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American Literature — page 50
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 50 of 101.
Marjorie Daw
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A bored invalid in New York and his friend vacationing in New England begin a correspondence that spirals into a dangerously consuming obsession. The result is a startling look at the power of narrative to distort reality.
Mary Ware in Texas
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
A girl’s romanticized expectations of city life collide with the reality of a quiet, provincial Texas town, leading her toward unexpected growth and the healing of her family.
Mothering on Perilous
Lucy S. Furman
A teacher finds her purpose and a sense of belonging while caring for a group of spirited boys in the rugged mountains of Kentucky. This narrative captures the transformation of both the educator and her young charges.
Six little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's
Laura Lee Hope
An energetic family of six siblings travels to their grandmother’s lakeside home, where their constant curiosity and habit of getting into trouble lead them to stumble upon a lost set of important business papers.
Suzanna stirs the fire
Emily Calvin Blake
A young girl with an imaginative spirit brings light and reconciliation to the fractured lives of those around her. Through her earnest, unwavering empathy, she heals a divided community and restores hope to her struggling family.
The Bishop and the Boogerman
Joel Chandler Harris
A whimsical, slow-burning story of a lonely girl’s imaginary friend and the gruff, stingy uncle she transforms, this book offers a quiet portrait of life in a small Georgia town. It is a gentle, character-driven tale that values the wisdom of childhood play over the cold efficiency of the adult world.
The Delegate from Venus
Henry Slesar
A Washington reporter stumbles upon a story of extraterrestrial contact, only to discover that the threat to global peace may be more human—and closer to home—than he ever imagined.
The Poisoned Pen
Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
This collection of mystery stories follows the exploits of Craig Kennedy, a university professor who applies the rigorous methods of laboratory science to solve the most perplexing crimes of early 20th-century New York.
They Looked and Loved
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A young woman trapped in a loveless marriage struggles to escape the clutches of a mysterious miser, only to be drawn into a web of deceit, shipwrecks, and hidden identities.
A Face Illumined
Edward Payson Roe
The story of a young woman’s moral evolution, this narrative follows a talented but cynical artist who discovers that human beauty requires the inner light of the soul to be truly seen.
Five Little Peppers and their Friends
Margaret Sidney
The Pepper family’s circle of warmth expands as the children reach out to include lonely outsiders and struggling peers, proving that kindness is the strongest bridge between different worlds.
Hildegarde's Home
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
A young woman and her mother leave the grief of a city home for a quiet, sun-drenched life in the country, where they find friendship, purpose, and the unexpected joy of rebuilding a community.
Miss America
Alexander Black
The American woman is an enigma of evolving independence, a figure whose public image is molded by illustrators as much as her private reality is defined by her own burgeoning sense of agency.
Riley Love-Lyrics
James Whitcomb Riley
The heart carries its own history in the quiet, fragile songs we keep when the world goes still. These verses trace the long shadow that memory casts over a life, transforming youthful passion into the bittersweet wisdom of age.
Riley Songs of Home
James Whitcomb Riley
The path home is not a map, but a memory, and this collection serves as a compass for the soul searching for the sweetness of its own beginnings. It offers a gentle, enduring bridge between the frantic present and the quiet, radiant landscape of the past.
Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands
Marietta Holley
A sharp-witted woman maneuvers through the absurdity of summer travel, keeping a watchful, loving eye on her husband’s persistent fascination with the chaotic spectacle of Coney Island.
The Attaché
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
A sharp-tongued colonial observer navigates the stiff, formal hierarchies of Victorian England, finding that the Old World is as much a performance as the new one is a frontier.
The Azure Rose: A Novel
Reginald Wright Kauffman
A struggling American artist living in Paris finds his life upended when a mysterious, beautiful woman moves into the room directly across the hall.
The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor
Margaret Vandercook
A group of idealistic American girls ventures into the heart of wartime France to provide humanitarian aid, only to find their own character and courage tested on the literal field of honor.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
This mid-war periodical captures the raw intellectual pulse of the United States in 1864, blending urgent political advocacy with literary reflection during the nation’s greatest crisis.
The Game and the Candle
Eleanor M. (Eleanor Marie) Ingram
Two brothers face financial ruin, leading the elder to abandon his life of luxury for a dangerous, secret path in order to secure their future.
The Highflyers
Clarence Budington Kelland
A young man of reckless privilege finds his purpose when the looming shadow of the First World War forces him to trade his idle life for the defense of his country.
The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story
George Cary Eggleston
The onset of the American Civil War irrevocably alters the quiet, tradition-bound lives of two young Virginians, testing their loyalties, their budding romance, and their very notions of duty.
The Service
Henry David Thoreau
To live is to enlist in a perpetual campaign, where the only true battle is the one fought against the lethargy of the human soul. The spirit must become its own commander, turning every mundane moment into an act of heroic defiance.
