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44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 893 of 920.

The Family Letters of Oliver Goldsmith: A Paper Read Before the Bibliographical Society, October 15th, 1917
Ernest Clarke
The life of a celebrated poet is often defined by the silence of the archives, yet a serendipitous bundle of papers reveals the intimate, frayed, and deeply human correspondence of a literary icon and his struggling kin.

The Hand
Jerry Sohl
A rural housewife, a hostile husband, and a stray dog collide with the desperate crew of a crashed spacecraft. In this haunting encounter, the cost of human cruelty is measured in flesh and bone.

The Hour of Battle
Robert Sheckley
The silence of deep space is a heavy burden for those tasked with guarding humanity against an unseen, telepathic enemy. Tension mounts as three soldiers wait for an invasion that never seems to arrive.

The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 01, July 4, 1840
Various
This inaugural issue establishes a literary bridge between the past and present of Ireland, blending antiquarian research with contemporary social observation to foster national pride and public enlightenment. It serves as a manifesto for a new kind of accessible, culturally grounded journalism.

The Kansas University Science Bulletin (Vol. I, No. 1)
Various
The rigorous documentation of natural history in the American Midwest at the dawn of the twentieth century provides a clear, observational window into the local ecosystems of Kansas.

The little cap
Mrs. (Louisa Maria) Dundas
A humble soldier rescues an infant from the fires of a sixteenth-century battlefield, unknowingly altering the fate of a noble house. This journey of loyalty and trial traces the enduring bond between a protector and his foundling charge.

The Little French Lawyer: A Comedy
John Fletcher
This comedy of manners and misadventure explores the absurd lengths to which men will go to defend their honor and the complicated schemes women devise to navigate a world governed by such rigid pride. Through a series of overlapping deceptions, the play examines the friction between the performative nature of…

The Madcap Metalloids
Verne Athanas
Stranded on a radioactive asteroid with their ship failing, two explorers discover that the planet’s strange, metallic lifeforms are the only hope for escaping a lethal, permanent crash.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 356, February 14, 1829
Various
This 1829 compendium captures the restless curiosity of the Georgian era, blending reports on architectural marvels and international naval warfare with whimsical folklore, natural history, and the trivial amusements of the day.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 383, August 1, 1829
Various
This collection offers a vibrant, eclectic window into the intellectual and social life of 1829, blending historical sketches, literary anecdotes, and the practical curiosities of a rapidly modernizing world.

The Nursery, November 1881, Vol. XXX: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers
Various
The transition from autumn to winter frames this charming collection of Victorian-era childhood experiences, offering a window into a world where play and imagination bridge great geographical distances.

The Old-Time Spelling School
John G. Ellenbecker
The past is a country we visit through memory, and here the border is a one-room schoolhouse filled with the sharp, competitive joy of a winter spelling bee. This narrative poem captures a forgotten frontier ritual, preserving the spirit of a community that found its greatest excitement in the precision of language…

The Pacifists
Charles E. Fritch
Exploration of an alien world turns into a moral trap when three astronauts discover a civilization that appears to have forsaken violence, only to find that their own predatory nature poses a threat to peace.

The Pedler of Dust Sticks
Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
A humble peddler rises through industry and virtue to become a prosperous and beloved benefactor, illustrating how a life grounded in kindness and faith transcends poverty. This narrative chronicles the journey of a man who transforms his circumstances while remaining devoted to his family and his community.

The Polite People of Pudibundia
R. A. Lafferty
A detective from the Solar Police Force travels to a distant, charming world where the inhabitants are so unfailingly courteous that they are literally lethal. He arrives to solve the mystery of why every visitor who goes to Pudibundia eventually disappears, only to find that the answer is hidden in plain sight…

The Silver Crown: Another Book of Fables
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
This collection of moral tales explores the weight of human choices, suggesting that we often walk past our own salvation while waiting for grander promises to be fulfilled. It offers a gentle, earnest map of the human spirit.

The Spiritual Improvement of the Census: A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of All Saints, Fulham, 30th March, 1851
R. G. (Robert George) Baker
The national census is framed not as a bureaucratic exercise in statistics, but as a profound moment for collective spiritual reflection and an urgent call to examine the moral state of one's own household.

The Submarine Boys for the Flag: Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam
Victor G. Durham
Young submarine captains leave the civilian life behind to defend their country against international spies, proving their mettle in a high-stakes, breathless chase that spans the Atlantic coast.

The suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the original New Testament of Jesus the Christ, Volume 4, Nicodemus
William Wake
A dramatic ancient retelling of the trial, execution, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this apocryphal text expands the biblical narrative with vivid courtroom dialogue, eyewitness testimonies, and a sensational descent into the underworld.

The Third and Last Part of Conny-Catching. (1592): With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking
Robert Greene
A warning to the unwary, this account unveils the elaborate, predatory stratagems used by London's criminal underworld to strip honest citizens of their purses and possessions.

The Thirty Years War
Friedrich Schiller
When a local Bohemian revolt escalates into a continent-wide struggle, European princes and foreign powers clash across decades of devastation in a ruthless bid for religious dominance and political survival.

The Tree of Appomattox
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
Two cousins, divided by the tragic rupture of a nation, navigate the brutal, closing chapters of the American Civil War with unwavering loyalty to their separate causes.

The Twins, and How They Entertained the New Minister: A Farce
Elizabeth F. (Elizabeth Frances) Guptill
The new minister’s pastoral visit becomes a trial by fire as he faces two precocious children determined to share every embarrassing detail of their parents' private lives.

The Two Treaties
Edward Hoare
The shifting borders of the late 19th century serve as a divine roadmap for the imminent return of the Jewish people and the eventual second coming of Christ.

