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44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 851 of 920.

Report of the naval committee to the House of Representatives, August, 1850, in favor of the establishment of a line of mail steamships to the western coast of Africa, and thence via the Mediterranean to London
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Naval Affairs
This report outlines a 19th-century legislative proposal to fund a steamship line connecting the United States, Liberia, and Europe to facilitate the removal of free Black Americans.

Richard Carvel
Winston Churchill
A young gentleman of colonial Maryland navigates the treacherous waters of family betrayal, the stirrings of revolution, and a heart tethered to a childhood sweetheart.

Rick and Ruddy Out West
Howard Roger Garis
The mystery of a diverted mountain stream draws two young friends and their loyal dog into a high-stakes adventure where they must outsmart claim-jumpers to restore a lost fortune.

Savage Galahad
Bryce Walton
A lonely, predatory giant of a Venusian swamp finds his brutal existence transformed when he becomes obsessed with the fragile beauty of a lost human woman.

Seller of the Sky
Dave Dryfoos
A wanderer brings tales of a forbidden world to people imprisoned in glass-domed cities. He offers them more than stories; he offers them the terrifying, beautiful reality of the sky itself.

Shapes and Shadows
Madison Julius Cawein
The world is a tapestry of shifting light, where the boundaries between reality and the spirit realm dissolve into a haunting, lyrical meditation on beauty, loss, and the eternal ache of the human heart.

She and I, Volume 2: A Love Story. A Life History
John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson
A young man’s pursuit of his beloved leads him from the stifling constraints of English social expectations to the chaotic streets of New York, seeking both a livelihood and a future.

Six Months at the Cape
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
The rugged wilderness and colonial life of late 19th-century South Africa come alive through the eyes of a seasoned observer. This account offers a vivid, firsthand look at a world defined by its vast landscapes, challenging frontiers, and the clash of cultures.

Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)
William Dean Howells
The short story occupies a strange, unsettled territory in the literary landscape, beloved when encountered in isolation but mysteriously shunned when gathered together in a single volume. This inquiry explores that persistent puzzle.

Such Things Are: A Play, in Five Acts
Mrs. Inchbald
This play follows a benevolent Englishman whose tireless efforts to improve prison conditions in Sumatra lead to a profound moral awakening for an absolute monarch.

Tales of English Minsters: Hereford
Elizabeth W. (Elizabeth Wilson) Grierson
The stones of Hereford Cathedral hold the echoes of a violent past, where the pursuit of earthly power and the quiet faith of the martyr collide within the history of an ancient English minster.

The Adventures of Harry Richmond
George Meredith
HOOK A charismatic father leads his son through a whirlwind of social artifice and high-stakes gambling, forcing the young man to choose between his father’s delusions of grandeur and the stability of his own heritage.

The American Bee Journal, Vol. VI., Number 5, November 1870
Various
This collection of professional correspondence and instructional reports captures the meticulous, often experimental, world of nineteenth-century apiculture. It serves as an essential manual for the Victorian apiarist, documenting the shift from traditional, hands-off methods to modern, data-driven hive management.

The American Bee-Keeper, Vol. II, Number 3, March, 1892
Various
The March 1892 issue of this specialized trade monthly serves as a practical, technical guide for late-Victorian apiarists navigating the transition from traditional box hives to modern, standardized equipment.

The American Missionary
Various
A monthly collection of field reports, personal correspondence, and financial ledgers paints a vivid picture of nineteenth-century Reconstruction and native assimilation efforts across the United States.

The American Missionary
Various
This periodical archive offers an unfiltered window into the late 19th-century American missionary movement, documenting the ambitious reach of the American Missionary Association into Southern schools, Indian territories, and international mission fields.

The Ballad of the Quest
Virna Sheard
This collection of verse captures the profound disorientation of the First World War, charting a soul’s journey from a desire for solitary escape to the harrowing, redemptive discovery of human connection amidst the trenches.

The Ballad of Venus Nell
Nelson S. Bond
The heart of a rugged space prospector holds a treasure far more precious than any mineral vein, leading to a fateful collision between greed and true devotion.

The Bible, King James version, Book 6: Joshua
Anonymous
Following the death of Moses, a new leader takes command to fulfill an ancient promise of land and nationhood. This narrative of conquest, settlement, and covenant continues to resonate as a foundational account of national identity and religious devotion.

The Bloodhounds of Zirth
Lloyd Palmer
The hunt for a fugitive on a distant penal planet ends not with a capture, but with a reality-bending encounter that defies the logic of the warden and his telepathic hounds.

The Bojabi Tree
Edith Rickert
Animals starving in the Great Wood seek the name of a mysterious, delicious fruit tree, but only the smallest among them discovers the secret by mastering the art of memory.

The Boy Ranger
Oll Coomes
The frontier is a place where identities are fluid, secrets are buried in the soil, and a single, well-placed shot can settle a long-standing blood feud.

The Boyhood of Jesus
Anonymous
This account traces the earliest years of Jesus, framing his arrival and upbringing as a template for childhood virtue. It invites readers to view the life of a central religious figure through the lens of domestic kindness and moral development.

