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44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 919 of 920.
The Potato Child & Others
Lucia Prudence Hall Woodbury
A young orphan girl, enduring a harsh apprenticeship under a cold dressmaker, finds a spark of hope and human connection in a curiously shaped vegetable.
The raid of the guerilla: 1911
Charles Egbert Craddock
A young woman finds herself in the crosshairs of a ruthless soldier when her secret act of wartime mercy comes to light. In the rugged isolation of the Great Smoky Mountains, a single choice bridges the divide between enemies.
The Return Of The Soul: 1896
Robert Hichens
The terror of a childhood cruelty returns in adulthood when a man suspects his wife is the reincarnated soul of the cat he once murdered. This psychological horror tale explores the suffocating weight of past sins and the thin membrane between human reason and animal instinct.
A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco: and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation
Orin Fowler
A fiery nineteenth-century sermon turns its sights on a pervasive habit, painting tobacco as a moral poison and a quiet drain on human potential.
A Proposal for the Better Supplying of Churches in Our Foreign Plantations, and for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, By a College to Be Erected in the Summer Islands, Otherwise Called the Isles of Bermuda
George Berkeley
An ambitious plan for educational reform emerges from the heart of the British Empire, seeking to bridge the vast divide between colonial spiritual practice and the indigenous peoples of the American continent.
A Rivermouth Romance
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A forty-year-old Irish cook marries a handsome, shiftless sailor half her age, plunging her orderly domestic life in a quiet New England town into a hilarious cycle of absurd missing-persons cases and endless marital endurance.
A Season at Harrogate: In a Series of Poetical Epistles, from Benjamin Blunderhead, Esquire, to His Mother, in Derbyshire. With Useful and Copious Notes, Descriptive of the Objects Most Worthy of Attention in the Vicinity of Harrogate
Mrs. (Barbara) Hofland
A young gentleman’s playful, rhyming letters capture the social whirl, picturesque sights, and romantic entanglements of a season spent at the Harrogate mineral springs.
A Victorious Union
Oliver Optic
The seas of the American Civil War provide the backdrop for a young officer’s rapid ascent through the ranks of the Union Navy. Through daring ruses and strategic command, he secures his ship’s legacy and his own future.
Arkansas Governors and United States Senators
John L. (John Lewis) Ferguson
Before statehood, territorial governors arrived from eastern states to manage a wilderness frontier. By tracing every chief executive and federal senator, this collection maps how local leadership evolved from raw appointment to enduring, self-determined governance.
Bijou
Gyp
A bright stem of provincial high society conceals a quiet, devastating force in this sharp nineteenth-century study of vanity.
Christian Gellert's Last Christmas: From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation
Berthold Auerbach
The gentle scholar finds his final, quiet peace through the unexpected arrival of a stranger, proving that even the most solitary life remains inextricably woven into the tapestry of the whole.
Dick & Fitzgerald Catalog (1866)
Dick & Fitzgerald
The nineteenth-century American reader sought self-improvement through practical guides, and this extensive catalog provides a candid window into the era's obsession with mastering social performance, games of chance, and the mechanics of daily business.
Fromont and Risler
Alphonse Daudet
A young woman’s desperate, upwardly mobile social climb wreaks havoc on the lives of those who love her, revealing the dangerous friction between quiet integrity and hollow ambition.
Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
The weight of a crown hangs upon the breaking of a vow, trapping a noble leader between his loyalty to his people and the cold, encroaching machinery of a rival’s ambition.
Harper's Young People, February 1, 1881: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This periodical captures a snapshot of late nineteenth-century American life, blending morality tales, practical instruction, and the earnest correspondence of children eager to trade stamps and curiosities.
Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This artifact serves as a time capsule, preserving the varied literary diet, educational pastimes, and earnest social tone of an American childhood in the late nineteenth century.
Harper's Young People, November 23, 1880: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
This illustrated monthly periodical captures the Victorian-era spirit of American childhood, blending moral instruction, historical lessons, and practical curiosity into a single, cohesive window into the late 19th-century mind.
Higgins, a Man's Christian
Norman Duncan
A physically imposing minister trudges through Minnesota snowstorms to drag drunk lumberjacks out of mud and saloon trapdoors, risking his own life to show abandoned, roughened men that someone still values their souls.
On Handling the Data
M. I. Mayfield
A young biology student notices that unmonitored laboratory experiments yield chaotic results until a known theory is applied, prompting a troubling question: does scientific inquiry discover natural truth, or merely construct it through expectation?
Poetry for Poetry's Sake: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901
A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley
This lecture serves as a thoughtful meditation on the essential nature of art, challenging the reader to abandon the habit of searching for hidden morals or paraphrasable messages within a poem.
Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892
Various
This collection captures the volatile pulse of Victorian London, blending sharp political satire with the absurdities of daily life as the 1892 general election looms on the horizon.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, September 27, 1890
Various
This collection of Victorian wit and satire offers a sharp, wry glimpse into the social anxieties, political posturing, and bureaucratic absurdities of late 19th-century London life.
Robert E. Lee: A Story and a Play
Ruth Hill
A portrait of a man shaped by Virginia and the crucible of war, this account follows a legendary general from his early life to his final days as a college president.
Rudimental Divine Science
Mary Baker Eddy
This concise guide outlines the fundamental principles of Christian Science, offering a spiritual framework for understanding God, the nature of reality, and the practice of divine Mind-healing.
