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American Literature — page 61

3,373 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 61 of 71.

Cover of Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Joel Chandler Harris

Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Joel Chandler Harris

Joel Chandler Harris

A vast landscape of Middle Georgia opens up through a rich tapestry of animal fables, historical sketches, Reconstruction struggles, and swamp adventures. Across decades of storytelling, plantation traditions give way to a changing Southern society.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of "Laramie;" Or, The Queen of Bedlam. A Story of the Sioux War of 1876

"Laramie;" Or, The Queen of Bedlam. A Story of the Sioux War of 1876

Charles King

A young lieutenant’s silver money vanishes from his desk on a frontier army post, leaving a trail of silken rustles and missing keepsakes across the Cheyenne plains.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Life on the Mississippi, Part 3

Life on the Mississippi, Part 3

Mark Twain

A treacherous river shifts under every passing boat, demanding absolute mastery from the men who steer the great wooden steamers through its dark, labyrinthine currents.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches

Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches

Ruth McEnery Stuart

A month after burying her husband, a plantation widow plans a remarriage while stubbornly guarding her full year of grief, setting off a collection of wry, tender tales.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of Navy Day

Navy Day

Harry Harrison

Military grandstanding turns into a surreal bureaucratic arms race when technological breakthroughs redefine land and sea power overnight.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of Sonnets and Canzonets

Sonnets and Canzonets

Amos Bronson Alcott

Through quiet verse and earnest portraits, a New England elder reflects on a long life shaped by love, philosophical friendship, and the American struggle for freedom.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of The Little Moment of Happiness

The Little Moment of Happiness

Clarence Budington Kelland

A young American officer stationed in Paris during the First World War discovers that the rigid moral code of his upbringing falls apart when confronted with the complex, gentle reality of French love.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of The philosophy of Elbert Hubbard

The philosophy of Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Hubbard

A spirited crusade against rigid dogma, this collection of essays urges humanity to abandon institutional fear and embrace a life of active work, open air, and personal responsibility.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Turning of Griggsby: Being a Story of Keeping up with Dan'l Webster

The Turning of Griggsby: Being a Story of Keeping up with Dan'l Webster

Irving Bacheller

A small New England town collapses into pompous ruin when every local man tries to ape the thunderous, brandy-fueled grandeur of Daniel Webster.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Young Mountaineers: Short Stories

The Young Mountaineers: Short Stories

Charles Egbert Craddock

High above a deep, wild ravine, jutting summits almost meet to frame a dark cutout of the open sky.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Vesty of the Basins

Vesty of the Basins

Sarah Pratt McLean Greene

A young woman on the rocky Maine coast navigates love, loss, and community among the eccentric salt-water folk of the Basin.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of A Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter

A Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter

Alice Turner Curtis

On the eve of the American Civil War, a young northern girl living in Charleston must navigate local enmities, wartime espionage, and the cruelties of slavery with courage and cross-factional kindness.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Abner Daniel: A Novel

Abner Daniel: A Novel

Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

Land, blood, and local custom bind the North Georgia mountains, where a stubborn farmer’s reckless property trades threaten to drag his family into ruin.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores and Auction Rooms

Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores and Auction Rooms

Guido Bruno

A wandering bookman pulls back the velvet curtain of early twentieth-century print culture, exposing the eccentric dealers, backroom schemes, and silent paper treasures hidden across America's urban centers.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of An Ambitious Man

An Ambitious Man

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

She sacrificed her heart for political advancement, only to discover that the price of her rising star was a lifetime of bitter, inescapable regret.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Brother Jonathan

Brother Jonathan

Hezekiah Butterworth

Courage and quiet faith sustain a Connecticut community as it serves as the secret engine of the American Revolution.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Dab Kinzer: A Story of a Growing Boy

Dab Kinzer: A Story of a Growing Boy

William O. Stoddard

Fast-growing, easily overlooked, and awkward in his clothes, fifteen-year-old Dabney Kinzer finds himself suddenly propelled toward adulthood through small-town changes and unpredictable seaside adventures along Long Island's south shore.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Gypsy's Cousin Joy

Gypsy's Cousin Joy

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

A spirited country girl must share her room and her routines with a newly orphaned city cousin, turning their sharp daily friction into a deep, enduring bond.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Memoirs of a millionaire

Memoirs of a millionaire

Lucia True Ames Mead

A young woman unexpectedly inherits a vast fortune, turning her quiet life into a bold experiment in social reform and practical compassion.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Minnie's Sacrifice

Minnie's Sacrifice

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Courage, devotion, and racial pride guide a young woman who chooses solidarity with her oppressed people over a life of hidden privilege.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of New Year's Day (The 'Seventies)

New Year's Day (The 'Seventies)

Edith Wharton

A scandal exposed in a hotel fire reverberates across decades of New York high society, unraveling a woman's desperate sacrifice for the dying husband who never knew the truth.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Poems

Poems

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Across a collection of impassioned, deeply felt verse, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper crafts a vision of moral duty, racial justice, and spiritual endurance in post-Reconstruction America.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870

Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870

Various

A sharp, irreverent window into Gilded Age America, this satirical weekly skewers everything from Wall Street greed to city smells with unflagging 1870 energy.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Religious Poems

Religious Poems

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Faith does not banish grief; it offers a quiet sanctuary where sorrow and hope learn to speak the same language.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The "Goldfish": Being the Confessions af a Successful Man

The "Goldfish": Being the Confessions af a Successful Man

Arthur Cheney Train

Wealth isolates its owners behind a glass barrier, creating an illusion of life while severing genuine human connection.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Old Homestead

The Old Homestead

Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens

A little girl shivering on a New England doorstep sets in motion a decades-long chronicle of secret lineages, lost inheritances, and quiet moral strength.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of The Purchase Price

The Purchase Price

Emerson Hough

A woman of international intrigue is taken captive by a southern slaveholder on the eve of the Civil War, igniting a fiery clash between their clashing loyalties and an unyielding mutual attraction.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Toying with fate

Toying with fate

Nicholas (House name) Carter

A relentless detective pursues two tangled murder cases through the gaslit shadows, back alleys, and gilded parlors of turn-of-the-century Manhattan.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of A Rivermouth Romance

A Rivermouth Romance

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

A forty-year-old Irish cook marries a handsome, shiftless sailor half her age, plunging her orderly domestic life in a quiet New England town into a hilarious cycle of absurd missing-persons cases and endless marital endurance.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Betty Lee, Senior

Betty Lee, Senior

Harriet Pyne Grove

An exuberant, industrious high school senior navigates her final year of high school in 1930s Ohio, balancing academics, athletic rivalries, family moves, missing love letters, and a mid-ocean coastal adventure.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Buying a Horse

Buying a Horse

William Dean Howells

A middle-aged urbanite decides to move to the country and buy a family horse, only to discover that the modern market is an inescapable maze of deceptive dealers, defective beasts, and maddening social awkwardness.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States

Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States

William Wells Brown

A light-skinned enslaved woman and her courageous lover risk everything to flee the American South, seeking a sanctuary that only the wider world can truly provide.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Colonel Starbottle's Client

Colonel Starbottle's Client

Bret Harte

A man travels cross-country to offer his life to the family of the opponent he killed in a duel, only to find revenge is far more complicated than a straight exchange of blood.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Elsie's Journey on Inland Waters

Elsie's Journey on Inland Waters

Martha Finley

A wealthy extended family cruises American waterways together, filling their long days afloat with historical storytelling, patriotic gratitude, and gentle moral instruction.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Gaut Gurley

Gaut Gurley

Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) Thompson

Lured by the promise of wealth in the northern woods, a fallen family finds that the deadliest predator on the frontier walks on two legs.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Hatchie, the Guardian Slave

Hatchie, the Guardian Slave

Oliver Optic

Bound to a Southern plantation by law but to his young mistress by profound devotion, an enslaved man becomes her fierce shield against calculating villains and sudden catastrophe.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of In The Valley Of The Shadow

In The Valley Of The Shadow

Josephine Daskam Bacon

A sudden medical crisis brings a weary bachelor into the orbit of an unyielding nurse, upending his settled ideas about women, duty, and love.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Jane Cable

Jane Cable

George Barr McCutcheon

A high-society secret threatens to tear two Chicago lovers apart when past sins catch up with their families.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of Madame Delphine

Madame Delphine

George Washington Cable

A mother’s desperate sacrifice exposes the harsh boundaries of race, law, and love in nineteenth-century New Orleans.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870

Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870

Various

A colorful slice of late nineteenth-century urban culture captures a nation lampooning its own social fractures, political scandals, and literary ambitions.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee: Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel

Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee: Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel

Jarena Lee

An early nineteenth-century itinerant evangelist recounts her spiritual conversion, her fight against gendered hostility, and her thousands of miles traveled to deliver the Gospel.

American Literature14 min read
Cover of Riley Farm-Rhymes

Riley Farm-Rhymes

James Whitcomb Riley

Sunlight filters through orchard leaves, and the scent of damp clover lingers long after childhood has slipped away.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of Songs and Satires

Songs and Satires

Edgar Lee Masters

In a world drowned in transient noise, language breaks down before the absolute depths of human life, leaving us voiceless before grief, urban decay, and elusive love.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

Various

A collection of nineteenth-century American voices probes the arts, politics, domestic life, and the moral urgency of war.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of The Clock Strikes Thirteen

The Clock Strikes Thirteen

Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt

Masked night riders terrorize local farmers until a spunky teenage reporter manipulates a local clock tower to trap the culprits.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Diary of a Saint

The Diary of a Saint

Arlo Bates

A young woman's diary reveals her journey through love, loss, and self-discovery in a small New England town.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of The Great Stone of Sardis

The Great Stone of Sardis

Frank R. Stockton

Deep within the earth, beneath fourteen miles of solid rock, lies a brilliant, unyielding shell of pure diamond that forms the true core of the world.

American Literature6 min read
Cover of The Phantom Herd

The Phantom Herd

B. M. Bower

In the waning days of the open range, a visionary film director and a band of displaced cowboys set out to preserve a dying way of life on celluloid.

American Literature6 min read
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