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American Literature — page 74
3,593 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 74 of 75.
Instead of the Thorn: A Novel
Clara Louise Burnham
HOOK A sudden financial ruin forces a privileged young woman to trade her glittering city life for the quiet, rugged coast of Maine, where she must confront the truth about her father’s legacy and her own heart.
Little Button Rose
Louisa May Alcott
A small, irrepressible girl arrives at the home of her three elderly, distant cousins, only to discover a household stifled by ancient feuds and rigid habits. By simply being herself, she heals the hearts around her.
Mildred Keith
Martha Finley
HOOK This is a story of a young woman’s grace in the face of frontier hardship, where the true battlefields are the hearth and the heart.
Mystery Ranch
Arthur Chapman
The expansive, unforgiving landscape of the American West serves as a stage for a tense struggle between justice, greed, and hidden identities. Amidst the shifting loyalties of a frontier reservation, a murder investigation forces a young Indian agent to confront the truth behind a local ranch’s dark legacy.
"Run To Seed": 1891
Thomas Nelson Page
The story of a young man from a fallen Southern family, this narrative explores the weight of inheritance, the cruelty of social judgment, and the quiet dignity of a life lived for others.
Sister Dolorosa, and Posthumous Fame
James Lane Allen
A quiet, haunting meditation on the cost of devotion, this volume gathers two tales of souls caught between their earthly longings and the rigid, often silent, demands of sacrifice and memory.
The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain
The quintessential account of the American traveler abroad, this book chronicles a grand tour that remains as bitingly funny and irreverent today as it was in the nineteenth century.
The Last Lady of Mulberry: A Story of Italian New York
Henry Wilton Thomas
A young artist’s quest for fame collides with the tangled romantic machinations of a close-knit Italian immigrant community in turn-of-the-century New York.
The Rising of the Tide: The Story of Sabinsport
Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell
A small-town newspaper editor struggles to reconcile his local crusade for reform with the overwhelming, world-altering demands of a global war.
The step on the stair
Anna Katharine Green
A chance encounter in New York leads a man into his namesake cousin’s world, only to find himself entangled in a web of family secrets, sudden death, and a missing inheritance.
The Twin Mystery
Nicholas (House name) Carter
A cunning master of disguise taunts a legendary detective, sparking a high-stakes chase through the gaslit streets of New York and Philadelphia.
What's-His-Name
George Barr McCutcheon
The quiet, overlooked husband of a rising Broadway star fights to retain his dignity and his daughter as his wife’s fame pulls her into a world that no longer has room for him.
Betty Leicester's Christmas
Sarah Orne Jewett
A young girl finds that the secret to a lonely holiday is not in receiving gifts, but in the quiet, intentional work of making others feel at home.
Clue of the Silken Ladder
Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt
HOOK When a young woman stumbles upon a mysterious silk ladder, her relentless curiosity pulls her into a web of spiritualist charlatans, apartment burglaries, and a high-stakes search for justice.
Devil tales
Virginia Frazer Boyle
Bound together by dark conjure, restless spirits, and the heavy air of the plantation Quarters, these ten eerie tales chart the eternal, desperate battle between human souls and the devil's subtle, terrifying guile.
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
A resilient woman living in a ramshackle neighborhood proves that even in the deepest poverty, a cheerful spirit can transform a scrap-filled life into something song-worthy.
Sarah Dillard's Ride: A Story of the Carolinas in 1780
James Otis
Two young patriots race against time to warn their neighbors of a looming British surprise attack, risking everything to outwit a treacherous local spy and change the course of the Revolutionary War.
The Annes
Marion Ames Taggart
A profound struggle between personal desire and moral duty consumes a young woman caught in an impossible tangle of love and obligation.
The Lion and the Mouse
Charles Klein
This story explores the collision between unchecked corporate power and individual integrity, centered on a young woman who inadvertently finds herself dismantling the empire of the man who ruined her father.
The School Four
Albertus T. (Albertus True) Dudley
The playing field is a crucible for character in this turn-of-the-century tale of schoolboy ambition, where athletic prowess and personal integrity are tested side by side.
What Might Have Been Expected
Frank R. Stockton
A brother and sister embark on a series of industrious, homegrown ventures in rural Virginia to secure the well-being of a beloved elderly neighbor.
A Good Samaritan
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
A young theological student sacrifices his own career prospects to shepherd an intoxicated athlete through the streets of New York, proving that genuine Christian charity belongs in the chaotic real world.
A Silent Singer
Clara Morris
A collection of domestic and theatrical sketches, this late nineteenth-century volume reveals the quiet heartbreaks and sudden warmth tucked into ordinary American lives.
After the Storm
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
A brief midsummer storm gives way to a clear night, foreshadowing a marriage launched with deep affection, wrecked by stubborn pride, and painfully rebuilt over years of lonely self-examination.
