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47,330 public-domain books, summarised. Page 960 of 987.

Quotations from the PG Collected Works of Gilbert Parker
Gilbert Parker
A tapestry of human frailty, frontier harshness, and quiet moral reckoning unfolds across a vast canvas of northern wilderness, colonial outposts, and restless hearts.

Report of a special committee of the City Council, on the improvement of the Fire Department: and also, on the best means of obtaining an additional supply of water for fire purposes, for the city of Halifax, N.S
Halifax (N.S.). City Council. Special Committee on the Improvement of the Fire Department
This report documents a pivotal moment in nineteenth-century urban planning, detailing how a city grappling with the aftermath of a "great conflagration" sought to overhaul its fire defenses and secure a reliable water supply for the future.

Rocky Mountain Boys
St. George Rathborne
Two young cousins venture into the untamed Wyoming wilderness to test their grit, only to find that surviving the Rockies requires more than just modern rifles and youthful bravado.

Sam Lambert and the New Way Store: A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks
Unknown
This guide to modern retail practice charts the transformation of a traditional clothing shop into a high-functioning enterprise. It serves as both a manual for effective salesmanship and a case study in the necessity of modernization.

Science and poetry
I. A. (Ivor Armstrong) Richards
HOOK Modern life increasingly separates our emotional needs from scientific truths. This work explores how poetry serves as a vital, stabilizing force in an age where traditional dogmas are rapidly dissolving.

Sonnets from the Patagonian
Donald Evans
The world is a stage, and the poet is its most cynical, elegant audience member, watching the tragedy of human vanity from the velvet shadows of a private box.

Stories About Indians
Anonymous
This collection of mid-19th-century vignettes seeks to humanize the Indigenous peoples of North America through anecdotes of honor, wit, and tragic displacement. It invites readers to look past stereotypes and witness the moral complexity of individual lives.

The Amazing Marriage
George Meredith
A man of boundless wealth and rigid vanity finds himself trapped in a marriage he never intended to sustain. This exploration of pride and mismatched souls centers on a woman whose rugged grace challenges the conventions of her era.

The breach of trust
Madeline Leslie
The divide between empty religious posturing and the quiet, steady practice of faith is tested when a guardian’s greed destroys the inheritance of the two orphans in his care.

The courting of Lady Jane
Josephine Daskam Bacon
When an aging colonel mistakes quiet admiration for romantic devotion, a quiet suburban summer spirals into a delicate comedy of misdirected hearts.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
The Great Round World serves as a weekly bridge between global events and a young audience, transforming the complex, often volatile political landscape of 1897 into accessible, structured news updates for the classroom and home.

The Hoofer
Walter M. Miller
A weary, space-hardened laborer returns to Earth, only to find that his inability to adapt to the planet’s gravity and his own fractured sense of home trap him in a permanent, ironic exile.

The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 7, May 12, 1832
Unknown
This issue of a weekly periodical serves as an educational digest, capturing the spirit of 1830s intellectual curiosity through historical accounts, natural history, and practical advice for the working class.

The Princess And The Jewel Doctor: 1905
Robert Hichens
A wealthy Russian woman haunted by the threat of hereditary blindness turns to a Tunisian healer, whose miraculous green ring exacts an unexpected, lifelong toll.

The silver net
Louis Vintras
A haunting collection of verse that casts the human experience as a fragile, silver-threaded net, forever seeking golden prey within the swirling, treacherous currents of life and desire.

Welcome to the ransomed
Daniel Alexander Payne
This sermon, delivered in 1862, serves as a profound call to responsibility for newly emancipated African Americans in Washington, D.C. It bridges the gap between divine faith and civic duty during the American Civil War.

Who were the Pilgrims?
William T. (William Thomas) Davis
This historical account clarifies the complex religious origins of the Pilgrims, tracing their evolution from the English Reformation to the eventual establishment of the Plymouth Colony. It offers a meticulous look at the theological divides that shaped a nation.

Young Hunters of the Lake
Edward Stratemeyer
The call of the wild beckons four inseparable companions as they embark on a summer expedition to the remote and mysterious Lake Narsac. Braving untamed wilderness, they confront local rivals, face dangerous wildlife, and strive to debunk a haunting local legend.

A New Bat (Genus Myotis) From Mexico
E. Raymond (Eugene Raymond) Hall
A chance encounter in the Mexican jungle leads to the formal scientific identification of a previously unknown species of bat, expanding the recognized diversity of the genus *Myotis*.

A New Pocket Gopher (Thomomys) and A New Spiny Pocket Mouse (Liomys) from Michoacán, Mexico
E. Raymond (Eugene Raymond) Hall
Two small mammals, previously unknown to science, emerge from the high-altitude forests of Michoacán, Mexico, following a meticulous taxonomic analysis of field specimens gathered in the early 1940s.

Barbara in Brittany
E. A. Gillie
HOOK A sensible young woman navigates a transformative summer in France, where she rescues a distressed schoolmate, plays matchmaker for her formidable aunt, and discovers that even the most rigid lives hold room for romance.

Captain Mary Miller
Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson
HOOK A determined woman takes the helm of a Mississippi steamboat, challenging both the treacherous river currents and the rigid laws that refuse to recognize her authority.

