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44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 868 of 920.

Brknk's Bounty
Jerry Sohl
Larry Weaver is a down-on-his-luck journalist who loses his job after a run-in with a peculiar, invisible nuisance. His life takes a bizarre turn when he discovers he has become the target of an otherworldly gift that changes his fate forever.

Cave-Dwellers of Saturn
John Wiggin
HOOK Earth’s final hope rests on a desperate voyage to Saturn, where an ancient, hidden civilization holds the only weapon capable of defeating a relentless Martian invasion.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419: Volume 17, New Series, January 10, 1852
Various
This mid-century periodical offers a varied glimpse into the Victorian imagination, blending moralistic fiction, curious natural history, and urgent social commentary from a world transitioning into the modern industrial age.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431: Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852
Various
A single issue of a mid-nineteenth-century popular magazine offers a remarkably clear lens through which to view the Victorian appetite for moral improvement, practical science, and vivid human drama.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 48, Vol. I, November 29, 1884
Various
This collection represents a mid-Victorian intellectual tapestry, blending serial fiction, scientific reporting, and reflective essays into a single, cohesive window onto 1884. It offers a multifaceted view of an era grappling with the rapid intersection of tradition and technological progress.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 109, Vol. III, January 30, 1886
Various
This volume offers a sprawling, authentic window into the Victorian mind, collecting the serialized fiction, scientific reports, and cultural commentary that informed the daily intellectual life of the late nineteenth-century British public.

Chasing an Iron Horse
Edward Robins
A daring Union sabotage mission unfolds across the Georgia countryside, where a young recruit and his companions attempt to steal a Confederate locomotive and turn the tide of the Civil War.

Christian Devotedness
Anthony Norris Groves
This work serves as a challenging invitation to evaluate the intersection of personal wealth and spiritual conviction. It argues that a literal adherence to the teachings of Jesus regarding the abandonment of earthly treasures is the only path toward authentic Christian maturity and global evangelism.

Christmas Stories: Containing John Wildgoose the Poacher, the Smuggler, and Good-nature, or Parish Matters
Edward Berens
Young villagers learn bitter lessons about the slippery slope from small transgressions to capital crimes through three cautionary moral tales.

Circular Saws
Humbert Wolfe
These brief, sharp fables offer a cynical yet luminous anatomy of human folly, stripping away the pretenses of society to reveal the uncomfortable truths beneath. They act as mirrors for the absurd, reflecting the world back in a series of caustic, intellectual snapshots.

Colonel Edward Buncombe, Fifth North Carolina Continental Regiment: His Life, Military Careeer, and Death While a Wounded Prisoner in Philadelphia During the War of the Revolution
Marshall De Lancey Haywood
Edward Buncombe, a gentleman of the colonial era, leaves behind a legacy of Revolutionary sacrifice and a name that has become a permanent part of the American landscape.

Crankisms
Lisle de Vaux Matthewman
A collection of cynical observations, these meditations on human vanity and social artifice suggest that while we may not be able to change our nature, we might at least learn to laugh at it.

Dagonet Ditties
George R. (George Robert) Sims
A collection of spirited, satirical verses that capture the peculiar anxieties, absurdities, and daily rhythms of late-Victorian London life.

Dames
Murray Leinster
The fog of the Inside Passage offers no sanctuary for a drowning fugitive, only a bizarre theater where the volatility of human desire proves more lethal than the sea.

Diana Tempest, Volume I
Mary Cholmondeley
A legacy built on a lie haunts the lives of two cousins, setting in motion a dark cycle of inheritance, betrayal, and the crushing weight of a secret debt.

Direct methods
Thomson Burtis
A daring government agent recruits two veteran military pilots for a high-stakes, off-the-books mission to capture a notorious criminal mastermind hiding deep within the Appalachian Mountains.

Divvy up
Stephen Marlowe
HOOK In a ruined city where betrayal is a currency, a scavenger plays a lethal game of survival that inevitably turns against him.

Doctor and patient
Francis Weld Peabody
Effective medicine requires a human touch to bridge the gap between scientific expertise and the patient’s actual experience. This collection of essays serves as a timeless guide for healers to prioritize empathy alongside technical skill.

Experiments on the Nervous System with Opium and Metalline Substances: Made Chiefly with the View of Determining the Nature and Effects of Animal Electricity
Alexander Monro
In the late eighteenth century, the boundaries of life, death, and energy were far from settled. This methodical investigation into the physiological effects of opium and metallic stimulation on frogs challenges the nascent, fashionable theories of "animal electricity.

Fish Fry
Arnold Marmor
A chance encounter on the Florida coast leads to a surreal diplomatic mission that ends in domestic catastrophe. The story explores the absurdity of human ignorance and the fragility of first contact.

Food Habits of the Thrushes of the United States
F. E. L. (Foster Ellenborough Lascelles) Beal
This is a meticulous, data-driven report detailing exactly what American thrushes consume to survive. It offers a fascinating, granular look at the intersection of avian biology and agricultural interests in the early 20th century.

Forget Me Nearly
F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace
HOOK In a future where the state erases one’s past to cure anxiety, a nameless man discovers that his search for identity is a race against a predator who holds the key to his life.

Frank Roscoe's Secret
Allen Chapman
A group of loyal high school friends faces a mystery that tests their bonds and their courage. They must navigate local rivalries and a dangerous conspiracy to rescue one of their own from a dark predicament.

Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those Doctrines
Richard Finch
A rigorous and deeply felt theological inquiry, this work challenges the prevailing doctrines of divine election and original sin by grounding the character of God in immutable moral reason rather than arbitrary power.

