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American Literature — page 48
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 48 of 101.
Holmes' Own Story: In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary Appendix
Herman W. Mudgett
In the shadows of a Philadelphia jail cell, a accused killer writes to save his neck, spinning an intricate web of insurance frauds, double identities, and phantom accomplices to explain away twenty-two missing lives.
Joscelyn Cheshire: A Story of Revolutionary Days in the Carolinas
Sara Beaumont Kennedy
A fiery Loyalist woman and a devoted Patriot soldier test the limits of devotion, duty, and pride amidst the turmoil of the American Revolution.
Liége on the line of march
Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
Terrifying midnight bombardments force a quiet Belgian countryside household to abandon their beds and cower in the wine cellar.
Perch of the Devil
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
A restless young miner seeks fortune in the Montana copper hills while his ambitious wife transformed by social training navigates love and class in Butte.
T. B. Peterson's List of Publications (1857)
Pa.) T.B. Peterson & Brothers (Philadelphia
Mid-nineteenth-century American readers hunger for affordable, sensational stories, and a Philadelphia publisher steps forward to organize, package, and deliver popular literature directly to their doorsteps.
The Barrier: A Novel
Allen French
Driven by an unyielding ambition for public power, a financial promoter seeks to dominate both a New England city and the women of its most exclusive social circle.
The Broken Gate: A Novel
Emerson Hough
An unwed mother in a small Midwestern town fights to shield her grown son from the shame of his birth, only for a sudden trial and a small-town murder to expose the secrets of her past.
The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow: A Tradition of Pennsylavania
Robert Montgomery Bird
An ancient, bloody feud over lost land and ruined lives leaves a shadow over a Pennsylvania valley, where a returning son must choose between revenge and peace.
The Sea Bride
Ben Ames Williams
A young woman marries a formidable whaling captain and takes to the sea, only to watch her husband's strength and sanity collapse under the harsh demands of the voyage.
Complete Project Gutenberg William Dean Howells Literature Essays
William Dean Howells
A young writer journeys from the Western frontier to New England's literary heartland, meeting the legends who shape American letters.
Dreamy Hollow
Sumner Charles Britton
A secluded Long Island mansion, a dead woman's voice calling across the dark, and a disgraced manager driven mad by greed converge in a melodrama of obsession, spiritualism, and justice.
Frank Merriwell's Endurance
Burt L. Standish
High ideals meet relentless athleticism in a classic tale of clean living, competitive spirit, and unbeatable grit.
Letters from a Son to His Self-Made Father: Being the Replies to Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
Charles Eustace Merriman
A rich, satirical volley between a pampered son and his meatpacking magnate father, exposing the friction between inherited privilege and self-made ambition.
Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian. Volume 2 (of 2)
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
An actor’s body and voice can shake a theater, but his legacy depends on the fragile, biased memories of his contemporaries.
Life on the Mississippi, Part 12
Mark Twain
An observer tracks the swift forward march of nineteenth-century American commerce along the upper reaches of a great national river, recording both the booming modern cities and the vanishing wilderness legends in his wake.
Mercy Philbrick's Choice
Helen Hunt Jackson
A young New England woman must choose between her unyielding moral integrity and the comforting illusions of romantic devotion.
Scenes in Switzerland
American Tract Society
An autumn travel narrative through Alpine valleys becomes a spiritual pilgrimage, discovering that the true grandeur of Switzerland rests not in its icy peaks, but in the humble faith of its mountain villagers.
The Apartment Next Door
William Johnston
A woman risks everything to uncover a deadly wartime plot, only to find her heart divided between duty to her country and her feeling for the suspect living right across the hall.
The Brute
Frederic Arnold Kummer
An unyielding husband and an ambitious wife clash when an unexpected fortune tests the boundaries of pride, love, and moral compromise.
The Girl from Alsace: A Romance of the Great War, Originally Published under the Title of Little Comrade
Burton Egbert Stevenson
An inadvertent partnership forged on the eve of war plunges two strangers into a desperate trek across hostile territory.
The Jack-Knife Man
Ellis Parker Butler
A gentle Iowa craftsman transformed by an orphaned boy learns that a quiet life, a sharp pocketknife, and an unexpectedly fierce heart are enough to build a real family.
The Walking Delegate
Leroy Scott
A corrupt labor boss uses his union as a personal gold mine until a principled steelworker decides to risk his livelihood, his marriage, and his reputation to bring him down.
A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses from an Old Manse")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A quiet stroll down a bustling street leads into an improbable hall where legend, literature, and history sit side by side.
Dancers in the Dark
Dorothy Speare
The young women of the Jazz Age navigate a dizzying world of dance halls, broken hearts, and the pursuit of artistic identity. This is a story of how the rhythm of the city reshapes the lives of those caught in its beat.
David Harum: A Story of American Life
Edward Noyes Westcott
A young man of fallen fortunes accepts a banking post in rural New York, where an eccentric, sharp-witted horse trader becomes his mentor and ally.