The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 01, No. 05, May 1895: Two Florentine Pavements
Various
This periodical captures the precise intersection of classical European architectural history and the practical, rapidly industrializing design standards of late 19th-century America.

The brother clerks
Mary Ashley Townsend
The arrival of two brothers in the bustling port of New Orleans sets them on diverging paths, testing the strength of their bond against the city’s temptations and their own internal struggles.

The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
When forest creatures set aside their stingers and rivalries for a single night, even the blundering beetles and flattened spiders find cause to dance under the soft radiance of a hundred glow-worms.

The Childhood of Distinguished Women
Selina A. Bower
These biographical sketches trace the formative years of notable women, emphasizing the intersection of their early intellectual development, their religious convictions, and the domestic spheres they inhabited.

The Christmas city
Lewis Gaston Leary
The Christmas city is a historical and geographical survey of Bethlehem, tracing its evolution from an ancient village of the Judean hills to a central site of religious pilgrimage. It weaves together biblical narrative, historical record, and local legend to examine why this specific town has maintained such a…

The coming of the Amazons
Owen Johnson
John Bogardus awakes from a cryonic experiment into a future where women rule a depopulated, high-tech Earth. His struggle to reclaim male supremacy reveals a satiric, cautionary tale about the vanity of gender warfare.

The dark eyes of London
Edgar Wallace
A relentless investigator faces a shadow-drenched syndicate of blind giants who operate from the forgotten corners of London. Danger lurks in every dark passage as he fights to dismantle their monstrous game.

The Dazzling Miss Davison
Florence Warden
A young barrister finds himself dangerously captivated by a mysterious woman whose secret, double-edged life teeters between social grace and criminal intrigue. This story explores the thin, often blurred line between obsession and devotion.

The Elves of Mount Fern
Katherine Creighton
The secret life of a garden reveals itself when the sun sets, as tiny, invisible residents emerge from a stone wall to tend to the world of nature and the humans who dwell within it.

"The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton: 1901
Louis Becke
The sea is a stage for both monumental duty and primal survival. These two accounts explore the extremes of human conduct when isolated upon the vast, indifferent Pacific.

The heiress of McGregor
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
A young woman’s pride and self-absorption collide with the realities of community life and familial responsibility. She eventually learns that a purposeful life is built not on grand fantasies, but on humble, daily service to others.

The Little People of the Snow
William Cullen Bryant
A child strays beyond her winter boundaries, coaxed by an icy creature into a world of subterranean frosted magic.

The master of destiny
Frederick Tilney
The human story is not a static state of being, but a biological progression written into the architecture of our anatomy. We are the inheritors of a long, physical ascent toward cerebral complexity.

The Memory of Mars
Raymond F. Jones
A man’s desperate quest to uncover the truth behind his wife’s death leads him into a chilling encounter with the architects of human destiny. What begins as a personal mystery unfolds into a haunting revelation about the nature of identity and the survival of a species.

The Mentor: The Weather: Serial Number 110
Charles Fitzhugh Talman
A vast ocean of air envelopes human life, yet its mechanics remain invisible until daily existence is upended by a passing storm.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 359, March 7, 1829
Various
A vibrant, eclectic collection of Victorian-era miscellany, this volume offers a window into the intellectual appetites of 1829, balancing technical instruction with whimsical storytelling and social observation.

The Motor Girls
Margaret Penrose
A young woman gains independence through the freedom of the open road, only to find that her new machine brings her into the center of a local mystery involving stolen funds and social intrigue.

The Musgrave controversy
Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée d' Eon de Beaumont
A physician’s attempt to expose high-level corruption in the British government ignites a volatile public scandal. This collection of documents captures the messy intersection of whistleblowing, political intrigue, and nationalistic fervor.

The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers
Various
HOOK This vintage monthly magazine offers a window into the moral and imaginative world of nineteenth-century children, blending simple fables, verse, and instructional sketches for early readers.

The Old Mill and the Covered Bridge
Anonymous
These structures stand as weathered witnesses to a vanished era, serving as the literal and figurative foundations upon which a young nation built its industrial and social character.

The orphan nieces
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
The burden of duty often conflicts with the whims of the heart, yet true character is forged in the fires of these quiet, daily sacrifices.

The Peddler's Boy
Francis C. (Francis Channing) Woodworth
The path from a humble, impoverished beginning to honorable success is paved by a resolute heart and the courage to refuse the first glass of temptation.

The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox
Charles E. (Charles Eugene) Morris
A leader must be a doer of the work, not merely a listener to promises.

The Red Court Farm: A Novel (Vol. 2 of 2)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
A family’s dark secrets and the shadow of a local murder haunt a quiet seaside community, where the line between the living and the dead becomes dangerously blurred.

The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650)
John Dury
A vision of the library as a dynamic engine for human progress, this 1650 pamphlet challenges the era’s stagnant custodial approach to books. It argues that knowledge must be actively traded and disseminated to prepare society for a coming spiritual awakening.