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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 943 of 988.
Monsoons of Death
Gerald Vance
This story captures the crushing weight of isolation and the fragile nature of human courage when pitted against an incomprehensible, alien environment. It is a sharp study of ego, duty, and the sudden, humbling realization of one's own limitations.
New Hire
Dave Dryfoos
The day a man turns forty, he must trade his life of leisure for the drudgery of a desk job. It is a transition defined by ritual, heavy with the weight of society’s expectations, and finalized by a dark, clinical necessity.
Not in the Script
Arnold Marmor
To prevent a planetary invasion, a playwright is tasked with crafting a worldwide deception. He must choreograph Earth’s leaders and scientists to appear so backward and inept that hostile Martian visitors will lose interest in conquering humanity.
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 102, October 11, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This periodical serves as a Victorian forum for scholars to trade obscure facts, solve historical puzzles, and document the vanishing customs of a rapidly changing world. It remains a fascinating snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual curiosity.
One of Our Conquerors
George Meredith
HOOK A titan of Victorian commerce builds a magnificent house on a foundation of social scandal, only to find that his empire of influence cannot shield his family from the encroaching shadows of his past.
Percy's holidays
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
The habit of anticipating disaster can turn a pleasant life into a prison of anxiety. Through the experiences of a young girl, this narrative explores the relief found in releasing control and trusting the future to a higher care.
Prince Zilah
Jules Claretie
A noble Hungarian prince discovers his beautiful wife has been unfaithful, setting off a harrowing cycle of betrayal, madness, and the quiet, desperate search for absolution.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916
Various
This artifact captures the pulse of a nation in crisis, blending sharp political satire with the stoic, self-deprecating humor of soldiers and civilians alike during the darkest hours of the Great War.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, February 21, 1891
Various
The iceberg is moving, and with it, a cast of absurd travelers are drifting toward the sun in a vessel of congealed water, fueled by algebraic nonsense and impossible science.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, October 25, 1890
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, kaleidoscopic snapshot of late-Victorian British life, capturing the era’s preoccupations through a sharp, satirical lens. It presents a world where the earnestness of the intellectual classes and the absurdity of the political stage collide with the emerging pressures of modern…
Rich and humble
Oliver Optic
A young woman’s unwavering kindness and moral fortitude navigate her family through the sudden loss of their fortune, challenging the pride and recklessness of those around her.
Richard Carvel
Winston Churchill
A young man of colonial Maryland loses his inheritance to a villainous uncle, only to find his true fortune through the crucible of the American Revolution.
Saved by love
Emma Leslie
Two orphaned girls struggle to survive in the shadows of Victorian London. Through their deepening bond, they discover that even in the bleakest poverty, the promise of love can be a path to salvation.
Serge Panine
Georges Ohnet
A young woman’s romantic fixation on a charismatic social climber threatens to unravel the stability of a powerful French family’s business empire.
Sermons for the Day
Edward Hoare
The spiritual anxieties of the Victorian era find a clear, resolute voice in these addresses, which seek to define the boundaries of faith against the rising tide of internal church controversy. They remain a testament to a specific moment when the nature of worship was being fiercely debated within the Church of…
Seven Maids of Far Cathay: Being English Notes From a Chinese Class Book
Mary Forman Ledyard
The lives of seven Chinese students unfold through their own unique English compositions, captured during their final semester at a missionary college in Neuchang.
Sphere of the Never-Dead
Sam Carson
The Three Brains of Taval have decreed that a young man from the past must perish to sustain their future, but they underestimate the enduring bond of twentieth-century friendship. Two ordinary men, snatched from a thunderstorm to a world a thousand years ahead, find themselves pawns in a desperate bid for immortality.
Tales and Novels of J. de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Cupid’s arrows strike in the most unlikely places, transforming the cynical into the devoted and the dim-witted into the tragicomic. These tales explore the messy, urgent, and often absurd intersections of desire and social standing.
The American Missionary
Various
HOOK This collection of reports captures the fervent, organized spirit of late nineteenth-century religious expansionism, documenting the efforts of missionaries and educators as they sought to reshape American society through the influence of the church.
The Bible, King James version, Book 59: James
Anonymous
True wisdom is not found in intellectual assent, but in the practical, lived-out reality of a moral life. This short, potent work serves as an urgent call to embody one's convictions through tangible deeds.
The convict's child
A. L. O. E.
HOOK A young servant girl discovers that her former friend has fallen from a life of vanity into the isolation of a workhouse, sparking a journey of redemption that reshapes their lives.
The Country School: An Entertainment in Two Scenes
Martha Russell Orne
A nostalgic and rowdy stage play, this script invites local citizens to step back into the classroom of their youth, trading their current dignity for the antics and misadventures of a classic country school.
The Crisis
Winston Churchill
The approaching storm of the American Civil War serves as the backdrop for this sweeping chronicle of a divided nation and the young people caught in its crosscurrents. It captures the tension of a country nearing a breaking point, viewed through the eyes of those who must choose sides.
The Disowned
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A young man seeks his place in a stratified world, navigating the treacherous divide between genuine human connection and the hollow pursuit of status.
The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 49, October 14, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
This weekly dispatch from 1897 serves as a vital bridge between the Victorian era’s shifting global politics and the inquisitive minds of its young readers. It captures the world at a turning point, translating complex international tensions into clear, accessible reports on diplomacy, rebellion, and social progress.
