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American Literature — page 52
3,593 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 52 of 75.
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.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home
Laura Lee Hope
Join Bunny Brown and his sister Sue on their adventures in the city, where they explore, make friends, and learn valuable lessons.
Castle Craneycrow
George Barr McCutcheon
An American man kidnaps the woman he loves to save her from a loveless marriage to an Italian prince. This daring escapade unfolds within a classic tale of European intrigue, high-stakes romance, and aristocratic betrayal.
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.
Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College
Josephine Chase
The collegiate experience is a tapestry woven from small triumphs, social maneuvers, and the lifelong bonds formed in the quiet corners of campus life. These pages capture a semester where friendship serves as the ultimate moral compass.
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.
Lewie
Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins) Bradford
A spoiled child’s unchecked temper spirals from childhood cruelty to an act of fatal violence, forcing his family to confront the bitter consequences of maternal indulgence.
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.
The Triumph Of Night: 1916
Edith Wharton
A young secretary’s chance encounter with a charismatic stranger on a bitter winter night leads him into a web of unspoken malice and a haunting, fatal destiny he is powerless to avert.
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.
Concerning Sally
William John Hopkins
A young woman navigates the quiet complexities of family duty and personal growth in a turn-of-the-century New England setting. This character-focused narrative explores the delicate balance between loyalty to one’s kin and the pursuit of individual agency.
Darkness and Daylight: A Novel
Mary Jane Holmes
The search for belonging and the heavy weight of long-held secrets collide when a blind man and a spirited young woman find their lives inextricably bound by a fragile, mysterious girl.
Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun
Mabel C. Hawley
The four Blossom children navigate a snowy landscape of school days, holiday preparations, and unexpected acts of kindness. Their winter is defined by the simple, earnest joys of childhood discovery and community responsibility.
In Blue Creek Cañon
Anna Chapin Ray
A spirited, affectionate portrait of a mining camp family, this story captures the grit and grace of frontier life through the eyes of a close-knit group of children finding adventure in the mountains of Montana.
The Boy Grew Older
Heywood Broun
A sportswriter faces the sudden, solitary challenge of raising his infant son after his wife leaves, navigating the evolving demands of fatherhood and the boy’s emerging, artistic identity.
The Crevice
Isabel Ostrander
A wealthy magnate dies in his armchair, leaving behind a daughter, a questionable will, and a web of financial deceit that only an expert investigator can unravel.
The Penance of Magdalena and Other Tales of the California Missions
J. Smeaton (Joseph Smeaton) Chase
These tales capture the faded grandeur and lingering mysteries of the Spanish missions, blending historical reverence with the intimate, often poignant lives of those who inhabited their shadows.
The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
This collection gathers the rhythmic, deeply personal verse of a man reflecting on a lifetime of friendship, the persistence of the human spirit, and the quiet dignity of growing old. It serves as an intimate chronicle of a single brotherhood, capturing the transition from youthful idealism to the reflective wisdom…
The Reporter Who Made Himself King
Richard Harding Davis
A young reporter journeys to a remote island to find a story, only to accidentally declare himself king and trigger an international incident he must then frantically document for the world.
The Wall Street Girl
Frederick Orin Bartlett
Don Pendleton, a young man of privilege, finds himself suddenly penniless, engaged to a woman who cannot conceive of life without wealth, and mentored by a stenographer who knows exactly what it costs to survive.
A story teller's story
Sherwood Anderson
The path of an American artist is often a lonely one, winding through the tension between a soul’s need for expression and the harsh, industrial demands of a country obsessed with growth.
Harriet and the Piper
Kathleen Thompson Norris
The shadow of a past secret haunts a woman finding her place in a wealthy household, where love and social duty collide in a high-stakes game of reputation.
Hey Rub-a-dub-dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life
Theodore Dreiser
This collection of essays and dramatic sketches serves as a stark, uncompromising autopsy of the American soul at the dawn of the twentieth century. It peels back the thin veneer of national progress to reveal a chaotic, indifferent universe where traditional morality is less a guiding star than a fragile,…
His Own People
Booth Tarkington
A naive American traveler finds his romanticized dreams of European high society shattered by a group of sophisticated swindlers. This cautionary tale exposes the painful gap between a young man’s aspirational fantasies and the gritty reality of his own vulnerability.
Mrs. Leary's Cow: A Legend of Chicago
C. C. (Charles Cole) Hine
A satirical retelling of the Great Chicago Fire, this work uses a legendary bovine scapegoat to lampoon the panicked financial fallout and bureaucratic hypocrisy that followed the city’s destruction.
Strangers and Wayfarers
Sarah Orne Jewett
The lives of rural New Englanders—often overlooked, aging, and burdened by the quiet weight of the past—find their dignity and grace in these compassionate, observant vignettes.
Ten Nights in a Bar Room
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
A traveler arrives at a pristine village tavern, only to witness the quiet, systematic unraveling of a community seduced by drink. This stark narrative traces the path from initial prosperity to total moral and domestic ruin.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
The national pulse of a country at war beats through these pages, capturing the urgency, artistic ambition, and moral fervor of a defining moment in American history.
The Last Ditch
Will Levington Comfort
A haunted American adrift in the East trades the wreckage of his past for a perilous spiritual quest, only to find that his most challenging mission is the love of a woman.
The Millionaire Baby
Anna Katharine Green
A frantic search for a missing young girl leads a private detective into a web of high-stakes deception, hidden identities, and long-buried family secrets.
Through Swamp and Glade: A Tale of the Seminole War
Kirk Munroe
This historical novel dramatizes the harrowing experiences of the Seminole people during the Second Seminole War, centering on the perspective of the young warrior Coacoochee. It captures a defining era of American expansion through a lens of resistance, betrayal, and the profound tragedy of displacement.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 4
Mark Twain
A nineteenth-century engineer finds himself abruptly transported into the brutal, superstitious world of Camelot, where he attempts to dismantle the foundations of feudalism using the tools of modern industry.
A Cry in the Wilderness
Mary E. (Mary Ella) Waller
A young woman flees the suffocating pressures of New York City to find a new life in the Canadian wilderness, where she must confront the heavy, inherited ghosts of her mother’s past.
A Michigan Man: 1891
Elia Wilkinson Peattie
This haunting narrative explores the displacement of a lifelong woodsman, a man whose identity is entirely bound to the northern pine forests, as he attempts to survive the indifferent machinery of a rapidly industrializing city.
Biographical Sketches: (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
These portraits capture the fading echoes of New England’s past, tracing the lives of figures both legendary and obscure with a blend of historical reverence and personal reflection. By turns analytical and elegiac, the collection serves as a meditation on the heavy weight of character upon the course of history.