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American Literature — page 70
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 70 of 101.
A Sharper's Downfall
Nicholas (House name) Carter
A master detective tackles a web of stolen secrets, elusive swindlers, and high-society blackmail in a city where no disguise holds for long.
A Yankee from the West: A Novel
Opie Percival Read
In a rolling landscape of lakes and heavy oak woods, a mysterious Westerner seeks redemption on a run-down farm, only to discover that the quiet countryside holds its own tangle of pride, greed, and silent tragedy.
Amos Kilbright
Frank R. Stockton
A man long since drowned at sea is accidentally materialized by spiritualists and must navigate Victorian social norms, employment, and love while dodging a German scientist intent on dematerializing him.
Cambridge Neighbors (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)
William Dean Howells
In the twilight of nineteenth-century New England, a young editor steps into an intellectual sanctuary where scholars dig among roses and conversation is treated as a high art.
Driven Back to Eden
Edward Payson Roe
A city family trades cramped apartments for a sunlit Hudson Valley farm, discovering that hard work, fresh air, and shared purpose can heal both soul and body.
Ella Clinton
Martha Finley
A hot-tempered orphan girl struggles against a harsh guardian and an abusive schoolmaster until a gentle, devout teacher shows her how Christian faith can transform her rebellious heart.
Ester Ried Yet Speaking
Pansy
A young woman’s earnest, unconventional ministry transforms the lives of neglected city boys, proving that persistent faith creates a legacy far beyond a single lifetime.
How Spring Came in New England
Charles Dudley Warner
A cold wind blows through the calendar, teasing human hope with false thaws, premature blossoms, and sudden blizzards. This wry observation captures the volatile battle between polar ice and tropical air that defines the northeastern American landscape.
Luke Walton
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A virtuous Chicago newsboy rises above poverty and petty malice to reclaim his family’s stolen inheritance. This classic tale celebrates the triumph of character over circumstance in a bustling, unforgiving nineteenth-century city.
Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
Marietta Holley
A sharp-witted observer from rural Jonesville navigates the sprawling, dazzling spectacle of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair alongside her stubborn, penny-pinching husband.
The Birds' Christmas Carol
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
A sick child brings warmth to her wealthy home and spends her final Christmas creating a magnificent feast for nine poor neighbors.
The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France
Margaret Vandercook
A group of American Camp Fire Girls in war-torn France witness the transition from the anxieties of early 1918 to the dawn of peace.
The Ordeal: A Mountain Romance of Tennessee
Charles Egbert Craddock
The mountains of Tennessee hold secrets of grief, crime, and long-buried affection, forcing a mother to confront the limits of her own resolve. A lost child becomes the center of a quiet, desperate struggle against an unforgiving wilderness.
The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
This short piece invites us to observe the human condition from the quiet vantage point of a bridge toll-house, where the entire world seems to pass in a single, flickering day.
We Three
Gouverneur Morris
An idle man of privilege becomes tangled in a marriage that is already falling apart, only to discover that love without discipline destroys everyone involved.
A Bad Day for Sales
Fritz Leiber
In the heart of a bustling, consumer-obsessed metropolis, a sophisticated vending robot navigates the expectations of a crowd, oblivious to the fact that his sales pitch is about to be interrupted by total annihilation.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 8
Mark Twain
An ordinary man from nineteenth-century Connecticut wakes up in the sixth century, where he uses his modern ingenuity to overhaul the archaic structures of King Arthur’s court. Through a blend of sharp wit and mechanical prowess, he attempts to drag a medieval society into the light of the industrial age.
A Day of Fate
Edward Payson Roe
A burned-out city journalist finds unexpected salvation and a complicated romance after retreating to the quiet of a country farmhouse.
A Likely Story
William Dean Howells
A playful, lighthearted farce of manners, this brief work centers on a series of hilarious misunderstandings triggered by a misplaced love letter. Its enduring charm lies in its sharp, witty dialogue and its affectionate satire of the social pretenses of its era.
Aunt Jane's Nieces out West
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
The world is a stage, and in a rapidly shifting California, the line between reality and artifice is as fragile as a chalk mark on a studio floor.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 3, No. 30, February, 1922: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy
Various
This collection of wit and philosophy captures the irreverent spirit of 1922, blending rustic humor with the restless energy of the post-war era. It serves as a time capsule of a uniquely American brand of satire.
Collected poems of Clarence Edwin Flynn, first series
Clarence Edwin Flynn
This collection gathers the rhythmic, earnest verses of a Methodist clergyman and prolific writer, chronicling a world defined by the quiet virtues of duty, religious faith, and the dignity of humble labor.
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.
In the Heart of the Christmas Pines
Leona Dalrymple
A lonely woman fleeing her past finds unexpected warmth and redemption in a small town nestled among Christmas pines.
Jack Winters' Baseball Team
Mark Overton
Amidst the high-stakes pressure of a championship baseball game, a young captain must protect his team from corruption, mystery, and the weight of their own reputations.
Mr. Togo: Maid of all Work
Wallace Irwin
A Japanese schoolboy journeys through American households as a domestic servant, offering a sharp, humorous, and strangely insightful critique of his employers’ absurdities.
