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American Literature — page 28
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 28 of 101.
Nat Goodwin's Book
Nat. C. (Nathaniel Carll) Goodwin
A legendary American comedian pulls back the velvet curtain to deliver a witty, unsparing, and nostalgic tour of nineteenth-century theatrical life.
Red-Robin
Jane Abbott
An orphaned, red-haired girl with a physical limp transforms a somber mill town through quiet courage, steadfast loyalty, and an unshakeable belief in human kindness.
The Fall of a Nation: A Sequel to the Birth of a Nation
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
Complacency and naive pacifism leave a mighty republic defenseless, inviting swift, brutal conquest by an imperial coalition that subdues the nation until a clandestine rebellion rises to reclaim American freedom.
The Fiend's Delight
Ambrose Bierce
This darkly comic collection dismantles 1873 American morality through unsparing satire, macabre short stories, cynical essays, and faux-journalistic items.
The Little Colonel
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
A hot-tempered little girl in post-Civil War Kentucky unwittingly walks into the lives of a estranged grandfather and a struggling family, determined to fix a broken house with sheer, stubborn affection.
Under Fire
Charles King
To survive the brutal, unforgiving Dakota frontier, a young cavalry lieutenant must brave not only Indian war-parties on the plains, but malicious rumors, treacherous officers, and a deeply troubled marriage back at the fort.
A Selection of Cartoons from Puck
Joseph Ferdinand Keppler
A ink-stained mirror held up to Late Victorian America captures the raucous machinery of Gilded Age politics, where robber barons, scheming party bosses, and idealistic reformers wrestle for the soul of a rapidly changing republic.
Elsie's Womanhood
Martha Finley
A devotion to faith, family, and country guides a gentle Southern heiress through personal trials and a nation torn apart by war.
Mary of Plymouth: A Story of the Pilgrim Settlement
James Otis
Through the observant eyes of a Pilgrim girl, the harsh reality of early New England transforms into a quiet, detailed testament to human resilience, ingenuity, and community survival.
Select Poems of Sidney Lanier
Sidney Lanier
In verse of unusual musicality, a Southern poet channels nature, love, and spiritual conviction to mount a defense of the human heart against a cold and mercenary age.
The House of a Thousand Candles
Meredith Nicholson
An eccentric grandfather’s bizarre will forces a globe-trotting rogue to live isolated in an unfinished Indiana mansion, where hidden tunnels, armed prowlers, and a high-stakes fortune await him.
The Morgesons: A Novel
Elizabeth Stoddard
A headstrong young woman in 19th-century New England defies rigid coastal traditions, surviving domestic confinement, tempestuous passions, and family tragedy to forge a uncompromising sense of self.
Felix O'Day
Francis Hopkinson Smith
A proud, ruined Irish gentleman walks the slick streets of New York, quietly searching for his lost wife while earning a humble living among antique dealers, expressmen, and parish priests.
Gargoyles
Ben Hecht
A hypocrite’s ambition and a city’s rot collide as turn-of-the-century Chicago exposes the grotesque gap between public virtue and private depravity.
The Allen House
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
A life built on hollow vanity or reckless greed will inevitably crumble, while quiet integrity yields a quiet, enduring happiness.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 95, September 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A nation catching its breath after civil war finds its voice across a landscape of domestic comedy, military recollection, and quiet philosophical debate.
The Grafters
Francis Lynde
A young lawyer discovers that saving the railroad he serves means destroying the corrupt political machine he once helped put into power.
The Little Brown Jug at Kildare
Meredith Nicholson
A wealthy young idler and an academic finding themselves in charge of neighboring states sounds like a recipe for chaos, especially when a notorious outlaw and two fiercely loyal daughters are involved.
The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy Cruise
Albert Bigelow Paine
In 1909, an American humorist boards a Mediterranean cruise ship, tracing the classic path of Mark Twain's early travel writing across the historic shores of the ancient world.
Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories
Ambrose Bierce
A man walks across an open pasture under a bright afternoon sun, only to vanish into absolute nothingness mid-step before his family's eyes.
The Eagle's Shadow
James Branch Cabell
A wealthy heiress, a parade of parasitic suitors, and a mislaid fortune collide in a swift, sharp-witted romance of mistaken motives.
The Gentleman from Indiana
Booth Tarkington
A young Eastern idealist buys a struggling country newspaper in flat, sun-baked Indiana, pitting his stubborn ethics against a lawless local gang and the heart of a spirited young woman.
Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
William Wells Brown
This travelogue follows an escaped slave as he journeys across Europe, discovering both grand cultural monuments and true social equality abroad.
Triumph of the Egg, and Other Stories
Sherwood Anderson
In small-town Ohio and gray midwestern cities, ordinary souls attempt to break out of their emotional shells, yearning for human connection through clumsy, desperate, and often beautiful gestures.