Dr. Lavendar's People
Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
Beneath the quiet, elm-shaded streets of a nineteenth-century Pennsylvania village, human hearts wrestle with the quiet, overwhelming complexities of conscience, unspoken love, and the painful necessity of forgiveness.
Ewing's Lady
Harry Leon Wilson
A young Western painter travels east to sell his art, only to find himself entangled in an old family secret that reshapes his future.
Something about Eve: A comedy of fig-leaves
James Branch Cabell
A young man abandons his mundane life to pursue a legendary kingdom, only to discover that the truest destination is the bittersweet architecture of his own imagination.
The Ghost of Guir House
Charles Willing Beale
A young man travels to a remote Virginia estate following a misdirected letter, only to find himself entangled in an eerie world of ancient secrets, occult philosophy, and spectral encounters.
The Little Review, March 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 1)
Various
A fierce, vital snapshot of early twentieth-century American modernism captures a culture at a crossroads, where radical theatrical experiments, unyielding political critiques, and avant-garde verse collide against the darkening backdrop of global war.
Two Little Knights of Kentucky
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
A sudden winter freeze, a hidden bear, and a homeless boy challenge two privileged brothers to prove their chivalry is more than a game.
Beth Norvell: A Romance of the West
Randall Parrish
An unlikely bond forms between a traveling actress and a mining engineer amidst the rugged isolation of the American West, where secrets, social barriers, and a web of criminal intrigue threaten to pull them apart forever.
Brother Against Brother
Oliver Optic
A border-state family is torn apart by the onset of the Civil War, forcing a man of principle to defend his home and his conscience against his own brother.
Bunker Bean
Harry Leon Wilson
Bunker Bean is a timid, unremarkable office clerk who transforms his life by convincing himself he is the reincarnation of a mighty, ancient king. This lighthearted tale follows his journey from a bullied, insecure nobody to a man who commands his own destiny, finding love and confidence in the most improbable ways.
Come Out of the Kitchen! A Romance
Alice Duer Miller
A lighthearted comedy of errors, this tale follows a wealthy bachelor who rents a Southern estate, only to find his new domestic staff is far more than it seems.
Dreams and Days: Poems
George Parsons Lathrop
The quiet pulse of late nineteenth-century American life beats within these pages, where the weight of historical memory meets the fragile, fleeting beauty of the natural world.
Joan of the Journal
Helen Diehl Olds
HOOK A persistent teenager finds her calling in the whirlwind of a local newspaper office, where she helps her brother save his job and uncovers a web of office intrigue.
Labyrinth
Helen R. (Helen Rose) Hull
The modern woman’s attempt to reconcile professional identity with domestic obligation creates a maze of conflicting expectations. This exploration of the early twentieth-century female experience reveals the hidden costs of managing both a career and a household.
Out for Business
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
HOOK Driven from home by a cruel stepfather, a spirited youth ventures into the heart of nineteenth-century Chicago to build a life of his own through honesty and grit.
Poppea of the Post-Office
Mabel Osgood Wright
The mystery of an abandoned child’s identity unfolds within the quiet, interconnected lives of a small American village. At the center of the town’s world stands a man who finds his own life transformed by a sudden, secret burden of love.
The Arrival of Jimpson, and Other Stories for Boys about Boys
Ralph Henry Barbour
These stories capture the earnest, competitive, and often socially fraught world of turn-of-the-century American boarding schools and colleges. They offer a vivid, nostalgic look at a time when sportsmanship and class loyalty defined a young man’s character.
The Cottage of Delight: A Novel
Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben
A young man navigates the suffocating social hierarchies and moral dilemmas of a small Southern town, eventually finding his way to a new life in the city while tethered by the memory of a lost love.
The Graysons: A Story of Illinois
Edward Eggleston
The frontier courtroom becomes a stage for truth when a young man’s life hangs on the intuition of an unpretentious lawyer. This story finds its gravity in the moral landscape of early Illinois, where justice is often as rough-hewn as the settlers themselves.
The Lake Gun
James Fenimore Cooper
HOOK A traveler’s hunt for a legendary floating log and a mysterious booming sound on Seneca Lake becomes a pointed warning against the political demagogues of a nation drifting toward civil war.
The Last of the Peterkins: With Others of Their Kin
Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody) Hale
An well-meaning, incurably muddled American family wanders across the globe, turning every simple task into a comedic crisis of logic while their extended kin face equally absurd predicaments at home.
A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties
Charles Major
A young woman’s struggle for independence in the Indiana wilderness becomes a test of loyalty when she finds herself caught between a devoted, humble suitor and a predatory, socially ambitious suitor. Amidst the shifting landscape of a frontier state, the bonds of family, honesty, and affection are strained to…
Americanisms and Briticisms
Brander Matthews
This collection of essays serves as a sharp-witted defense of American intellectual autonomy, challenging the patronizing attitudes of 19th-century British critics toward the emerging literature and evolving language of the United States.
Caybigan
James Hopper
These stories capture the desperate, isolated existence of American teachers and soldiers caught in the unforgiving landscape of the early 20th-century Philippines. They are tales of resilience, madness, and the heavy toll of duty.