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American Literature — page 41
4,619 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 41 of 97.
Sanctuary
Edith Wharton
A mother’s quiet moral vigilance becomes the conscience of her son as he faces a devastating temptation that threatens his integrity.
Silas Strong, Emperor of the Woods
Irving Bacheller
The wilderness is a doomed empire, and its quiet inhabitants are the last to witness the slow, inevitable encroachment of a world that values timber more than life.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 98, December, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
This collection captures the intellectual pulse of 1865, weaving together serialized fiction, political philosophy, and observations on the post-Civil War American condition.
The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop
Hamlin Garland
This Western drama follows a principled army officer defending an Indigenous tribe from predatory settlers. It is a story of moral courage, the clash of cultures, and the redemptive power of love amidst a harsh, high-mountain landscape.
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado
Cyrus Townsend Brady
A woman of refinement and a rugged recluse find themselves bound by a perilous mountain winter, their survival testing both their physical endurance and the strength of their moral convictions.
The Desert and the Sown
Mary Hallock Foote
The desert and the sown are one in this somber meditation on the persistent, haunting nature of the past. A family’s long-buried secrets rise to the surface, testing the strength of love against the weight of inherited guilt.
The Early Bird: A Business Man's Love Story
George Randolph Chester
A restless young businessman seeks a quiet vacation, only to find that his instinct for seizing opportunity—and his sudden, all-consuming love—are impossible to switch off.
The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story
Burton Egbert Stevenson
HOOK When a wealthy recluse is found dead in his New York mansion—felled by a mysterious, venomous wound—a journalist and a lawyer must unravel a deadly puzzle hidden within a centuries-old French cabinet.
The Old Gray Homestead
Frances Parkinson Keyes
A young woman’s arrival at a decaying Vermont farm sparks a transformation, challenging the bitter pride of a struggling heir and ultimately forging a new life from the ashes of old traditions.
The One Hoss Shay: With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet &
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The curious fate of a century-old carriage and the secret engine behind the modern electric tram are revealed in this whimsical collection of rhythmic, witty verse.
The Re-Creation of Brian Kent
Harold Bell Wright
A broken man finds an unexpected harbor in the Ozark wilderness, where the quiet wisdom of an elderly schoolteacher forces him to confront his past and re-build his soul.
The She Boss: A Western Story
Arthur Preston Hankins
A giant of a man and a desert-hardened woman navigate a landscape of shifting sands and broken promises in this classic tale of the California frontier.
Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance
William Dean Howells
An emissary from an egalitarian utopia ventures into the competitive chaos of 1890s New York, ultimately returning home with an American bride who must reconcile her past with her new world.
Torchy, Private Sec
Sewell Ford
Armed with street-smart intuition and a lightning-fast wit, a young office boy navigates the cutthroat world of New York finance. He quickly proves that a sharp mind is the most valuable asset in any boardroom.
A Woman Named Smith
Marie Conway Oemler
A woman inherits a brooding, atmospheric estate in South Carolina and finds herself drawn into the orbit of an enigmatic, artistic neighbor who is bound by family secrets and the weight of the past.
Ben Blair: The Story of a Plainsman
Will Lillibridge
This is a story of two worlds colliding, where the raw, unvarnished integrity of the American plainsman meets the sophisticated, artificial life of the Eastern city. It is a quiet, intense study of what happens when a man of the earth demands, at any cost, the truth from those he loves.
Blue-Bird Weather
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
This story captures the stillness of the Virginia marshes and the sudden, disarming power of an unexpected romance. It explores how a chance encounter in the wilderness can reshape a man’s understanding of duty, forgiveness, and the future.
Counsel for the Defense
Leroy Scott
A bright, ambitious woman returns home to find her father wrongfully accused and her town strangled by corruption. She must fight both a rigged legal system and the deep-seated prejudices of a society that scorns a lady lawyer.
Hansford: A Tale of Bacon's Rebellion
St. George Tucker
This historical novel dramatizes the 1676 uprising in colonial Virginia, framing the conflict through the lens of a tragic romance that tests the boundaries of personal loyalty and political conviction.
The Professor's House
Willa Cather
The life of a celebrated academic begins to fray at the edges when his domestic comforts no longer satisfy his restless, searching soul.
The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
A young Confederate courier navigates the brutal final campaigns of the Civil War, struggling to reconcile his unwavering loyalty to his cause with the grim, grinding reality of the stalemate at Petersburg.
The Tides of Barnegat
Francis Hopkinson Smith
The sea is a constant, shifting presence in this tale of hidden lives, where a long-held secret threatens to wash away the peace of a small coastal community. It is a story of sacrifice, the weight of reputation, and the quiet, enduring strength found in those who bear the burdens of others.
When I Was a Little Girl
Zona Gale
A lingering, lyrical evocation of childhood, this book captures the transition between the hard, rhythmic reality of growing up and the boundless, shimmering world of the imagination. It is a series of interconnected sketches and fairy tales that together chart the inner life of a girl, moving from the sensory…
Zero Hour
Ray Bradbury
The world ends not with a bang, but with a game. A mother discovers that the innocence of her child is the very mechanism by which an alien force plans to dismantle human civilization.