Aurora the Magnificent
Gertrude Hall Brownell
A vibrant, unrefined American woman and a melancholic, intellectual expatriate find their mismatched worlds colliding in the sun-drenched, aristocratic landscape of Florence.
"Browne's Folly": (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
An old memory of a ruined hilltop mansion yields a meditation on human vanity, local history, and the quiet passage of time.
Clarence
Bret Harte
A man married to an older, controlling widow faces the breakdown of his marriage against the backdrop of the American Civil War.
Eight Cousins
Louisa May Alcott
A young girl finds health and belonging within a lively, sprawling family after coming to live with her eccentric uncle. This story celebrates the small, transformative power of kindness in a sheltered, affectionate home.
Jack Ballington, Forester
John Trotwood Moore
A restless soul struggles to reconcile a deep, inherited love for the natural world with the violent, inescapable demands of duty and military service.
On Horseback
Charles Dudley Warner
Two scholarly companions saddle up for a rugged equestrian journey through the remote, bridgeless mountains of the American South, where natural splendor constantly battles wretched food and punishing roads.
Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons
Phil Robinson
A nineteenth-century travelogue that captures the raw, burgeoning energy of the American West, punctuated by sharp, worldly observations and a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Mormon community in Utah.
The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel: Founded on Fact
Hannah Webster Foster
The life of a young woman unravels as she balances the stability of a respectable suitor against the intoxicating, perilous charm of a known libertine. This epistolary tragedy serves as a cautionary map of the social dangers facing women in the early American republic.
The Precipice: A Novel
Elia Wilkinson Peattie
A call to professional independence and personal fulfillment, this narrative follows a woman navigating the treacherous, exhilarating edge between traditional domestic expectations and a modern career. It is a portrait of a spirited mind refusing to be diminished by the "precipice" of public life.
James Fenimore Cooper: American Men of Letters
Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury
A towering literary reputation is forged not in the comfort of success, but in the relentless, often bitter fires of public controversy and unyielding personal conviction.
My Boyhood
John Burroughs
A naturalist reflects on his origins, capturing the rhythm of a vanished rural life while grappling with the complex legacy of his family’s hard-won, mountain-bound existence.
The Agony Column
Earl Derr Biggers
A chance encounter in a hotel leads a young American to initiate a daring, long-distance courtship via a newspaper's personal column. As he spins a tale of mystery and murder to capture the woman's attention, he finds himself ensnared in a genuine, high-stakes international conspiracy.
The Boss of Little Arcady
Harry Leon Wilson
A man of grandiloquent spirit and questionable character descends upon a small, unsuspecting community, sparking a battle of wits that tests the town’s collective patience and the ingenuity of its self-appointed leader.
The Poor Little Rich Girl
Eleanor Gates
A lonely child, trapped within the sterile, gilded confines of her parents' mansion, discovers that the only way to reach those she loves is to cross the borders of a dream.
Marching Men
Sherwood Anderson
The rhythm of thousands of feet moving in unison holds a strange, hypnotic power, offering a sense of order to souls exhausted by the chaos of modern industrial life.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 1
Bayard Taylor
This collection of mid-to-late nineteenth-century short fiction offers a window into an era of American ambition, where the boundaries between professional duty, romantic yearning, and moral compromise were often tested by the sudden arrival of fortune or disaster.
The Eyes of the World
Harold Bell Wright
The mountains serve as a sanctuary for the soul, a place where the pretense of high society dissolves under the gaze of the eternal.
The Great God Success: A Novel
David Graham Phillips
The ascent to power is a lonely, hollow climb where the currency is one’s own integrity. This study of a journalist’s compromise asks what remains of a man when he has traded his ideals for influence.
The Kempton-Wace Letters
Jack London
HOOK Two thinkers trade letters across the Atlantic, dissecting the nature of love and the human condition as one man prepares for a marriage he approaches with scientific detachment.
The Open Question: A Tale of Two Temperaments
Elizabeth Robins
This story of two cousins whose lives are entwined by family inheritance and forbidden desire is a quiet, atmospheric exploration of the costs of idealism. It follows the pair from childhood through a tragic, inevitable conclusion.
Baby Mine
Margaret Mayo
The shadow of a single white lie grows until it threatens to consume two households, transforming a simple misunderstanding into a frantic, farcical race to procure enough babies to satisfy a suspicious husband.
Dulcibel: A Tale of Old Salem
Henry Peterson
A quiet village descends into madness as fear and suspicion dismantle the bonds of community. This story explores the human cost of a hysteria that once gripped the heart of colonial New England.
Medusa's coil
H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft
A traveler in the Missouri lowlands seeks shelter at a decaying plantation, only to discover that the estate hides a grotesque, supernatural inheritance. The house, and those who occupy it, are bound by a curse that transcends mortal life.
Merton of the Movies
Harry Leon Wilson
The wide-eyed dreamer from a small town ventures into the heart of the burgeoning film industry, only to discover that the silver screen is not the noble stage he imagined, but a house of mirrors.