Carnac's Folly, Volume 1
Gilbert Parker
The story of a young artist struggling for purpose under the shadow of a powerful father, this narrative explores the conflict between inherited expectations and the autonomy of the individual.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 14, Vol. I, April 5, 1884
Various
This edition of a Victorian miscellany serves as a concentrated window into the intellectual and social preoccupations of 1884, blending serious economic inquiry with domestic sentimentality and gripping, often macabre, storytelling.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 15, Vol. I, April 12, 1884
Various
Hidden gems of natural beauty wait just outside the reach of London’s smoke. These observations anchor a wide-ranging collection of nineteenth-century wisdom, from the secrets of the hedgerow to the ethics of human labor.

Clarissa Dormer
Anonymous
A spoiled child of privilege learns the true cost of her family’s cruelty when an uprising forces her to confront the humanity of those she has been raised to treat as property.

Conscience
Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
An inner compass is the only guide that truly matters when the storms of life begin to blow. Through interconnected narratives, this work explores the heavy cost of compromise and the quiet strength of moral clarity.

Dead men's shoes, vol. 2 (of 3)
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A young woman sacrifices her marriage and integrity to secure a fortune from her dying uncle, only to find herself trapped in a web of deceit and unwanted attention.

Down the Ravine
Charles Egbert Craddock
A fox’s death in a lonely Cumberland ravine sparks a desperate quest for wealth and a test of character. In this rugged mountain landscape, a simple discovery leads to betrayal, but lessons of honor and family resilience endure.

Educational Work of the Girl Scouts
Louise Stevens Bryant
This document serves as an official snapshot of a rapidly expanding movement, detailing the educational philosophy and organizational structure of a program designed to prepare girls for active citizenship. It captures the early 20th-century transition of the Girl Scouts from a small regional initiative into a…

Elkswatawa
James Strange French
An ambitious attempt to reimagine the frontier tensions of 1811, this narrative weaves together historical figures and fictional adventurers against the backdrop of an impending, inevitable war.

Harper's Round Table, October 20, 1896
Various
This collection of Victorian-era periodical literature offers a sprawling, intimate window into the nineteenth-century imagination, blending whimsical fairy tales, historical sketches, and practical advice for the curious young reader.

History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce, 1600-02
John Lothrop Motley
The struggle for a single, sand-swept port becomes the pivot upon which the fate of a fledgling republic turns. This is a chronicle of endurance, where the cost of liberty is measured in blood, mud, and endless, freezing trenches.

Hurrah for Peter Perry!
Eleanora H. Stooke
This story follows a young boy’s summer of unexpected discovery, tracing how a flash of initial pride and misunderstanding matures into a life-changing friendship. It captures the simple, often sharp-edged honesty of childhood.

Life in the Red Brigade: London Fire Brigade
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
This account follows the daring lives of London’s Victorian firemen, documenting their breathless response to urban peril and the personal struggles that burn just as fiercely as the fires they fight.

Margery (Gred): A Tale Of Old Nuremberg
Georg Ebers
The tangled lives of three young siblings in late medieval Nuremberg are defined by a struggle between reckless youthful desire and the rigid expectations of their noble families. This tale captures a world where courtly love, dark impulses, and the weight of tradition collide under the shadow of religious and…

Minor Detail
Jack Sharkey
A military officer bets his career on a bizarre training method to revolutionize modern warfare, only to discover that the laws of physics are not mere suggestions.

"My Novel"
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
An intricate, sprawling portrait of English society, this story follows the intersecting lives of ambitious schemers, noble exiles, and earnest country gentlemen.

Nurse Elisia
George Manville Fenn
The lives of an aristocratic family in Lincolnshire are irrevocably altered when a quiet, devoted woman enters their home as a medical caregiver. Her arrival exposes long-simmering tensions and forces the household to confront their own fragile morality.

Our Frank: and other stories
Amy Walton
These tales capture the quiet gravity of childhood, where the smallest decisions—to run away, to keep a secret, or to show kindness—carry the weight of a turning life. They are gentle echoes of a pastoral England that feels both distant and deeply familiar.

Paul the Courageous
Mabel Quiller-Couch
The desire for adventure often clashes with the reality of responsibility, as a young boy learns through a series of harrowing trials. He discovers that true bravery is not found in grand gestures, but in the quiet strength required to face one’s own mistakes.

Pelham
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
The life of a gentleman is a performance, and to master the stage of 19th-century society requires both a razor-sharp wit and a coat cut by a master tailor. Beneath the vanity of the ballroom lies a darker world where reputation is currency and the smallest lapse in judgment can lead to ruin.

Pelham
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A dandy with a sharp mind navigates the treacherous underworld of 19th-century London to clear a friend’s name. Beneath the polished veneer of high society lies a gritty, often dangerous quest for justice.

Pioneer
William Hardy
A canine explorer unwittingly becomes the face of human ambition, embarking on a perilous journey into the stars that he cannot comprehend.

Practical Rules for the Management of a Locomotive Engine: in the Station, on the Road, and in cases of Accident
Charles Hutton Gregory
This technical manual serves as an essential guide for the early railway era, providing precise instructions for the safe operation and maintenance of steam locomotives in the station, on the track, and during emergencies.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, August 15, 1917
Various
This volume captures the singular, surreal atmosphere of the British home front and the front lines during the late summer of 1917, blending biting political satire with the wry, resilient observations of those caught in the machinery of the Great War.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, November 8, 1890
Various
A small girl skips into a smoke-filled officer's mess to explain that a satirical author has already scripted their deaths, marriages, and literary sequels.

Recollections of a chaperon
Arabella Jane Sullivan
A quiet, observant guide navigates the complexities of domestic life, marriage, and the social pressures of 19th-century England. Through a series of reflective sketches, the complexities of human emotion are laid bare.