The Ultimate Image
P. Schuyler (Peter Schuyler) Miller
A daring investigation into a physicist’s secret weapon turns into a desperate struggle against an arms-dealing villain to prevent an artificial, reality-ending anomaly.

The War with Russia
John Alfred Langford
A fierce polemical defense of British intervention in the Crimean War, this tract systematically dismantles contemporary anti-war arguments through a close reading of diplomatic records.

The Water Eater
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
A common kitchen accident turns into a terrifying biological discovery when an amateur chemist accidentally creates a synthetic, water-consuming life form that threatens to spread beyond the confines of his home.

The White Canoe, and Other Verse
Alan Sullivan
The white canoe serves as a vessel for the soul’s passage through the wilderness, bridging the gap between earthly longing and the silence of the infinite.

The Yellow Flag: A Novel. Volume 3 (of 3)
Edmund Yates
HOOK A web of deception unravels as the truth behind a secret life is exposed, forcing those left in the wreckage to choose between their own desires and the salvation of the innocent.

Thoughts on the Proposed Inclosure of Waltham (commonly called Epping) and Hainault Forests: In which a new plan is suggested for disafforesting the same: with the heads of the bill now proposed for that purpose
Thomas Street
Modern landscape management often feels like a recent invention, but the friction between public access, royal prerogative, and private development has deep, tangled roots. This work serves as an urgent 1818 appeal to landowners and officials to resolve the long-standing legal status of Epping and Hainault Forests,…

Three Plays: The Fiddler's House, The Land, Thomas Muskerry
Padraic Colum
This collection of three plays captures the early spirit of the Irish National Theatre, examining the friction between personal yearning and the rigid demands of rural tradition and family duty.

Three years in France with the Guns: Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery
C. A. Rose
A candid, steady record of artillery life reveals the grit and camaraderie required to sustain a battery through the shifting fronts of the Great War.

Threlkeld's Daughter
James Bell
The path to love is rarely smooth, but for one daughter of Alpha Centauri, it requires kidnapping a diplomat, mastering the art of the human smile, and outmaneuvering a desperate father.

Tight Squeeze
Dean Ing
A veteran engineer faces a life-or-death mechanical failure in the vacuum of space, forced to rely on his own fallible, recorded voice to guide him through a desperate, zero-gravity repair.

Watt's Songs Against Evil
Isaac Watts
These verses serve as a bridge between the innocence of childhood and the weight of moral responsibility. They use the natural world to teach young minds how to navigate the temptations and pitfalls of daily life.

When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead: A Thrilling Detective Story
Corbett, George, Mrs.
Determined to clear her fiancé’s name after he is wrongly convicted of a diamond robbery, a young woman assumes a daring undercover identity to hunt down the true culprits.

Wintry Peacock: From "The New Decameron", Volume III
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
A chance meeting in a snow-bound village pulls an observant stranger into the volatile, private battle between a husband and his wife, a struggle centered on a mysterious letter and a pet peacock.

With Perry on Lake Erie
James Otis
A young man’s perspective on the War of 1812 transforms from a romantic search for glory into a sobering confrontation with the grim realities of naval combat.

Zoe
Evelyn Whitaker
A stern, solitary man rejects his daughter’s plea for forgiveness, only to find his hardened heart undone by the mysterious appearance of an abandoned infant.

A kiss for the conqueror
Henry Slesar
This story follows a soldier in a world of reversed power dynamics, where the occupation of a defeated nation has left the conquerors lingering in a state of decay and profound social isolation.

A new graft on the family tree
Pansy
HOOK A gentle, reform-minded city woman marries into a remote, emotionally guarded farming family, slowly transforming their harsh domestic environment into one of warmth, faith, and mutual understanding.

A New Subspecies of Lizard, Cnemidophorus sacki, from Michoacán, México
William Edward Duellman
A field biologist meticulously identifies and catalogs a previously unrecognized subspecies of lizard, Cnemidophorus sacki zweifeli, found within the arid scrub forests of the Tepalcatepec Valley in Michoacán, Mexico.

A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country
George Wood Wingate
This report serves as a foundational argument for integrating systematic rifle training into the American public school curriculum to foster national readiness and instill discipline in youth.

A Ribband of Blue, and Other Bible Studies
James Hudson Taylor
Faith is not merely a belief, but a rigorous, daily discipline of alignment between the human will and the divine. This collection of studies argues that true spiritual fruitfulness emerges only when one abandons self-assertion in favor of total surrender.

A Son of Mars, volume 2
Arthur Griffiths
A young man’s courage in a colonial war becomes the catalyst for reclaiming his true identity and birthright. This tale navigates the rigid hierarchies of Victorian society, where military merit eventually clashes with the entrenched power of an aristocratic heritage.

Address to the Inhabitants of Rugby about the Cholera Morbus
Thomas Arnold
As a deadly contagion sweeps across Europe, a local leader provides his neighbors with the vital information necessary to confront their fears and protect their health. This calm, practical appeal serves as a guide for navigating a public health crisis with both physical discipline and spiritual fortitude.

An Act to Provide for the Paving, Gravelling, Lighting, and Watching Certain Footways and Carriageways in and Near Brompton Square: In the Parish of Saint Mary Abbotts Kensington, in the County of Middlesex and to Provide for the Maintenance of a Garden and Shrubbery in the Said Square
Anonymous
This legislative document serves as the founding blueprint for the municipal infrastructure and governance of a specific early nineteenth-century London residential development. It codifies the transition of Brompton Square from private land into a regulated community.

Barbara Blomberg
Georg Ebers
HOOK The daughter of a soldier navigates the wreckage of a secret affair with the Holy Roman Emperor, forced to choose between the convent and a life of quiet survival.