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42,801 public-domain books, summarised. Page 772 of 892.

The Happy Clown
Alice Eleanor Jones
In a society where absolute conformity is synonymous with happiness, a young man struggles to hide his individuality from a system that views dissent as a disease. This story follows his desperate attempt to remain himself before the machinery of perfection ultimately claims him.

The Herriges Horror in Philadelphia: A Full History of the Whole Affair. A Man Kept in a Dark Cage Like a Wild Beast for Twenty Years, As Alleged, in His Own Mother's and Brother's House
Anonymous
This anonymous account documents the 1870 discovery of John Herriges, a man allegedly kept in a wooden cage within his own Philadelphia home for two decades. It serves as both a sensationalist exposé and a snapshot of Victorian-era attitudes toward mental illness and familial duty.

The house of five gables
Mary Johnson Holmes
The House of Five Gables is a somber, atmospheric domestic drama that explores the crushing weight of hidden sins within an isolated nineteenth-century West Virginia estate.

The Impending Sword: A Novel (Vol. 3 of 3)
Edmund Yates
HOOK A devoted wife faces the sudden, violent murder of her husband, only to discover that the killer is a figure from her own shadowed past.

The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840
Various
This diverse collection of essays, lore, and commentary captures the spirit of early nineteenth-century Ireland, offering a window into the country’s architectural majesty, its rural tragedies, and the keen, often humorous, Irish perspective on foreign observation.

The Island Camp
Ethel Talbot
Three siblings stranded by a quarantine turn their summer into an adventurous survival mission, only to uncover a long-buried family secret hidden within the walls of their ancestral home.

The Isles of Sunset
Arthur Christopher Benson
The Isles of Sunset is a collection of allegorical tales that explore the quiet, often painful, intersections of human ambition, spiritual longing, and the search for peace. It serves as a meditation on the necessity of sacrifice and the ultimate futility of earthly pride.

The Juvenile Scrap-book for 1849: A Christmas and New Year's present for young people
Unknown
A collection of stories, poems, and moral lessons, this volume serves as a gentle guide for the character development of 19th-century youth. It offers a window into the values and educational priorities of its era through a diverse array of vignettes.

The King's Scapegoat
Hamilton Drummond
A desperate man navigates the treacherous web of Louis XI’s court, where royal favor is a death trap and salvation requires a gambit as dangerous as treason.

The Last Martian
Ray Van Houten
A stranded Earthman and a weary, isolated Martian caretaker form an unlikely alliance to revive a dying civilization’s crumbling infrastructure.

The lost chimes, and other poems
Gustav Melby
A collection of lyrical meditations that move from the ruins of ancient empires to the quiet, rolling landscapes of the American Midwest, finding beauty in the fleeting nature of human endeavor.

The man who was pale
Jack Sharkey
A well-meaning landlady’s intrusive habit of worrying leads to a fatal misunderstanding when she attempts to improve the life of her most unusual, and very nocturnal, new tenant.

The mill house mystery
Florence Warden
A companion finds her life at a remote estate unraveling as she discovers her employer’s wife is entangled in a dangerous web of theft, betrayal, and violence.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 330, September 6, 1828
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, multifaceted snapshot of 1828, offering a curious reader a window into the intellectual appetites, artistic anxieties, and social pastimes of early nineteenth-century London.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 362, March 21, 1829
Various
This collection offers a vibrant, eclectic mosaic of early nineteenth-century life, blending architectural critique, Arctic exploration, and tragic short fiction into a window upon the intellectual habits of the Regency era.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 574, November 3, 1832 Title
Various
A nineteenth-century miscellany of history, natural curiosities, and personal anecdotes, offering a window into the intellectual pursuits and curiosities of the late Georgian era.

The Mouse and The Moonbeam
Eugene Field
On Christmas Eve, a tiny mouse, an old grandfather clock, and a drifting moonbeam share sacred stories and moral fables in the quiet dark of a child's bedroom.

The mystery of Deneb IV
Robert Silverberg
HOOK A lone navigator answers a desperate SOS, only to find himself trapped by an alien telepath that turns human minds into tools for galactic conquest.

The Old Miracle Plays of England
Netta Syrett
These medieval dramas, once performed on mobile wooden stages before open-mouthed crowds, capture a long-lost world of faith, fear, and folk spectacle. They endure as the vivid, tactile ancestors of modern theater.

The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution
Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson) Prichard
This collection of Revolutionary-era stories captures the intimate, domestic side of the American struggle for independence through the eyes of those who kept the hearths burning while the world transformed.

The Outdoor Chums After Big Game
Quincy Allen
Four inseparable friends trade their local lake for a rugged Pacific Northwest wilderness, facing grizzly bears, stampeding herds, and treacherous rapids in a quest for adventure.

The riddle of Three-Way Creek
Ridgwell Cullum
In the rugged, unforgiving wilderness of the Canadian north, a fugitive finds salvation in a hidden valley, only to become the guardian of other outcasts seeking a fresh start beyond the reach of the law.

The Rider of Golden Bar
William Patterson White
A laconic, overlooked cowhand finds himself thrust into the role of sheriff in a corrupt territory, where he must navigate political betrayals, deadly ambushes, and his own shifting reputation to survive.

The Rover Boys in Alaska
Edward Stratemeyer
The Rover brothers must set aside their college studies and family business to rescue their adventurous brother, whose mysterious head injury has driven him to seek gold in the frozen, dangerous wilderness of Alaska.

