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44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 855 of 920.
What Need of Man?
Harold Calin
The quest for space exploration is a cold, calculated machine that discards human intuition in favor of flawed automation. This stark story explores the lethal arrogance behind the race to the stars and the dehumanization of those expected to fly.
Wind
Charles L. Fontenay
A desperate rescue mission across a treacherous, wind-scoured planet turns into a test of ingenuity when a Dutch colonist realizes his only hope to save a dying child is to harness the very gale that threatens to kill them.
World of the Hunter
Stephen Marlowe
The ultimate big-game hunt turns on its master when a jaded interstellar traveler decides to stalk the only prey left on a depleted, servile Earth: his own guide.
Worthy of his name
Eglanton Thorne
Young Augustus Devereux Carruthers strives to hold onto his identity and dignity while navigating the grim, precarious world of poverty. This quiet, earnest story traces a boy’s journey from a life of destitution to his eventual emergence as a man defined by his integrity and compassion.
Yes and no, Volume 2 (of 2)
Normanby, Constantine Henry Phipps, Marquess of
The struggle between personal desire and societal expectation plays out in the drawing rooms and rural estates of the Regency era, where the weight of a single word often determines a life’s trajectory.
A Charming Fellow, Volume II
Frances Eleanor Trollope
A charming man lives by his wits, weaving a web of social artifice that threatens to unravel the lives of everyone in a provincial town.
A dictionary of geographical names
Unknown
This slender reference volume offers a snapshot of the world as it stood in 1927, capturing a geopolitical landscape still reverberating from the Great War. It functions as a gazetteer of global locations, blending historical context with the contemporary state of nations.
A Doctor of the Old School
Ian Maclaren
A country doctor’s final journey through a brutal winter storm reveals the profound, unspoken love of a community that only fully recognizes his worth as he is laid to rest.
A Galahad of the Creeks
S. (Sidney) Levett Yeats
A young man arrives in the East to remake his life, only to find that his personal honor is no match for the tangled moral web of a colonial outpost.
A Midnight Fantasy
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A restless midnight stroll through Boston sparks a whimsical, imaginative revision of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. This story explores how two iconic, star-crossed figures might have found happiness if only they had chosen differently.
A Question
Georg Ebers
In the sun-drenched gardens of ancient Sicily, a young woman’s heart hangs in the balance as two rival families clash over property and marriage. A single, life-altering question finally bridges the gap between pride and love.**
A Report Concerning the Colored Women of the South
Elizabeth Christophers Kimball Hobson
This document presents a stark, mid-1890s assessment of the educational and moral conditions facing African American women in the South. It serves as a focused appeal for private, targeted philanthropy to uplift rural families through industrial training.
A Romance of Tompkins Square: 1891
Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone) Janvier
A solitary baker’s pursuit of the perfect honey-cake reveals the fragility of human ambition and the necessity of grace in the face of deep, lingering sorrow.
A successful venture
Ellen Douglas Deland
The Starr family faces a sudden, life-altering financial crisis, forcing them to determine whether they can maintain their independence or must surrender their home to a wealthy, controlling relative.
A World by the Tale
Randall Garrett
A zoologist becomes Earth’s first interstellar success story, only to find that being a celebrity among alien civilizations makes him a target for his own desperate government.
Anti-Slavery Poems 3.: Part 3 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
This collection of verse captures the moral agitation of a nation fracturing under the weight of human bondage. It serves as a powerful testament to the mid-nineteenth-century struggle for the soul of the American republic.
Asteroid of Fear
Raymond Z. (Raymond Zinke) Gallun
HOOK A reformed hothead, struggling to build a new life on a barren asteroid, finds his family’s survival threatened by a gang of sadistic miners and his own volatile temper.
Beasley's Christmas Party
Booth Tarkington
A young man moves to a small Midwestern capital, where a quiet, eccentric politician’s invisible world reveals that kindness and imagination possess power enough to heal lost love and shatter political spite.
Biblical Revision, its duties and conditions: A sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral at the special evening service, on Sunday, March 13, 1870
Henry Alford
This sermon serves as a reasoned plea for the modernization of the English Bible, urging the Church to prioritize scholarly accuracy and fidelity to the original texts over sentimental attachment to established phrasing.
Bill's Lapse: Odd Craft, Part 4
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
A gentle giant’s sudden turn to violence sends his shipmates into a frantic, chaotic scramble for survival. The consequences of a misguided attempt to change a friend’s habits prove that some natures are best left undisturbed.
Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall
Janet D. Wheeler
A spirited schoolgirl finds herself pitted against a tyrannical teacher and a mysterious intruder. Her courage and quick thinking turn a simple boarding school experience into a daring, rule-breaking rebellion.
Biological analogies in history
Theodore Roosevelt
The march of civilizations mirrors the biological laws of the natural world, suggesting that nations, like species, rise, specialize, and eventually face the mystery of their own decline.
Bits from Blinkbonny
John Strathesk
A quiet, observant portrait of a Scottish village, this narrative captures the texture of daily life and the spiritual upheaval of a community caught in the tide of historical change.
