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American Literature — page 33
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 33 of 101.
The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales
Bret Harte
This collection of stories captures the shifting, often precarious landscape of the American West, where human character is tested by isolation, social upheaval, and the weight of one’s own impulsive choices.
The Second Book of Modern Verse: A Selection from the Work of Contemporaneous American Poets
Unknown
This collection captures the American spirit at a threshold, gathering the voices of poets working during the transformative years surrounding the First World War. It preserves a snapshot of a nation finding new rhythms for its changing landscape.
The Witches of New York
Q. K. Philander Doesticks
Under the guise of a journalistic quest, a satirist exposes the squalid reality of nineteenth-century urban occultism. He navigates a labyrinth of grifters, peeling wallpaper, and empty promises to reveal how easily superstition thrives in the heart of the metropolis.
American short stories
Unknown
This collection serves as a historical map, tracing the evolution of the American short story from its loose, wandering beginnings to the precise, unified art form defined by master technicians. It captures a century of literary ambition, where authors moved away from rambling tales toward a singular, disciplined…
Dawn of the Morning
Grace Livingston Hill
A young woman trapped in a loveless arrangement discovers her husband is a bigamist and flees into the wilderness, only to find her true path and the man who truly loves her.
Stories of American Life and Adventure
Edward Eggleston
American life is defined by the grit of the pioneer, the ingenuity of the survivor, and the quiet bravery found in the face of the unknown.
The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley
A collection of verse and prose that captures the fading light of nineteenth-century American life, celebrating the quiet joys of childhood and the deep, often melancholic, resonance of memory.
The Kentons
William Dean Howells
This quiet, observational narrative explores the delicate complexities of a Midwestern family uprooted and transplanted into the unfamiliar soil of European social life. It captures the intersection of American provincial morality and the broader world with profound, understated insight.
The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck: A Comedy of Limitations
James Branch Cabell
This comedy of manners traces the quiet, stifling tragedy of a man who believes he is playing a lead role in a grand historical pageant, only to find himself a bit player in someone else’s drama.
A Little Girl in Old Detroit
Amanda M. Douglas
A young girl raised by an Indian woman in the shadow of an early American fort discovers the truth of her mysterious origins amidst the shifting loyalties of a frontier town.
Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated
Solon Robinson
This vivid chronicle of 1850s New York exposes the grim intersection of urban poverty and the liquor trade. Through interconnected tales of struggle, it serves as an urgent, moralistic plea for temperance and social reform.
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919
Unknown
This collection captures the American spirit at a crossroads, gathering the finest short fiction of 1919 to honor a master storyteller. It is a portrait of a nation emerging from the shadow of the Great War.
The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day
Harriet Stark
Can beauty be distilled into a science? When a young woman is transformed into an icon of perfection, the cost of her newfound glory threatens to consume her sanity and life.
The Homesteader: A Novel
Oscar Micheaux
A visionary Black pioneer stakes a claim on the South Dakota frontier, only to find that his ambition for self-reliance is met with the relentless, encroaching prejudice of the world he left behind.
The Little Review, April 1916 (Vol. 3, No. 2)
Various
This April 1916 edition of a vital Chicago-based literary magazine captures the restless, combative spirit of early 20th-century modernism. It serves as a vital record of a generation struggling to define art against the suffocating weight of tradition and commerce.
The Warriors
Anna Robertson Brown Lindsay
This text acts as a spiritual call to arms, reinterpreting the Christian faith not as a passive retreat from the world, but as a vigorous, active engagement with modern civilization and the complexities of human progress.
Vacation with the Tucker Twins
Nell Speed
A group of spirited young friends discovers that the most enduring adventures aren't found in grand journeys, but in the chaotic, sun-drenched joy of a seaside summer.
Works of George W. Peck: A Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions of the "Bad Boy" Series and Others
George W. (George Wilbur) Peck
A series of mischievous escapades defines this collection of humorous tales, chronicling the relentless, often chaotic, pranks played by a quintessential troublemaker upon his long-suffering father and the local community.
A Captain in the Ranks: A Romance of Affairs
George Cary Eggleston
The aftermath of war demands a new kind of courage, as a former Confederate officer trades his sword for the tools of industry to conquer the rapidly expanding American West.
Caroling dusk
Unknown
A vibrant tapestry of voices from the Harlem Renaissance, this definitive anthology captures the urgent, evolving spirit of early twentieth-century African American poetry.
Children of loneliness
Anzia Yezierska
The immigrant’s struggle for a voice in a new land is a journey of painful shedding and radical self-discovery.
Class of '29
Milo Hastings
A generation of bright, educated young men struggles to find purpose in a world where the only available work is the labor of surviving another day.
![Cover of Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism [First Series]](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/definitions-essays-in-contemporary-criticism-first-series-henry-seidel.webp)
Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism [First Series]
Henry Seidel Canby
This collection of essays serves as a literary map of the early 1920s, offering a clear-eyed perspective on the tension between artistic integrity and the pressures of a democratic, mass-market culture.
Satan Sanderson
Hallie Erminie Rives
A man suffering from amnesia must confront a dark, forgotten past and the weight of a stolen identity to win the woman he loves.
Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work
Gross Alexander
The harrowing journey of a man who traded a life of gambling and ruin for a career of radical service, this work offers a sobering look at the transformative power of faith.
The Enchanted Typewriter
John Kendrick Bangs
A young man discovers an old typewriter in his attic, only to find it being used by the ghost of James Boswell to report on the daily affairs of the afterlife.
The Idyl of Twin Fires
Walter Prichard Eaton
A disillusioned academic trades his tedious life of grading college themes for the challenging, tactile reality of a derelict New England farm. He discovers that true fulfillment grows from the soil he learns to cultivate.
The Master of Appleby: A Novel Tale Concerning Itself in Part with the Great Struggle in the Two Carolinas
Francis Lynde
Two men bound by friendship and war find their loyalty tested when they fall in love with the same woman, amidst the volatile frontier of the American Revolution.
Big Timber: A Story of the Northwest
Bertrand W. Sinclair
The marriage of a refined city woman to a rugged, self-made logger in the Pacific Northwest turns into a complex test of character and emotional survival.
Elizabeth, Her Folks
Ethel M. (Ethel May) Kelley
HOOK A girl sent to spend a summer with her grandparents on Cape Cod learns that growing up is less about following rules and more about understanding the complex, sometimes painful lives of others.
Josh Billings' Farmer's Allminax, 1870-1879
Josh Billings
A cynical, homespun guide to the late nineteenth century, this collection serves as a humorous almanac that blends folk wisdom with the sharp, observational wit of a seasoned rural philosopher. It offers a unique window into the cadence and preoccupations of a bygone era, presenting life’s daily frustrations with a…
Joyce Kilmer
Joyce Kilmer
The life of a poet is a landscape of sacred trees, domestic joy, and the sudden, sobering call of the battlefield.
Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. (Eugene Victor) Debs
To champion the laborer is to embrace a struggle that transcends mere economics, rooting itself in the fundamental human demand for dignity, equality, and the absolute end of exploitation.
Lavender and Old Lace
Myrtle Reed
A city woman seeking rest in a quiet coastal village discovers that a neighbor’s lonely life holds a long-hidden, bittersweet secret. This gentle, atmospheric narrative explores how the past shapes the present through the lives of three people connected by love and silence.
Northern Georgia Sketches
Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben
These sketches offer a quiet, evocative window into the red-clay hills of late 19th-century Georgia, capturing the tensions and quiet triumphs of lives bound to the soil and tradition.
That Printer of Udell's: A Story of the Middle West
Harold Bell Wright
A penniless wanderer finds his humanity in a town indifferent to his suffering, eventually transforming its social landscape through the radical, practical application of Christian charity.
The Golden Bird
Maria Thompson Daviess
A city girl faces sudden poverty and bets her future on a flock of chickens, only to find that the true harvest of the countryside is far more complicated than simple agriculture.
The Guardsman
Homer Greene
The Hallowe’en prank of a few local boys sets off a chain of events that forces a young man to choose between his personal ideals and the demands of his community.
The One Woman: A Story of Modern Utopia
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
The collapse of a minister’s traditional life, driven by a radical vision of a new humanity, spirals into a desperate struggle for survival and redemption within the cold walls of a prison cell.
When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry
Charles Neville Buck
A young mountaineer struggles to leave behind a violent past to win the heart of a girl caught between two worlds. This drama pits the ancient, lawless traditions of the Kentucky hills against a dawning, modern sense of justice.
American War Ballads and Lyrics, Volume 1 (of 2): A Collection of the Songs and Ballads of the Colonial Wars, the Revolutions, the War of 1812-15, the War with Mexico and the Civil War
Unknown
This collection assembles the verses that echoed through American history, capturing the spirit, defiance, and heartbreak of a nation forged in the fires of conflict. It is a lyrical chronicle of American identity, preserved in the rhythms of the people.
John March, Southerner
George Washington Cable
A young man in the post-Civil War South struggles to reconcile his inheritance of a dilapidated estate with the shifting moral and economic tides of his changing home. This sprawling, deeply felt novel tracks a generation attempting to build a future amidst the haunting ruins of the past.
Katrine: A Novel
Elinor Macartney Lane
A young woman’s glorious voice and unwavering loyalty bridge the divide between two worlds, transforming the lives of the men who love her. This portrait of devotion explores the weight of inheritance and the redemptive power of self-surrender.
Madame De Mauves
Henry James
An American woman’s romantic idealism about French nobility collides with the cold, unfaithful reality of her marriage, trapping her in a stoic struggle between private agony and public duty.
Miscellanies
Ralph Waldo Emerson
These occasional writings offer a window into the evolution of a singular American mind, capturing the moral urgency and intellectual landscape of the nineteenth century through speeches, letters, and public addresses.
Pomona's Travels: A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former Handmaiden
Frank R. Stockton
A former handmaiden embarks on an exuberant, observational tour of Great Britain, chronicling her encounters with local customs, historical sites, and the eccentricities of travel through a series of spirited letters.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 64, February, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
The intellectual pulse of a fractured nation beats within these pages, capturing the urgency of a country struggling to define its soul during the height of the American Civil War.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 119, September, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical serves as a vibrant cultural snapshot, preserving the intellectual pulse, literary anxieties, and post-Civil War temperament of the American Republic in 1867.