The Junkmakers
Albert Teichner
The future is a treadmill of artificial labor, where a society obsessed with ritual destruction of "excess" goods maintains its sanity through the frantic, hollow act of making work.
The Lay-Man's Sermon upon the Late Storm: Held forth at an Honest Coffee-House-Conventicle
Daniel Defoe
The Great Storm of 1703 was a meteorological catastrophe that leveled buildings, decimated the English Navy, and left a nation reeling. This urgent, polemical pamphlet interprets that calamity not as a random event, but as a divine ultimatum for a fractured society.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 372, May 30, 1829
Various
This eclectic miscellany offers a panoramic view of early nineteenth-century life, blending practical instruction, historical curiosity, and literary observation into a singular, conversational digest of the Regency era.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832
Various
A window into the vibrant print culture of 1832, this miscellany captures a world balancing ancient traditions, romantic poetry, and rapid technological transformation.
The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands
Punahou School
This account details the mid-nineteenth-century founding of an academic institution in Hawaii, envisioned as the essential bridge between missionary labor and a stable, permanent Christian society in the Pacific.
The pride o' the morning
Agnes Giberne
The Pride o' the Morning follows a young woman’s discovery of life and love in the English Midlands, where the quiet of the moors masks profound family secrets and the struggle between duty and the heart.
The smart ones
Jack Sharkey
A sudden, quiet notification of global catastrophe shatters a routine television broadcast, forcing ordinary citizens to decide how they will spend their final hours. This bleak, swift narrative follows the fragmented aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, observing the disparate ways survivors attempt to preserve…
The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers, and Other Ballads
George Borrow
The ballads collected here offer a stark, haunting descent into the folklore of the North, where honor is measured by the depth of a grave and the tides of the sea.
The story of Keedon Bluffs
Charles Egbert Craddock
Keedon Bluffs rises as a silent, imposing guardian over a Tennessee mountain cove, hiding secrets of the past within its jagged, inaccessible crevices while shaping the lives of those who dwell in its shadow.
The strike at Too Dry
Willis Brindley
The arrival of a sickly, poetic Easterner at a remote Montana ranch initiates a humorous battle of wills, as two crusty prospectors attempt to "toughen up" their unwanted guest.
The Sweet Girl Graduates: A Farce in Three Acts and an Epilogue
H. Rea (Hannah Rea) Woodman
The stresses of high school graduation in 1902 prove far more volatile than the ceremony itself, as a young woman’s quest for the perfect dress threatens to dismantle her family’s domestic peace.
The Vaudois Teacher, and other poems: Part 1 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
HOOK These verses animate the ghosts of early New England, breathing life into the quiet legends of the frontier and the moral courage of those who defied its rigid authorities.
The World English Bible (WEB): 1 Peter
Anonymous
This short, urgent letter serves as an enduring manifesto on how to maintain hope and integrity while living as an outsider in a hostile society. It offers a timeless blueprint for finding purpose through adversity.
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 02: Hooker to South
Unknown
This collection gathers seminal discourses from influential preachers and theologians spanning the late sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, capturing the rigorous intellectual and spiritual fervor of the era. It serves as a window into how the profound themes of faith, judgment, and human fallibility were…
The Wreck of the Corsaire
William Clark Russell
A survivor’s journey from a life of leisure to the edge of madness, this gripping account of a wreck at sea explores the thin, shifting line between civilization and predatory instinct.
Things
Alice Duer Miller
The modern home is often a temple to domestic perfection, but it may be a cage for the very people it is meant to serve. This story explores the quiet, stifling cost of an obsession with order.
Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure
W. D. (William Douw) Lighthall
A young nation stirs in the wild, northern light, awakening to its own destiny among the mountains and the maples. This collection of verse captures the pulse of a colonial society finding its voice.
True to type
Arthur T. Harris
A typewriter with a mind of its own orchestrates the downfall of a literary thief. This tale explores the dark boundary between human ambition and the machines that facilitate our creative deceptions.
Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment: 1898
Edward Bellamy
A man’s vivid imagination and a grim coincidence turn his own home into a prison of silent suspicion. When a murder occurs on his property, his behavior transforms an ordinary domestic life into a claustrophobic psychological trial.
Wholesale Price List of Newspapers and Periodicals
D. D. Cottrell's Subscription Agency
A dense, window-opening artifact from 1905, this subscription catalog reveals the bustling print culture, commercial ambition, and reading habits of early twentieth-century America.
Zophiel
Maria Gowen Brooks
This lyrical narrative explores the intersection of mortal longing and celestial interference, tracing the tragic destiny of a woman caught between human duty and the possessive gaze of a fallen spirit.
A bull movement in Yellow Horse
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
Two drifting cowhands encounter a stranded, displaced circus elephant, leading to a series of escalating property-destruction disasters in a small Western town. This story is a lighthearted, absurdist romp that subverts the traditional ruggedness of the Western genre.
A Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby: on the cruelty and injustice of opening the Crystal Palace on the Sabbath
Benjamin Parsons
The Victorian era’s moral anxieties regarding public recreation and the sanctity of the Sabbath reach a boiling point in this spirited, uncompromising polemic. It serves as a direct confrontation between the traditional religious establishment and the rising tide of commercial modernization.