Building a State in Apache Land
Charles D. (Charles Debrille) Poston
This memoir chronicles the raw, chaotic birth of a desert territory, where shifting borders, silver strikes, and Apache resistance collide in a relentless struggle for survival and statehood.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 142, vol. III, September 18, 1886
Various
This issue of a venerable Victorian periodical offers a mosaic of its era’s preoccupations, blending curious scientific history, domestic drama, and the rhythmic, observational poetry of the late nineteenth century.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Index for 1884
Various
This index captures the wide-ranging curiosity of a Victorian periodical, offering a panoramic view of the intellectual and social life defining the year 1884.
Charles Edward Putney: An Appreciation
Charles E. Putney Memorial Association
This collection of tributes captures the life of a dedicated Vermont educator, documenting how one man’s quiet commitment to his students and his community left a lasting impression on generations. It is a portrait of a life built on service, scholarship, and enduring kindness.
City Scenes
Ann Taylor
HOOK This illustrated tour invites readers to experience the bustling streets, hidden history, and daily trades of 1820s London from the comfort of their own homes.
Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories
M. T. W.
This collection of stories captures the earnest, often perilous, and imaginative world of late 19th-century childhood, where the line between domestic security and sudden adventure is as thin as a riverbank.
Crash Beam
John Barrett
An engineer fights to clear his name as invisible, lethal light beams sabotage incoming rockets. He must outsmart a corporate assassin before a passenger ship meets the same fiery end as his previous flight.**
Dave Darrin After the Mine Layers
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
Submarines creep through dark waters, leaving explosive mines in the wake of innocent ships, until a relentless American officer turns the tide.
Decadence: Henry Sidgwick memorial lecture, 1908
Arthur James Balfour
Progress is often taken for granted, but civilizations may harbor an inherent, inevitable tendency toward decay. This lecture explores why great societies decline and whether modern humanity can truly avoid that ancient, shadowy fate.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of extraordinary public duty and private frailty captures the pulse of a nation in flux, recording his own domestic turmoil alongside the shifting fortunes of an empire.
Domestic Pleasures, or, the Happy Fire-side
Frances Bowyer Vaux
Domestic happiness serves as the quiet, moral bedrock for a family’s education. Through evening conversations, a mother and father guide their children toward virtue, historical literacy, and a profound appreciation for the natural world.
Double Trouble
Carl Jacobi
An intrepid science-fiction author finds herself embroiled in a lunar conspiracy, where Martian ore, hypnotized laborers, and sentient bird-mirages collide on Jupiter's Eighth Moon.
Empty bottles
Raymond S. (Raymond Smiley) Spears
A man’s simple request for a clean, empty bottle to warm an ailing baby’s stomach triggers a chain of misunderstandings that culminates in a cold-blooded showdown.
Experience of a Confederate States Prisoner: Being an Ephemeris Regularly Kept by an Officer of the Confederate States Army
Beckwith West
HOOK This diary captures the raw, daily realities of a Confederate officer held captive by Union forces, offering a rare glimpse into the intense ideological fervor and physical hardships of the American Civil War.
Fine Feathers
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
A man blinded by his own ambition attempts to outsmart an advanced civilization, only to discover that the ultimate trap is one he constructed for himself.
First Fam'lies of the Sierras
Joaquin Miller
A rough-hewn portrait of a remote mining camp, this narrative captures the stark, elemental grace of early California pioneers as they grapple with isolation, morality, and the arrival of the first woman among them.
Flecker's magic
Norman Matson
A struggling young American artist in Paris is granted a mysterious ring with the power of absolute magic, only to discover that the gift of omnipotence is far more burdensome than poverty.
Four days
Hetty Hemenway
A young American bride spends four days in England with her soldier husband before he departs for the Dardanelles, capturing a fleeting, desperate moment of love held against the encroaching shadow of the Great War.
Fritz to the Front, or, the Ventriloquist Scamp-Hunter
Edward L. (Edward Lytton) Wheeler
A quick-witted young ventriloquist finds himself tangled in a web of smuggling, kidnapping, and coastal danger while chasing a five-thousand-dollar reward.
Genesis
H. Beam Piper
HOOK A stranded colonial expedition must forsake their high-tech past to survive on a wild, alien world, unwittingly becoming the progenitors of human history.
Geographic Variation in the Harvest Mouse, Reithrodontomys megalotis, On the Central Great Plains And in Adjacent Regions
J. Knox Jones
Across the expansive grasslands of the American West, a quiet tiny rodent reveals how subtle geography shapes the living world.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, January 1841
Various
This volume captures the diverse pulse of American mid-century literary culture, blending serialized fiction, poetry, and practical guidance into a single, eclectic monthly collection. It serves as a fascinating window into the intellectual appetites and social sensibilities of 1841.
Green Timber Thoroughbreds
Theodore Goodridge Roberts
A stranger arrives in a snowbound village seeking a legendary horse, only to find himself entangled in a dangerous feud between local families.
Harper's Young People, January 10, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This 1882 weekly periodical offers a vivid window into Victorian childhood, blending moralistic fiction, maritime history, and a spirited community of young readers corresponding from across the globe.
Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This lively Victorian periodical invites young readers into a world of rugged adventure, historical inquiry, and community connection through serialized stories, instructive handicraft projects, and an engaging exchange of letters.