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American Literature — page 79
4,619 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 79 of 97.
Another Summer: The Yellowstone Park and Alaska
Charles J. Gillis
This travelogue captures a Gilded Age excursion across the North American continent, offering a window into the scenery, infrastructure, and social spirit of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska in the summer of 1892.
Evelina's Garden
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
In the quiet corners of a New England village, an aging recluse finds her solitary life—and a legacy of unfulfilled longing—intertwined with the fate of a young namesake and a forbidden romance.
Keineth
Jane Abbott
The child of a diplomat, Keineth Randolph is whisked away from her sheltered, intellectual life to live with a boisterous family in the country while her father serves the government abroad. She must learn to trade her formal lessons and frilled dresses for tennis, swimming, and the messy, joyous chaos of being an…
Mischievous Maid Faynie
Laura Jean Libbey
Two broad-shouldered young men brave a roaring Manhattan blizzard, setting in motion a breathless tale of stolen identities, attempted murder, and resilient young love.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 7
Various
A collection of late-19th-century American short fiction, this volume offers a window into the era’s shifting social landscapes, from the languid resorts of the South to the rigid hierarchies of New York and the romanticized expatriate life in Europe.
Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop
Anne Warner
Two neighbors spend their days leaning on a fence, dissecting the absurd, often chaotic lives of their small-town peers with sharp tongues and relentless curiosity.
The American Newspaper
Charles Dudley Warner
The American newspaper is a complex, profit-driven machine that shapes public consciousness, yet it often struggles to balance its commercial necessity with its role as a mirror of modern civilization.
The hope of happiness
Meredith Nicholson
The quiet, persistent search for purpose and belonging shapes the lives of those caught between the rigid expectations of family legacy and the unpredictable pull of personal desire.
The House in Town
Susan Warner
A small girl navigates the jarring transition from a neglected life to the sudden luxury of a wealthy New York home, struggling to reconcile her new comforts with the moral demands of her faith.
The Messengers
Richard Harding Davis
This story captures the breathless, often irrational intensity of early twentieth-century romance, where a man’s devotion is measured by his capacity for grand, impulsive gestures. It is a whimsical look at the intersection of desperate hope and the mysterious ways we interpret the world when we are in love.
The Miracle Man
Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
A cynical confidence man discovers that the power of faith can perform miracles he never intended to orchestrate. This transformation of a heart—and a life—is the core of a story that lingers long after the final page.
The Naturewoman
Upton Sinclair
A woman raised in the South Seas attempts to liberate a stifled Boston family from their conventional lives, only to discover that the weight of their social customs is far heavier than she imagined.
The Pagans
Arlo Bates
The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. The lives of a small circle of artists and bohemians in late nineteenth-century Boston unravel through ambition, infidelity, and the persistent pull of the past.
The Reign of Gilt
David Graham Phillips
The American landscape is a battlefield where the insatiable hunger for inherited status clashes with the raw, leveling power of democratic progress. This work serves as an unflinching dissection of those competing forces.
The Story of Glass
Sara Ware Bassett
The Story of Glass weaves together the history of a sophisticated craft and the personal journey of an orphaned girl finding her place in a world of family, industry, and home.
Traits of American Humour, Vol. 2 of 3
Unknown
This collection serves as a vibrant, kaleidoscopic survey of 19th-century American identity, captured through the regional tall tales, vernacular sketches, and character studies that defined the nation’s burgeoning literary humor.
Trial and Triumph
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
A fiery, orphaned Black girl grows into a determined young woman, fighting racial prejudice and personal heartbreak to build a life of principle, intellect, and moral purpose.
Above the French Lines: Letters of Stuart Walcott, American Aviator: July 4, 1917, to December 8, 1917
Stuart Walcott
HOOK A young pilot’s final months unfold in this collection of letters, capturing the exhilarating, precarious dawn of aerial warfare on the Western Front.
American Literary Centers (from Literature and Life)
William Dean Howells
American literature possesses a unique, decentralized spirit that defies the gravity of a single capital city. By tracing the movement of writers across the continent, this essay examines how regional voices shaped a national identity.
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.
"Bobbie", a Story of the Confederacy
Kate Langley Bosher
This historical narrative follows the life of a young Southern man whose charm and unwavering character define him, set against the backdrop of the American Civil War. It is a portrait of a vanishing world, centered on the bonds of family, the traditions of the plantation, and the inevitable encroachment of a…
Colonel Carter of Cartersville
Francis Hopkinson Smith
An impoverished Virginia aristocrat chases grand financial schemes in New York, sustained only by supreme courtesy, devoted friends, and an indelible bond with his former slave.
Confessions of Boyhood
John Albee
This memoir traces a nineteenth-century New England youth, exploring how the quiet rhythms of a rural upbringing—marked by woods, rivers, and manual labor—shape the consciousness of a budding poet.
Frank Merriwell's Trust
Burt L. Standish
A classic hero navigates the dangerous underworld of New York City, protecting his friends and pursuing justice while discovering the enduring power of true love.