A Day with Walt Whitman
May Byron
A portrait of the aging poet in his quiet New Jersey retreat, this account captures the intersection of physical frailty and expansive spiritual vitality. It offers a meditative look at a man finding solace in the natural world.
A Tramp Abroad
Mark Twain
A seasoned traveler sets out to walk across Europe, only to find that reality, mountains, and his own unreliable companions consistently refuse to behave according to the guidebook.
Alex the Great
H. C. (Harry Charles) Witwer
Confidence is the only currency that matters in a city built on hustle, where a bold enough bluff can turn a complete stranger into a Broadway legend.
Between Whiles
Helen Hunt Jackson
A collection of quiet, observant tales, this volume explores the intersection of romantic longing, social duty, and the unexpected turns of individual destiny across varied landscapes.
On the Frontier
Bret Harte
The wild, untamed frontier of nineteenth-century California acts as a crucible for human ambition, where the shifting mists and rugged terrain mirror the moral ambiguity of the desperate souls seeking their fortunes.
Side-stepping with Shorty
Sewell Ford
A physical trainer with a sharp wit and a knack for fixing broken lives navigates the eccentricities of New York City’s high society and low-rent districts. He is a man who builds reputations as effectively as he builds muscle.
"Swingin round the cirkle"
David Ross Locke
This satirical work offers a searing, caustic look at the wreckage of American politics during the Reconstruction era. It remains a singular artifact of how humor was weaponized to expose the hypocrisy and moral rot of a defeated political faction.
The Conflict
David Graham Phillips
A restless heiress navigates the suffocating constraints of her social class in a changing industrial landscape, ultimately seeking a life of purpose beyond the traditional expectations of marriage and domesticity.
The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories
Constance Fenimore Woolson
This collection of sketches and tales captures the quiet, often melancholy lives of Americans abroad, mapping the intersection of wandering souls and the timeless, unyielding landscapes of Italy.
The Hills of Refuge: A Novel
Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben
A man sacrifices his future to shield a disgraced brother, only to find redemption in the humble, rural life he sought to escape. This is a story of shifting identities, moral exhaustion, and the quiet weight of family secrets.
The Little Red Foot
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
In the shadow of the American Revolution, a hardened scout and a spirited Scottish woman find themselves bound together by love and the brutal, shifting loyalties of the frontier.
The South-West, by a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 1
J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham
A curious traveler drifts from the North to the Mississippi, capturing the vibrant and unsettling spirit of the American South-West through a series of observant, epistolary dispatches.
The Yoke of the Thorah
Henry Harland
This portrait of a young man trapped between his heart’s desire and the iron laws of his heritage is a haunting, psychological study of the conflict between inherited identity and individual longing. It is a story of how faith, when distorted by superstition and ancestral pressure, can become a crushing weight.
A Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt
True character is forged not in the comfort of idle privilege, but through the rigorous, self-imposed discipline of duty and the pursuit of justice for all.
Forty Minutes Late: 1909
Francis Hopkinson Smith
A traveling lecturer finds himself stranded in a brutal winter storm, forced to navigate the incompetence of a local committee and the biting cold to reach his destination.
Kennedy Square
Francis Hopkinson Smith
Kennedy Square captures a vanishing world of grace, rigid honor, and the heavy weight of legacy. It is a portrait of a Southern society balanced precariously between the comforts of tradition and the harsh realities of progress.
Little Aliens
Myra Kelly
A compassionate teacher attempts to bridge the vast chasm between immigrant tradition and American schooling, finding that her most precious lessons come from the children she is meant to instruct.
Love Stories
Mary Roberts Rinehart
These seven glimpses into the human heart capture the quiet, often unacknowledged struggles of people caught between duty, desperation, and the sudden, disarming power of affection.
Prairie Folks
Hamlin Garland
The relentless struggle of pioneer life defines these portraits, where the beauty of the vast, open plains is inextricably bound to the grueling, often joyless labor required to tame them.
Quaint Courtships
Unknown
The persistence of the romantic impulse in a structured world creates moments of unexpected, individual beauty. This collection of stories explores the ways people navigate the social expectations surrounding courtship, love, and marriage.
The Prisoner
Alice Brown
HOOK A man returns to his small-town home after a prison sentence, only to find that his past, his estranged wife, and his own moral evolution are still waiting to be reckoned with.
The white doe
Sallie Southall Cotten
A haunting fusion of colonial history and indigenous folklore, this narrative reimagines the fate of the first English child born in America as a legendary transformation amidst the wilderness of the Roanoke colony.
Urban Sketches
Bret Harte
A collection of observational vignettes captures the elusive, often gritty, and darkly humorous spirit of post-Gold Rush San Francisco. These sketches peer into the quiet lives of outcasts, children, and struggling neighbors.
We Girls: a Home Story
A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train) Whitney
The sun sets on one way of life and rises on another, as a family learns that true belonging is not a matter of geography, but of how they build their home together.