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American Literature — page 33
3,609 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 33 of 76.
Four Americans: Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman
Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers
This collection of literary portraits offers a measured, reflective look at four defining figures of the American tradition, examining the tension between their public legends and their private realities.
Franklin Kane
Anne Douglas Sedgwick
This is a quiet, piercing study of emotional misalignment, where the kindness of the heart is often an obstacle to understanding the desires of the soul.
Georgina's Service Stars
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
Hook A young woman chronicles her coming-of-age during the First World War, finding that the true weight of heroism lies not on the battlefield, but in the quiet, steady courage of those left behind.
Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again
Mark Twain
This series of letters offers a biting, unflinching look at the chasm between American democratic ideals and the brutal reality faced by immigrants. Through the eyes of a bewildered observer, the promise of a "Land of the Free" is systematically dismantled by the mechanics of systemic exclusion.
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century literary miscellany captures the heartbeat of a nation through sentimental fiction, social observations, and urgent reviews. It offers a window into the era’s preoccupation with moral refinement, domestic tragedy, and the quiet struggles of the human spirit.
H.P. Lovecraft, an evaluation
Joseph Payne Brennan
A measured assessment of H.P. Lovecraft’s literary legacy, weighing his structural weaknesses against his undeniable mastery of the short, atmospheric horror tale.
My Actor-Husband: A true story of American stage life
Anonymous
The world of the theater is a fragile, glittering trap, where the pursuit of art frequently demands the sacrifice of the heart and the home. This candid narrative serves as a stark warning to those who believe that stage life and domestic stability can ever truly coexist.
Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches
Constance Fenimore Woolson
A collection of observant, melancholic sketches, these narratives capture the fragile, lingering atmosphere of the American South in the wake of the Civil War.
Sally Dows
Bret Harte
This series of sketches and narratives captures the fractured, post-Civil War American landscape with a sharp, observant eye. It portrays a society in the uneasy process of rebuilding itself, where old loyalties and new ambitions constantly collide.
The Foolish Virgin
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
This is a story of a sheltered woman’s collision with a raw, unpredictable world, exploring the dangerous allure of impulse and the arduous possibility of personal transformation. It traces the journey of a refined schoolteacher who abandons her careful life for a man of mystery, only to discover that the romantic…
The Portygee
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
The wind-swept shores of Cape Cod provide a harsh, lonely setting for a young man grappling with his identity and a grandfather struggling to reconcile his deep-seated prejudices with the arrival of his newfound kin.
The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
The lives of California’s early Spanish settlers are captured here in a collection of evocative, atmospheric tales set during the sunset of an era. These stories preserve the vanished grace and turbulent passions of a society on the brink of profound change.
The Turtles of Tasman
Jack London
This collection of narratives explores the tension between civilized order and the raw, untamed spirit of adventure, tracing the lives of men who sacrifice comfort for the freedom of the open road and the sea.
The Wives of the Dead: (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Two young widows, united in grief after receiving news of their husbands' deaths, face a long, rainy night that tests the fragile boundaries between mourning, memory, and the sudden, disorienting return of hope.
A Modern Cinderella
Louisa May Alcott
HOOK In a house where domestic duty meets the stirrings of an ambitious mind, a quiet young woman finds that the most profound transformations occur not in the world at large, but within the sanctuary of the heart.
Blix
Frank Norris
The unexpected, quiet intensity of a San Francisco romance reveals that the most profound life changes often arrive not with a crash, but in the steady, shared pursuit of a better self.
Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
These rhythmic ballads capture the salt-sprayed lives of Cape Cod villagers, blending the dangerous realities of the seafaring life with the quiet, nostalgic humor of small-town domesticity.
In the Valley
Harold Frederic
A boy grows to manhood amidst the encroaching shadows of the American Revolution, caught between the vanishing world of his Dutch forebears and the violent upheaval of a new, fractured nation.
Mark Mason's Victory: The Trials and Triumphs of a Telegraph Boy
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A resourceful telegraph messenger navigates poverty and familial betrayal, proving that pluck and sharp business instincts can secure a future for himself and his widowed mother.
Mrs. Tree
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
A ninety-one-year-old matriarch orchestrates the lives and loves of her New England village with a sharp tongue and a heart that defies her age. This story explores how the indomitable spirit of an older woman can steer the younger generation toward happiness.
Murder in Any Degree
Owen Johnson
This collection of stories captures the shifting anxieties of early 20th-century life, where social artifice, artistic obsession, and the haunting weight of secrets dictate the fates of the restless. It presents a world where the most profound tragedies often hide behind the mundane.
Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns)
James Whitcomb Riley
A collection of droll sketches, doggerel, and rural observations, this assembly captures the specific, eccentric flavor of American frontier humor at the turn of the twentieth century. It balances the sharp wit of the newspaperman with the sentimental, rhythmic verse of the regional poet, serving as a time capsule…
Pickett's Gap
Homer Greene
This turn-of-the-century tale explores the friction between progress and heritage, centering on a stubborn grandfather and the grandson who bridges the gap between family pride and the changing world.
Prue and I
George William Curtis
A quiet life is not an empty one, for the imagination can travel where the body cannot. This gentle meditation finds the grandeur of the world within the humblest of domestic routines.
Rosalind at Red Gate
Meredith Nicholson
A summer romance entangles a sequestered lake community in a web of family secrets, daring deceptions, and the arrival of a mysterious woman who challenges everything the protagonist knows about truth and identity.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 12, October, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This collection of essays, reviews, and narratives captures the intellectual pulse of mid-nineteenth-century America, exploring the intersection of technological progress, human psychology, and the enduring weight of history.
The Bread-winners: A Social Study
John Hay
Labor unrest and social ambition collide in this sharp portrait of a nineteenth-century industrial town, where class lines are drawn as strictly as the borders of a private garden.
The Fat of the Land: The Story of an American Farm
John Williams Streeter
The "Headman" of Four Oaks proves that even an aging city dweller can transform a neglected tract of land into a thriving, profitable factory farm through sheer discipline, careful planning, and a deep respect for the soil.
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 Truth About Tristrem Varick: A Novel
Edgar Saltus
A man of refined sensibilities becomes trapped in a harrowing web of family scandal, romantic obsession, and a singular, fatal necessity.
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.
Cartoons by McCutcheon: A selection of one hundred drawings
John T. (John Tinney) McCutcheon
A gentle, enduring portrait of early twentieth-century American life, this collection captures the quiet rhythms of the seasons and the small, human absurdities that define a culture.
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.