Iole
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
In a satire of the Arts and Crafts movement, an eccentric patriarch raises eight daughters on Greek grammar and pink bloomers, only to watch them fall for pragmatic suitors.
Just sweethearts: A Christmas love story
Harry Stillwell Edwards
A chance encounter on a busy street corner sparks a romantic mystery, bridging the gap between a struggling Southern architect and a woman whose secrets prove as alluring as her beauty.
Return to Earth
Willis Knapp Jones
A man returns to his home planet after eighteen years among an alien race, only to discover that his grand homecoming is a tragic collision between human prejudice and interstellar detachment.
The Shoulders of Atlas: A Novel
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
A quiet, aging couple in a struggling shoe-town find their moral equilibrium shattered when they inherit a fortune and become entangled in the desperate, hidden lives of their neighbors.
The Transgressors. Story of a Great Sin. A Political Novel of the Twentieth Century
Francis A. (Francis Alexandre) Adams
Political upheaval and moral reckoning collide in this urgent, turn-of-the-century drama of class conflict and systemic corruption. A principled lawyer rises to challenge the entrenched power of industrial monopolies, leading a nation toward a new era.
Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
The American Expeditionary Force reaches the front, where young officers discover that courage is a skill, duty is a constant, and the fight for global liberty requires more than just spirit—it demands cold, calculated professionalism.
Wild Oranges
Joseph Hergesheimer
The stillness of a stagnant bay serves as the stage for a haunting collision between a solitary voyager and a woman trapped in the decaying shadow of her father’s past.
A Cathedral Singer
James Lane Allen
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine rises over Morningside Heights, a stone testament to eternity, casting a long shadow over the lives of those caught in the frantic, fragile pulse of New York City.
A landscape painter
Henry James
A landscape painter is a man who studies the world with a cool, detached eye, only to find himself unexpectedly undone by the very life he intended to observe from a distance.
Hetty's Strange History
Helen Hunt Jackson
A woman sacrifices her identity and home in a radical act of self-effacement, driven by a private, agonizing logic that defies the conventions of her small New England community.
Hope and Have
Oliver Optic
A spirited, wayward orphan finds her path to redemption through an unlikely encounter with a dying saint and a terrifying struggle for survival on the Minnesota frontier.
Nick Carter Stories No. 156, September 4, 1915: Blood Will Tell
Nicholas (House name) Carter
A veteran detective untangles a complex political frame-up when a prominent banker is accused of a brutal murder he did not commit.
The Bibliography of Walt Whitman
Frank Shay
The definitive map for navigating the complex, ever-evolving terrain of America’s most restless poet, this essential volume traces every printing of his sprawling life’s work. It is the story of a book that refused to be finished.
The bushwhackers & other stories
Charles Egbert Craddock
The Tennessee mountains serve as both sanctuary and stage for the small, intense dramas of men caught between the shifting loyalties of war and the relentless march of time.
The collector's whatnot
Booth Tarkington
A playful, dryly humorous guide for the enthusiast, this work satirizes the burgeoning American obsession with antique collecting. It offers a mock-serious syllabus of advice, history, and "expert" testimony that manages to mock both the preciousness of collectors and the absurdity of the market itself.
The Governess
Julie M. Lippmann
A stubborn, wild-tempered girl wages a silent war against the new governess hired to tame her, only to discover that her strict guardian hides a selfless devotion and a secretive past tied to her own family.
The Last American: A Fragment from The Journal of Khan-li, Prince of Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy
John Ames Mitchell
A Persian admiral discovers the ruins of a fallen, forgotten superpower, only to encounter the final remnants of its people in a tragic, violent final act.
The Loom of the Desert
Idah Meacham Strobridge
The desert is a cruel weaver, turning the lives of men and women into a somber fabric of sorrow, sin, and rare, fleeting joy. This collection of sketches captures the harsh reality of life in the early Nevada West.
The wild fawn
Mary Imlay Taylor
A sheltered Virginia family faces scandal and social upheaval when their ambitious eldest son returns from abroad with a bride whose vibrant, cosmopolitan nature clashes with their rigid, small-town expectations.
Wedded by fate
Sheldon, Georgie, Mrs.
A physician weds a mysterious, selfless woman, only for his social-climbing family to tear them apart through deception and forced exile. In this tale of identity and endurance, the truth proves as relentless as the tide.
A summer journey to Brazil
Alice R. Humphrey
To the turn-of-the-century American traveler, Brazil was a vast, mysterious frontier, often overshadowed by the well-trodden paths of Europe and Asia. This account captures the vibrant transformation of a nation emerging from empire into republic.
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.
Hilda Strafford: A California Story
Beatrice Harraden
A young woman travels to a remote, sun-scorched California ranch to join her husband, only to discover that the harsh landscape and their growing emotional distance threaten to destroy them both.
Index for Works of Holman Day: Hyperlinks to all Chapters of all Individual Ebooks
Holman Day
These chronicles capture the rugged spirit of early twentieth-century Maine, where industry, ambition, and the untamed wilderness collide in stories of railroads, coastlines, and iron-willed individuals.