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American Literature — page 78
4,505 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 78 of 94.
Miss Heck's Thanksgiving Party
Ida Hamilton Munsell
This portrait of a quick-witted, unconventional household worker explores the boundary between personal ambition and systemic inequality. It is a sharp, provocative look at a woman who refuses to be confined by her station.
Poems
Elizabeth Stoddard
Restless, inquisitive eyes scan shifting shorelines, yellowing boughs, and cold city streets, searching for an elusive internal peace that nature repeatedly promises but continuously withholds from the aching, mortal human heart.
Sketches New and Old, Part 4
Mark Twain
This collection of sketches captures the restless wit of a master observer, moving seamlessly from biting social satire to the profound, aching reality of a mother’s search for her lost children.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 10
Various
This collection captures the American spirit at the close of the nineteenth century, blending regional folklore, romantic intrigue, and the moral gravity of human ambition. It offers a multifaceted portrait of a nation in transition, moving from the quiet, timeless traditions of the frontier to the modern, often…
The Cords of Vanity: A Comedy of Shirking
James Branch Cabell
The life of a charming, self-absorbed wanderer reveals that the greatest trap in existence is the persistent, cowardly desire to keep everything exactly as it is.
The Land of Joy
Ralph Henry Barbour
The transition from Southern youth to Harvard student is rarely smooth, yet a collision of pride, secret debts, and a burgeoning romance in the Virginia countryside forces a rapid coming-of-age.
The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Two young lovers seek a perfect place to build a sanctuary for their future joy, only to discover that the only ground available for such a dream is already consecrated to the dead.
The Victim and The Worm
Phyllis Bottome
In two linked stories of domestic power struggles, the author explores how the vanity of the strong attempts to crush the spirit of the vulnerable, and how the victims eventually find their own quiet paths to autonomy.
Under the Country Sky
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
This story of a bright, capable woman navigating the quiet constraints of rural life celebrates the courage required to embrace one’s own happiness. It is a gentle, character-driven narrative about finding love while staying true to one's roots.
Wild oats
James Oppenheim
HOOK A cautionary tale of early 20th-century urban life, this narrative explores the tragic intersection of youthful romance and the hidden, life-altering consequences of untreated venereal disease.
A Beautiful Possibility
Edith Ferguson Black
The beauty of a quiet, faithful life unfolds against the backdrop of shifting fortunes and the enduring power of unconditional love. This narrative explores the intersection of earthly loss and spiritual discovery, mapping the journey from grief to purpose.
A Comedy of Elopement
Christian Reid
A youthful misunderstanding in the Florida sunshine spirals into an enduring test of character, forcing a young woman to choose between the safety of her family’s expectations and the integrity of her own heart.
A Hazard of New Fortunes
William Dean Howells
A literary adventurer of middle age finds his comfortable life in Boston uprooted when he is lured to the bustling, unpredictable, and often brutal landscape of late 19th-century New York.
Bats in the Wall
P. T. Raymond
A young bank clerk finds himself framed for a massive robbery, forced to navigate the dark, treacherous underbelly of Gilded Age New York to clear his name and claim his rightful inheritance.
Coniston
Winston Churchill
A quiet mountain storekeeper becomes entangled in the intricate, unseen machinery of state power, discovering that the man who runs the legislature is a figure of both hidden influence and surprising, lonely humanity.
Elsie and the Raymonds
Martha Finley
A Victorian father guides his children through moral lessons and adventurous travels, balancing firm discipline with deep, sentimental affection in this installment of a long-running family saga.
Footprints
Kay Cleaver Strahan
A single shot shatters a snowbound Oregon ranch house at midnight, leaving a family patriarch dead inside a locked room surrounded by untouched, pristine snow.
For the good of the team
Ralph Henry Barbour
At Manning School, the social fabric of the football team is tested when a proud, established captain clashes with a modern, no-nonsense coach. This conflict forces the protagonist to reconcile his personal ego with the genuine needs of his schoolmates.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 3, March 1847
Various
This mid-century anthology offers a vivid, multifaceted portrait of the Victorian-era American literary imagination, capturing the intellectual vigor and domestic preoccupations of 1847.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 5, November 1847
Various
This collection of mid-century prose, poetry, and social commentary serves as a time capsule, capturing the literary tastes and preoccupations of the American reading public in 1847.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Samuel Hopkins Adams
Samuel Hopkins Adams
These collected works offer a sprawling, multifaceted portrait of early twentieth-century American life, moving seamlessly from investigative crusades against corporate deception to the intimate, character-driven dramas of neighborhood squares and transatlantic voyages.
Isabel Leicester
Maude Alma
Stripped of her fortune by her father’s death, a young Victorian woman enters domestic service as a governess, navigating spiteful relatives, romantic entanglements, and her own bruised pride.
Jane Allen, Right Guard
Edith Bancroft
When a spirited college athlete finds herself the target of a malicious campaign, she discovers that true victory is won through character rather than just the score on the basketball court.
Laicus
Lyman Abbott
A layperson’s quiet journey through the challenges of parish life reveals that true faith is not a matter of intellectual debate, but a transformative experience found in service and sincerity.