The Shield of Silence
Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock
This novel explores the tension between inherited social expectations and the raw, individual impulse to "fly." It centers on two young women, Joan and Nancy, who navigate the complexities of identity, love, and the pressure to conform to traditional paths.
The Tobacco Tiller: A Tale of the Kentucky Tobacco Fields
Sarah Bell Hackley
Amidst the grueling labor of the Kentucky tobacco fields, a simple romance navigates the interference of meddling neighbors, social rigidities, and the long shadows cast by the region’s volatile history.
Thrifty Stock, and Other Stories
Ben Ames Williams
A collection of stories that captures the rugged, often quiet intensity of early twentieth-century American life, revealing the hidden depths within ordinary people.
Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A sudden disappearance on a California ranch plunges a group of eastern visitors into a disorienting mystery, forcing them to confront the hidden, aging secrets of a sprawling adobe estate.
Calvary Alley
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Growing up in the shadow of a city cathedral, a spirited girl struggles to rise above the poverty of her tenement home while protecting those she loves.
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Part 5
Mark Twain
A world-traveler finds that while the map may change, the human comedy—and its capacity for both absurdity and tragedy—remains stubbornly the same.
Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer
Josephine Chase
A young woman’s wedding plans are halted by the sudden, mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, leading her friends on a desperate, suspenseful search through the wilderness.
Miss Billy
Marian Hurd McNeely
A young woman breathes new life into a dilapidated urban neighborhood, proving that small acts of kindness and community organization can transform even the bleakest street.
Sherwood Anderson
Eugene P. (Eugene Paul) Sheehy
This volume serves as a comprehensive, meticulously organized roadmap for anyone seeking to navigate the prolific and varied creative life of a seminal American storyteller. It is an essential guide to the primary and secondary literature surrounding a writer who fundamentally reshaped the American short story.
The Bad Man: A Novel
Porter Emerson Browne
A desperate struggle for survival unfolds on a remote Arizona ranch when an infamous bandit invades the home of a struggling American, forcing the inhabitants to confront their own weaknesses and desires under the shadow of a gun.
The Blood Red Dawn
Charles Caldwell Dobie
The quiet life of a young woman in San Francisco is abruptly shattered by a chance encounter, forcing her to confront the suffocating pretenses of her social class and the brutal realities of independence.
The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
Oscar Micheaux
HOOK Driven by a restless desire for independence, a young man leaves behind the stifling limitations of city life to claim his own future as a pioneer on the South Dakota prairie.
The Green Satin Gown
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
The life of a young person in the early twentieth century often hinged on simple choices, quiet burdens, and the sudden, often overwhelming, arrival of responsibility. These stories explore the quiet dignity found in small, everyday acts of endurance and kindness.
The Lay Anthony: A Romance
Joseph Hergesheimer
A young man’s fiercely protected innocence becomes a heavy, mysterious burden as he navigates a world of casual cynicism, eventually finding his only true anchor in a love that transcends the physical reach of his life.
The Little Colonel in Arizona
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
HOOK A resilient family navigates the loneliness of the Arizona desert, discovering that ambition and friendship are the true keys to transforming a wilderness into a home.
The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
The arrival of an unexpected suitor turns a quiet summer into a season of romantic tension and self-discovery for a young woman coming of age in the Kentucky countryside.
The Road Builders
Samuel Merwin
In the blistering heat of the untamed American West, a tenacious engineer battles both a lethal desert and a rival railroad tycoon to drive a line of steel toward the horizon.
The Story of a Country Town
E. W. (Edgar Watson) Howe
The relentless, suffocating gravity of a pioneer Kansas settlement shapes the lives of those trapped within its borders. Here, duty and austerity often prove more destructive than the harsh wilderness itself.
With the Procession
Henry Blake Fuller
The old guard of Chicago finds itself adrift as the city’s rapid expansion demands a new, more aggressive way of life. This portrait of a family caught between tradition and modernization captures the inevitable decline of an era.
Affinities, and Other Stories
Mary Roberts Rinehart
A weary wife stages a fake affair, a socialite tries to escape her own engagement, and a group of British activists kidnap the Prime Minister in this sparkling collection of comic misadventures.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 3, No. 31, March, 1922: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy
Various
A vibrant time capsule of 1920s American pop culture, this monthly digest captures the irrepressible energy, irreverent humor, and brassy charm of Prohibition-era entertainment.
Cupid's Middleman
Edward B. (Edward Burcham) Lent
A bungling amateur matchmaker finds his own life and his friend's romance nearly destroyed when his overblown love letters fall into the wrong hands.
Dangerous Ground
Lawrence L. Lynch
A high-stakes game of shadows and secrets unfolds as two rival detectives race to uncover the truth behind a mysterious woman, a missing child, and a decades-old crime.
From Seven to Seventy: Memories of a Painter and a Yankee
Edward Simmons
A New England painter looks back on a life spent chasing color, from childhood among Concord’s sages to the studios of Paris and the boomtown energy of Gilded Age America.