Gallio
J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
The scientific pursuit of truth often feels cold, yet this critique argues that science is merely one narrow way of mapping reality, not an exhaustive account of human experience.

Good Friday, and other poems
John Masefield
A stark, dramatic meditation on the final hours of the crucifixion, this work captures the intersection of historical burden and eternal, poetic truth.

Harper's Round Table, January 28, 1896
Various
This collection of late-nineteenth-century storytelling captures the spirited, industrious, and sometimes earnest world of American youth at the close of the Victorian era. It serves as a time capsule of an age when self-improvement, adventure, and civic engagement were the cornerstones of growing up.

Harper's Round Table, June 16, 1896
Various
This collection of late nineteenth-century periodical writing offers a window into the era’s literary and social culture, balancing adventurous tales, instructive articles, and the earnest correspondence of a young, inquisitive readership.

Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
The world of 1879 comes alive through these pages, offering a window into the domestic past where children played Robinson Crusoe in storm-wrecked cellars and found magic in the simplest of pastimes.

History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce, 1609
John Lothrop Motley
This expansive chronicle captures the birth of a nation through the lens of a long-fought war, illustrating how a small, sea-born republic transformed itself from a collection of rebellious provinces into an independent power. It is a detailed account of the arduous negotiations, the political maneuverings, and the…

Household words, No. 24, September 7, 1850
Unknown
This issue of a Victorian-era miscellany gathers varied threads of nineteenth-century life, blending technical curiosity, social reform, and moral reflection into a unified, earnest portrait of a changing society.

How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee
Owen Wister
A man of letters finds his orderly life besieged by a relentless campaign to modernize English spelling. What begins as a nuisance quickly spirals into a absurd, cross-country crusade led by a manipulative industrialist.

Hurlothrumbo
Samuel Johnson
HOOK A feverish, kaleidoscopic collision of high-flown philosophy and deliberate absurdity, this play serves as a defiant, meta-theatrical dismantling of the rigid theatrical conventions of its time.

Ignatz
Ron Goulart
In the sun-bleached coastal town of San Miguel, a man finds himself at war with a local cult leader who has perfected a method for turning citizens into cats. It is a surreal, biting satire of suburban complacency.

Left to Ourselves
Catharine Shaw
A Victorian household finds its strength tested when the parents depart for a long voyage, leaving their children to navigate the moral complexities of daily life and duty on their own.

Loughton, Essex: A brief account of the Manor and Parish
William Chapman Waller
This brief history traces a quiet English village from its medieval origins as a collection of monastic manors through its slow transformation into a modern residential parish. It offers a meditative look at how time reshapes both land and community.

Milly Darrell
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A young woman’s budding romance and her sudden inheritance become the targets of a cold, calculated plot within the walls of a grand northern estate. This Victorian mystery unravels the hidden malice lurking behind a stepmother’s graceful exterior.

Morley Ashton: A Story of the Sea. Volume 2 (of 3)
James Grant
HOOK A sinister stowaway and a mutinous crew transform a passenger vessel into a floating prison, where the passengers must fight for their lives against both the sea and their fellow men.

Nets to Catch the Wind
Elinor Wylie
The world is a harsh, cold place where only the solitary and the resilient survive, yet beauty remains a fierce, haunting necessity that must be pursued at any cost.

Nitrogen Bacteria and Legumes: With special reference to red clover, cowpeas, soy beans, alfalfa, and sweet clover, on Illinois soils
Cyril G. (Cyril George) Hopkins
HOOK The secret to thriving crops often lies hidden beneath the surface, where invisible organisms forge a vital, symbiotic partnership with leguminous plants to nourish the soil.

Nourmahal, an Oriental romance. Vol. 1 of 3
Michael J. (Michael Joseph) Quin
This sprawling, atmospheric romance weaves together the humble lives of mountain shepherds and the grand, treacherous machinations of the Mughal court. It is a tale of shifting fortunes, where the quiet devotion of a young couple is constantly tested by the volatile whims of emperors and the rugged demands of the…

Once Upon A Planet
J. J. Allerton
This is a story of a warlord who seeks to reignite his nation’s passion for destruction, only to discover that the cycle of violence destroys everything in its path. It is a stark, cautionary fable about the true cost of eternal conflict.

Out of the Fog: A Story of the Sea
Charles K. (Charles Kellogg) Ober
A young man’s drift into the Atlantic fog serves as the crucible for his eventual spiritual awakening. This narrative bridges the gap between the raw, physical peril of the sea and the quiet, internal transformation of a skeptic finding faith.

Outlook editorials
Theodore Roosevelt
The pursuit of industrial democracy requires a rigorous blend of high ideals and cold common sense, ensuring that special privilege is afforded to none while equality of opportunity remains the standard for all.

Outlook Odes
T. W. H. (Thomas William Hodgson) Crosland
A series of sharp, irreverent addresses to the public figures and institutions of Edwardian England, this collection captures the exasperation and wit of a man watching the world change through a fog of habit and irony.

Pictures from English History: A Fireside Amusement
Anonymous
This book offers a gentle, fireside method for making the study of English history feel less like a school-room chore and more like a shared, imaginative game. It invites readers to step away from the rigors of formal lessons and into the warmth of a Victorian home.

Poems
Walter Richard Cassels
A restless, searching spirit defines these verses, where the boundaries between the physical world and the afterlife prove as thin as a veil. Through lyrical observation and mythic retelling, a solitary voice maps the geography of grief and the persistent hope of transcendence.

Poetic Sketches: A Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry
Thomas Gent
This collection of early nineteenth-century verse traverses the fragile boundaries between public duty and private sorrow, finding beauty in the fleeting moments of a world caught in the throes of political and personal upheaval.