The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 11 (1820)
Various
This collection of essays, practical advice, and verse offers a window into the intellectual and material life of an American farming community in 1820. It captures the quiet rhythms of a society bridging traditional labor and scientific progress.

The Scaring off of Teddy Dawson: A Comedy in One Act
Harold Brighouse
A protective mother discovers her young daughter is courting a local ne'er-do-well and decides that the best way to end the romance is not with a belt, but by welcoming the suitor with suffocating enthusiasm.

The Second Honeymoon
Ruby M. (Ruby Mildred) Ayres
The story of a young, impulsive man who realizes too late that his marriage was a mistake, only to find that true love requires more than just a change of heart.

The southern literary messenger, Vol. II., No. 12, November, 1836
Various
This volume serves as a time capsule of 1836 American intellectual life, gathering the disparate voices of a nascent literary culture into a single, cohesive periodical. It captures the era’s hunger for both moral instruction and romantic escapism.

The Story of a Candy Rabbit
Laura Lee Hope
A sweet sugar bunny with pink glass eyes experiences the perils of the physical world while longing to protect his young owner's household.

The Story of a Plush Bear
Laura Lee Hope
A plush bear journeys from the magical workshops of the North Pole to a seaside vacation, navigating the perils of being a forgotten plaything in a world of giants.

The three sphinxes, and other poems
George Sylvester Viereck
The poet stands at the intersection of history and desire, searching for meaning in the wreckage of broken gods and fleeting loves. These verses trace a restless journey through the tension between the spirit and the senses.

The truce of God: A tale of the eleventh century
George H. (George Henry) Miles
A tragic feudal blood feud threatens to consume two noble families until the church intervenes with a solemn mandate of peace.

The Turquoise Cup, and, the Desert
Arthur Cosslett Smith
Two distinct tales of devotion explore how love defies social, religious, and material boundaries in Venice and the Sahara.

The Vee-Boers: A Tale of Adventure in Southern Africa
Mayne Reid
A group of colonial farmers, stripped of their livestock by the hazards of the African wilderness, must navigate a perilous river journey to reclaim their fortunes and return to their Transvaal home.

The Winning of the West, Volume 3: The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790
Theodore Roosevelt
The young nation’s survival depends on the unruly, rifle-bearing frontiersmen who claim the western woods. Amidst broken treaties, brutal skirmishes, and shifting allegiances, these pioneers test whether a democracy can expand without shattering into pieces.

The wooing of Leola
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A young woman’s romantic fate hangs in the balance, caught between a sinister guardian’s schemes, a jealous rival’s deceptions, and the heroic devotion of a man who traveled across the country to find her.

The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 3 of 3: An account of the mutiny of the crew and the loss of the ship when trying to make the Bermudas
William Clark Russell
The sea is a place of absolute indifference where only the strongest survive, but even in the deepest despair, human connection becomes the final, fragile rigging that keeps a soul afloat against the crushing weight of the waves.

Trapped in 'Black Russia': Letters June-November 1915
Ruth Pierce
Caught in the web of wartime bureaucracy, an American woman records the grim realities of the Russian home front as freedom turns into house arrest.

Tumbleweeds
Hal G. (Hal George) Evarts
The encroaching fences of progress spell the end for a vanishing breed of drifters, forcing a choice between the freedom of the open range and the permanence of a settled life.

Under the Liberty Tree: A Story of The 'Boston Massacre'
James Otis
In 1770, four Boston boys find themselves caught in the escalating tension between British troops and local citizens, culminating in a tragedy that alters the course of American history.

Valencia and Murcia, a glance at African Spain
Albert Frederick Calvert
The sun-drenched plains of Valencia and Murcia reveal a land where ancient Moorish ingenuity still sustains a modern, thriving garden. This account captures the vibrant, precarious intersection of human industry and the relentless heat of the Spanish south.

Vick's Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume 17, No. 5, March, 1894
Various
A seasonal guide for the nineteenth-century gardener, this collection balances practical horticultural advice with the era’s distinct social values and a relentless spirit of commerce.

Wanderlust
Alan Edward Nourse
The call of the stars is a siren song that no amount of earthly love or reasoning can silence. For a father who has tasted that dangerous freedom, the hardest lesson is learning when to let his son walk into the void.

Wessex
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
The rugged, ancient landscapes of southwest England offer a window into history where rural tradition and literary imagination converge. This tour invites travelers to step away from the modern world and into a place of enduring legends.

When Polly Was Eighteen
Emma C. Dowd
A young woman balances the heavy emotional demands of a volatile suitor with her newfound, deeply fulfilling role as a nurse to children in need.

Words for the Wise
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
This collection of moral tales serves as a mirror for the nineteenth-century American conscience, illustrating how small personal choices ripple outward into life-altering consequences. It is a straightforward, didactic exploration of integrity, vanity, and the heavy costs of living without self-reflection.

Yuletide entertainments
Ellen M. (Ellen Melville) Willard
A Victorian-era manual of festive performance, this collection provides the essential blueprints for school and parlor celebrations, blending heartfelt recitations with precise, rhythmic drills to capture the magic of the holiday season.

A Child's Anti-Slavery Book: Containing a Few Words about American Slave Children and Stories
Various
By contrasting the natural rights of free children with the brutal realities of human bondage, these stories serve as an urgent, compassionate plea for the abolition of American slavery.