Bowery Life
Chuck Connors
Every street has its legend, but turn-of-the-century Chatham Square belongs entirely to Chuck Connors, a prize-fighting raconteur who transforms the rowdy, smoke-filled alleys of New York’s Bowery into a theatrical stage for high-spirited survival and street-corner philosophy.
Ethel Morton's Holidays
Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke) Smith
A group of spirited, civic-minded young people discover that true holiday magic lies in quiet service to others, transforming seasonal celebrations into practical acts of generosity.
Golden Stars, and Other Verses Following "The Red Flower"
Henry Van Dyke
Seeking peace in a world fractured by violence demands a battle between conscience and duty, where sacrifice becomes the ultimate price of liberty.
Higgins, a Man's Christian
Norman Duncan
A physically imposing minister trudges through Minnesota snowstorms to drag drunk lumberjacks out of mud and saloon trapdoors, risking his own life to show abandoned, roughened men that someone still values their souls.
Meadowlark Basin
B. M. Bower
A quiet valley hiding stolen gold becomes the battleground for a young cowboy fighting to save an abused orphan and protect his range.
More "Short Sixes"
H. C. (Henry Cuyler) Bunner
A small-town scholar buying a home sight unseen finds himself hosting a displaced horse in his new kitchen.
Nancy Brandon
Lilian Garis
A teenaged girl buys a sleepy village store for a summer lark, only to find herself managing neighborhood chaos, secret chimneypiece vaults, and a vanishing professor.
Roughing It, Part 5
Mark Twain
In the lawless boomtowns of the American West, high-stakes speculation transforms daily existence into a surreal theater of sudden fortunes, absurd violence, and instant ruin.
The Florentine Dagger: A Novel for Amateur Detectives
Ben Hecht
A brooding playwright believes his ancestral bloodline carries a curse of violence and madness, until a macabre murder in a theatrical apartment forces him to untangle a web of staged clues and inherited secrets.
The Gilded Age, Part 1
Mark Twain
A family’s wild scheme to get rich off thousands of acres of wilderness plunges them into an intoxicating world of speculation, where big talk consistently replaces real money.
The Moon is Green
Fritz Leiber
Inside a lead-shielded bunker, a desperate woman mistakes a radioactive wanderer for a savior offering entry into a reborn, magical surface world.
The mystery of Central Park
Nellie Bly
A quiet morning walk in New York turns dark when a wealthy young couple discovers a beautifully dressed woman dead on a Central Park bench, leaving no mark, no identity, and no obvious cause of death.
Throckmorton: A Novel
Molly Elliot Seawell
In quiet Post-Bellum Virginia, romantic longings collide with rigid social expectations when an outcast former Union officer returns to his ancestral home, sparking passions that unravel two local families.
To Him That Hath
Leroy Scott
A silent sacrifice buries a young author's reputation, casting him into the harsh, unforgiving depths of New York’s criminal underworld.
Whistler
Walter Aimwell
A spirited, mid-nineteenth-century boy's adventure, this narrative shows how true courage, quiet honesty, and daily discipline shape a young man far better than mere bravery or bravado.
Winning his game
Ralph Henry Barbour
A high-school pitcher struggling for recognition must navigate shifting friendships, campus social pressures, and his own self-doubt to earn his place on the team.
A Pilgrim Maid: A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620
Marion Ames Taggart
Young Constance Hopkins carries the burden of a fractured family and a harsh winter as the Mayflower anchors in the New World.
American Scenery, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Nathaniel Parker Willis
A sweeping tour of early American rivers, wilderness bluffs, and growing towns reveals a landscape shaped by raw nature, violent frontier histories, and rapid modern expansion.
Asleep in Armageddon
Ray Bradbury
A lone survivor of a rocket crash discovers that the serene, sunny planetoid beneath his feet harbors ancient, hungry minds that can only claim him when he closes his eyes.
Beyond the Gates
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
Crossing the threshold of death during a bout of brain fever, a pragmatic middle-aged woman wakes to discover that the afterlife is a tangible, evolving world of familiar loves and profound spiritual growth.
Call Him Savage
Howard Browne
A time-traveling alien Indian tries to reconquer America for Native Americans, but modern life gets in his way.
Clover and Blue Grass
Eliza Calvert Hall
A rural Kentucky community moves through small crises and quiet awakenings, where local gossip, traditional pride, and unvarnished Christian charity reshape the everyday lives of ordinary neighbors.
Eatin' Crow
Frank Harris
In a gold-mining camp where status is dictated by violence, two newcomers attempt to assert their dignity—one through reckless bravado and the other through wit—only to find that pride carries a fatal price.
Fresh Every Hour: Detailing the Adventures, Comic and Pathetic of One Jimmy Martin, Purveyor of Publicity, a Young Gentleman Possessing Sublime Nerve, Whimsical Imagination, Colossal Impudence, and, Withal, the Heart of a Child
John Peter Toohey
A young publicist uses his boundless imagination and brazen schemes to manipulate the press, only to find that his most enduring performance is the one he directs toward the woman he loves.