The Calendar, and Other Verses
Irving Sidney Dix
The seasons turn and the soul finds its rhythm in this earnest, pastoral collection of verse. These poems act as a quiet meditation on the inevitable passage of time and the lessons learned through a life lived in the hills.
The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 38, July 29, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
This end-of-the-century news periodical delivers a clear, unfiltered glimpse into 1897, where global empire building, industrial labor strikes, and early photography merge into a single vibrant snapshot of a rapidly modernizing world.
The Head of the Family: Sailor's Knots, Part 9
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
A discharged sailor poses as a grieving mother’s long-lost son to thwart a tyrannical stepfather, only to fall for his fake sister and claim the household by marriage.
The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 37
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
A fragile old man clings to his sanity by living as a knight-errant, seeking glory in a world that remembers him only as a punchline. This descent into the bustling reality of Barcelona marks the twilight of his quest.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 393, October 10, 1829
Various
This collection offers a vibrant glimpse into the intellectual curiosities, local traditions, and literary passions of early nineteenth-century British life. It serves as a time capsule of an era’s common interests.
The second person singular, and other essays
Alice Meynell
These collected essays examine the enduring power of the written word, exploring how literature—from Shakespeare’s royal archetypes to the linguistic precision of modern poets—shapes our understanding of humanity.
The Story of Charles Strange: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
A disgraced runaway on the brink of capture, a young lawyer burdened with family secrets, and a wife driven mad by suspicion collide in the dramatic conclusion to Mrs. Henry Wood's Victorian trilogy.
The Trapper's Son
William Henry Giles Kingston
Deep in the wilderness, a young man raised by nomadic tribes must reconcile the harsh, survivalist creed of his trapper father with a newfound faith that challenges everything he knows about honor, strength, and mercy.
To Win or to Die: A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze
George Manville Fenn
The frozen wilderness of the Yukon demands everything from those who seek its hidden wealth. This tale follows two desperate young men as they trade their last remnants of civilization for the brutal, glittering promise of the Klondike.
Ulf Van Yern, and Other Ballads
George Borrow
A son demands blood for a slain father, a knight rides toward a fatal challenge, and lovers discover their affection is forbidden by blood.
Under Dewey at Manila
Edward Stratemeyer
A young stowaway finds himself in the middle of a global conflict, proving his mettle as a gunner’s assistant during the decisive naval engagement of the Spanish-American War.
Captain Rogers: The Lady of the Barge and Others, Part 7
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
The old stone bridge at Riverstone leads into a quiet town, but for one man, it serves as the gateway to a long-deferred reckoning. A fragile peace is shattered when the past, embodied by a ragged, menacing intruder, arrives to claim the spoils of an old, dark secret.
Diana of the Crossways
George Meredith
A brilliant, mercurial woman navigates the treacherous social landscape of Victorian England, striving to maintain her independence while battling the constraints of a stifling marriage and the weight of public scandal.
Five Hundred Dollars: First published in the "Century Magazine"
Heman White Chaplin
A quiet New England village built on seafaring memory, where small-town gossip, stubborn pride, and a misplaced wallet decide the fate of a family.
His Lady of the Sonnets
Robert Winkworth Norwood
A speaker awakens from spiritual slumber to find transcendent love, navigating rupture and renewal before expanding his vision into dramatic monologues and devotional lyrics.
Memoir of Jared Sparks, LL.D
Brantz Mayer
Driven by an unyielding desire for knowledge, a poor New England carpenter’s apprentice walks hundreds of miles to earn an education, ultimately rising from deep obscurity to become Harvard’s president and the foundational editor of early American history.
Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century periodical serves as a Victorian era clearinghouse for curious facts, historical mysteries, and scholarly inquiries. It captures a fleeting moment where intellectual life relied on the slow, deliberate exchange of letters.
Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer
Charles Lever
A restless soldier navigates the absurdities of nineteenth-century military and social life, where an appetite for romance and wine consistently leads him into ridiculous predicaments. This picaresque adventure captures the wit and folly of a young man determined to charm his way through Ireland and beyond.
Right off the Bat: Baseball Ballads
William Frederick Kirk
Baseball is a game of heartbreak, heroic triumph, and relentless humor. This collection of verse captures the raw, gritty, and often hilarious spirit of the early twentieth-century diamond, where legends were forged and livelihoods were lost.
Sonnets of a Budding Bard
Nixon Waterman
A self-proclaimed literary prodigy navigates the trials of boyhood, from the agony of schoolwork to the mysteries of young love. These humorous verses capture the earnest, awkward, and delightful perspective of an aspiring poet observing the adult world.
The Academy Keeper: Or Variety of useful Directions Concerning the Management of an Academy, The Terms, Diet, Lodging, Recreation, Discipline, and Instruction of Young Gentlemen. With the Proper Methods of addressing Parents and Guardians of all Ranks and Conditions
Anonymous
Prosperity in the schoolroom requires more cunning than curriculum, as a seasoned headmaster reveals the secrets to turning a failing academy into a lucrative enterprise.
The Gray Phantom
Herman Landon
HOOK A retired criminal mastermind emerges from his secluded hermitage to hunt a ruthless usurper who has weaponized his own past methods to terrorize New York.
The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights: From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
On the isolated shores of Lake Michigan, a magnetic prophet builds a kingdom, only to watch it succumb to the fragile, human passions of his followers.
The Lost Child
François Coppée
This Christmas story explores the collision between the cold, frantic world of high finance and the quiet, enduring grace of the poor. It serves as a sharp reminder that the human heart is often found exactly where it has been most neglected.