Making the Nine
Albertus T. (Albertus True) Dudley
The boys of Phillips Exeter Academy pursue athletic glory and moral character with equal fervor, proving that the toughest games are often played off the field.
Modern daughters
Alexander Black
HOOK This collection of conversational sketches explores the shifting landscape of American womanhood at the close of the nineteenth century through the eyes of a candid, observant male narrator.
Patty at Home
Carolyn Wells
Patty Fairfield, a spirited and affectionate young girl, embarks on the challenges and joys of setting up a new home, discovering that true maturity is found in domestic warmth and the steady exercise of common sense.
Phœbe
Eleanor Gates
A girl swept away from her New York life by a sudden, mysterious telegram must navigate the bewildering world of her father’s relatives and the terrifying specter of her parents’ impending divorce.
Prejudices
Charles Macomb Flandrau
A man who keeps his eyes open while wandering the world finds that the most profound truths are often hidden in the smallest, most inconvenient details of daily life. This collection of essays serves as a sharp, unsentimental map of the early twentieth-century American experience.
Riley Love-Lyrics
James Whitcomb Riley
A heart looks back through the haze of lost summers, finding that true devotion outlasts both youthful rapture and time itself.
Sally in her fur coat
Eliza Orne White
The world is wide and full of wondrous things for those who, earth-bound, never fear a fall. This gentle tale follows two orphaned tiger kittens as they seek a home and discover the joys of domestic life.
Solomon
Constance Fenimore Woolson
The coal-dusted landscapes and remote, mist-shrouded waters of the nineteenth-century American frontier serve as the backdrop for these poignant, atmospheric tales of quiet devotion and fading idealism.
Tales for Fifteen
James Fenimore Cooper
Two cautionary tales explore how young women navigate the perils of romantic delusion, contrasting the pitfalls of unchecked sentimentality with the quiet dignity of a devout, unyielding devotion.
The Draw
Jerome Bixby
The small-town sheriff faces an impossible gunslinger, a boy whose weapon appears in his hand before he can physically reach for it. This tale explores the intersection of human ego and the dormant, terrifying power of the mind.
The Primrose Ring
Ruth Sawyer
This story serves as a bridge between the clinical rigidity of a hospital ward and the boundless, restorative power of the human imagination. It explores the necessity of wonder in environments defined by physical suffering.
The Woman in the Alcove
Jennette Lee
A quiet, introspective drama of a marriage suspended between the drudgery of domestic life and the shimmering possibilities of a secret, inner self. This story reveals how the people closest to us often remain, by our own design, total strangers.
What Can She Do?
Edward Payson Roe
When sudden financial ruin strips three pampered New York sisters of their Fifth Avenue home, they are forced into the country to face the cold realities of self-reliance, temptation, and survival.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 5
Mark Twain
A nineteenth-century engineer is thrust into the medieval past, where he must rely on his technological knowledge and sharp wits to survive, reshape a primitive society, and maintain his precarious status as a miracle-worker.
A private chivalry
Francis Lynde
When a disgraced former gambler takes the fall for a murder he believes the woman he loves committed, his quiet self-sacrifice sets off a tense moral reckoning in the Colorado mining mountains.
Ade's Fables
George Ade
These satirical vignettes capture the frantic, status-obsessed pulse of early twentieth-century American life, exposing the hollow vanities of those who trade their authentic selves for the hollow promise of social prestige.
Arnold's Tempter
Benjamin F. (Benjamin Freeman) Comfort
This historical novel explores the moral disintegration of Benedict Arnold, viewed through the eyes of a mysterious British operative tasked with testing the general’s loyalty and avarice.
Homestead on the Hillside
Mary Jane Holmes
This collection of short stories captures the trials and social maneuvers of mid-19th-century New England life, where domestic virtue and vanity frequently collide. These tales navigate the shifting fortunes of families and the quiet triumphs of the humble over the proud.
Jurgen and the law
Unknown
This volume serves as a vital historical record of a celebrated literary obscenity trial, documenting the legal defense of a work that once challenged the boundaries of early 20th-century censorship. It offers an intimate look at how art and law collided in a New York courtroom, ultimately shaping the standards by…
Keeban
Edwin Balmer
This atmospheric thriller follows an ordinary man thrust into the orbit of a dangerous criminal double, exploring how an encounter with the underworld can permanently alter one’s perception of reality.
Love in Idleness: A Bar Harbour Tale
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
The rugged, pine-scented landscape of Bar Harbor provides the backdrop for a quiet, unfolding tension between two young people testing the boundaries of their own feelings.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870
Various
A rowdy, colorful window into Gilded Age America, capturing a nation wrestling with post-Civil War tension through sharp political satire and absurd parodies.
Rippling Rhymes
Walt Mason
A jaunty, quick-witted look at small-town American life, where everyday frustrations and comic hypocrisies are captured in clever prose disguise.
Sunday at Home (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A reclusive observer sits hidden behind his window curtain on a summer Sunday, watching the quiet pulse of a New England town as it gathers, worships, and scatters around the parish church.