Navy Day
Harry Harrison
Military grandstanding turns into a surreal bureaucratic arms race when technological breakthroughs redefine land and sea power overnight.
R. Holmes & Co.: Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and Amateur Cracksman by Birth
John Kendrick Bangs
Conceived by two grand literary lineages, Raffles Holmes carries a double inheritance: the analytical intellect of Sherlock Holmes and the larcenous instincts of A. J. Raffles.
Sisters
Kathleen Thompson Norris
The sudden, intoxicating joy of a young girl’s first engagement gives way to a long, arduous education in the realities of marriage, loss, and the quiet, often painful, redirection of the human heart.
The Cattle-Baron's Daughter
Harold Bindloss
HOOK A fierce struggle for the future of the American frontier unfolds as a cattle-baron’s daughter chooses between her father’s fading empire and the man leading the homesteaders’ revolution.
The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses from an Old Manse")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The bustling, chaotic city masks a quiet, somber office where a mysterious clerk records the deepest, most desperate, and often contradictory wishes of the human heart. Here, the tangible desires of the world collide with the infinite.
The unlit lamp
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
The unlit lamp is a somber, intimate portrait of a woman’s struggle for identity within a stifling marriage and an emotionally distant family. It captures the quiet erosion of the self through the weight of domestic expectation.
Trif and Trixy: A story of a dreadfully delightful little girl and her adoring and tormented parents, relations, and friends
John Habberton
A precocious seven-year-old girl, through her innocent meddling and accidental revelations, unwittingly orchestrates the romantic lives of her parents’ social circle, causing both chaos and unexpected joy.
What She Could
Susan Warner
A young girl learns that faith is not a passive sentiment, but a series of deliberate, often difficult choices made in the quiet corners of daily life.
With Trumpet and Drum
Eugene Field
A collection of verse centered on the sanctuary of the home, this work explores the profound joy, aching loss, and quiet sanctity found in the lives of children. It captures the fleeting nature of youth through the eyes of those who watch it pass.
A bad penny
John T. (John Tyler) Wheelwright
The sea calls to the restless, and for a young man chafing under the rigid expectations of New England, the horizon offers both a path toward maturity and a mirror to his family’s darkest secrets.
An independent daughter
Amy Ella Blanchard
A young woman’s path toward maturity is complicated by a startling discovery about her own parentage. This story follows an independent spirit as she navigates the transition from college life to the weight of adult responsibility.
Brite and Fair
Henry A. (Henry Augustus) Shute
This diary captures the relentless, messy, and hilarious energy of childhood, where every minor grievance is a tragedy and every afternoon is a potential battlefield. It is an honest, unvarnished look at a boy’s world.
In the Garden of Delight
Lily Hardy Hammond
The struggle of the human spirit to find beauty amidst physical suffering is the true subject of this narrative, which explores how the "Garden of Delight" is not a place, but a perspective.
Janet
Louise Élise Gibbons
This is a stark, heart-wrenching portrait of childhood poverty in 19th-century New York, where the indifference of the city stands in cruel contrast to a young girl’s desperate pursuit of grace.
Samantha Among the Colored Folks: "My Ideas on the Race Problem"
Marietta Holley
A sharp-tongued, observant rural housewife navigates the complexities of post-Reconstruction America, offering a plain-spoken critique of Southern race relations through the eyes of a traveler witnessing deep systemic injustice.
Scott Burton, Forester
Edward G. (Edward Gheen) Cheyney
The young man who leaves his comfortable home for a rigorous, frontier education discovers that the true weight of his future lies in the calluses on his hands and the integrity of his choices.
Seventeen Years in the Underworld
Wellington Scott
A man who spent nearly two decades navigating the shadows of the criminal world reflects on his journey from a lonely, nearsighted youth to a reformed citizen, offering a rare, intimate perspective on the American penal system.
The girl from Hollywood
Edgar Rice Burroughs
A privileged Southern family’s idyllic California ranch life collides with the dangerous, drug-fueled underworld of the early Hollywood motion picture industry.
The Passing of the Storm, and Other Poems
Alfred Castner King
The high, snow-bound wilderness of the American West serves as the backdrop for a collection of verses that find, in the isolation of the mountains, a sanctuary for the weary and the repentant. These poems, written at the dawn of the twentieth century, weave together the rugged realities of prospecting with the…
The Prince and the Pauper, Part 7
Mark Twain
An unlikely pair—a displaced monarch and a disinherited knight—navigate the brutal underworld and deceptive drawing rooms of Tudor England. Their quest is not merely for a crown, but for recognition in a world that denies their existence.
The Vision of Elijah Berl
Frank Lewis Nason
A visionary irrigation pioneer struggles to transform the California desert, finding himself trapped between his obsession for progress, a complex romantic entanglement, and the crushing weight of his own illicit financial decisions.
The Yellow Chief
Mayne Reid
A vengeful survivor of a brutal plantation upbringing leads a Cheyenne war party to annihilate his former masters on the frontier, only to be confronted by a debt of blood he can never escape.