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American Literature — page 43
3,593 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 43 of 75.
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.
Flood Tide
Sara Ware Bassett
Hook A small Cape Cod fishing village finds its quiet rhythm disrupted by a gentle inventor and a city-bred newcomer, setting the stage for a tender, unfolding romance.
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.
Jane Allen, Right Guard
Edith Bancroft
When a spirited college athlete finds herself the target of a malicious campaign, she discovers that true victory is won through character rather than just the score on the basketball court.
Marriage à la mode
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
This is a somber, psychological study of a high-stakes cultural clash between an impulsive American heiress and an English gentleman. It explores the inevitable fraying of a marriage built on mutual misunderstanding and the irredeemable nature of betrayal.
The Mintage: Being Ten Stories & One More
Elbert Hubbard
HOOK History is a mirror reflecting our own vanities, successes, and failures, captured here through brief, vivid portraits of the famous and the forgotten.
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…
Wild Wings: A Romance of Youth
Margaret Piper Chalmers
The transition from late adolescence to early adulthood is rarely a straight line, marked instead by impulsive choices, hidden identities, and the bittersweet realization that the people we love are not who we imagined.
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.
Branded
Francis Lynde
A young man wrongly imprisoned for embezzlement must outrun a relentless past and the shadow of his own criminal record to find redemption in the rugged West.
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 Tipster: 1901, From "Wall Street Stories"
Edwin Lefevre
The lure of the ticker is a siren song that promises wealth but delivers only ruin. This cautionary tale follows a man who abandons his steady life for the hollow thrill of speculation.
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.
Sights from a Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A solitary observer perched atop a church steeple surveys the town below, finding the human drama of life and death unfolding with equal indifference beneath the gathering clouds of a summer storm.
The Bibliography of Walt Whitman
Frank Shay
The definitive map for navigating the complex, ever-evolving terrain of America’s most restless poet, this essential volume traces every printing of his sprawling life’s work. It is the story of a book that refused to be finished.
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.
Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis
Various
He was the beau ideal of the American reporter, a man who treated war with the eye of a novelist and lived his own life as a series of gallant, clean-cut adventures.
Bred of the Desert: A Horse and a Romance
Charles M. (Charles Marcus) Horton
This narrative traces the life of a remarkable horse from his harsh birth in a Southwest sandstorm to his ultimate role in a young man’s quest for redemption. It is a story of quiet observation, deep affection, and the enduring bond between human and animal.
Dust of New York
Konrad Bercovici
New York is a sprawling, polyglot orchestra, and these stories capture the individual instruments tuning up before the symphony begins.
Elsie's Girlhood: A Sequel to "Elsie Dinsmore" and "Elsie's Holidays at Roselands"
Martha Finley
This story follows a young woman’s transition into adulthood, tracing the delicate, often intense emotional geography of a daughter whose deepest loyalty belongs to a stern but adoring father. It is a portrait of a life shaped by strict obedience and the quiet, internal struggles of a heart learning to reconcile…
Episodes in Van Bibber's Life
Richard Harding Davis
A quintessential New York dandy navigates the complexities of high society, theater life, and the downtrodden with a blend of detached irony and surprising, impulsive compassion.
Floyd Grandon's Honor
Amanda M. Douglas
Amidst the social shifts of a nineteenth-century riverside enclave, a man of integrity balances the heavy burdens of family obligation against his own private, unfulfilled desires. This is a story of duty, inheritance, and the quiet struggle for self-possession.
Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales: "The fiddle and the bow," "The paradise of fools," "Visions and dreams"
Robt. L. (Robert Love) Taylor
The fiddle and the bow captures the spirit of a bygone American era, blending humor, nostalgia, and local lore into a series of oratorical performances that once captivated audiences across the country.
In the clouds
Charles Egbert Craddock
Against the towering, cloud-wreathed summits of the Great Smoky Mountains, a man’s life unravels when he is falsely accused of a crime that carries the weight of a death sentence. This atmospheric novel maps the collision between isolated mountain tradition and the encroaching judgment of the law.