of industrial Steelburgh, two ambitious teenage boys navigate backbreaking manual labor, workplace sabotage, and life-threatening accidents to prove their worth to the factory owners.

The Later Life
Louis Couperus
A marriage frozen in long-standing bitterness begins to thaw, only to fracture along entirely unexpected fault lines when new passions and late-blooming ideals disrupt a quiet Hague household.

The Machine That Floats
Joe Gibson
A young engineer discovers the secret to nullifying gravity, only to realize his invention is too dangerous for a world obsessed with military power.

The Marquis of Peñalta (Marta y María): A Realistic Social Novel
Armando Palacio Valdés
Two sisters in a provincial Spanish town choose radically different responses to life, framing a rich drama of spiritual fanaticism, domestic quietude, and the clash between worldly love and religious asceticism.

The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 24: London to Berlin
Giacomo Casanova
A penniless Venetian adventurer cuts a swath across eighteenth-century Europe, matching wits with monarchs and bartering his charm against ever-dwindling funds.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 350, January 3, 1829
Various
A wide-ranging collection of nineteenth-century London journalism captures the quirky history, tragic biographies, domestic misadventures, and varied verse of an era hungry for accessible instruction and lively popular entertainment.