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American Literature — page 87
4,505 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 87 of 94.
The Travellers: A Tale, Designed for Young People
Catharine Maria Sedgwick
A journey through the American and Canadian wilderness reveals that nature’s grandest spectacles are surpassed only by the quiet, persistent beauty of human virtue and kindness.
"What So Proudly We Hail..."
Day Keene
Ephraim Hale, a Congressman from 1789, awakens in 1950s Central Park, finding the future a confusing, tax-heavy labyrinth where his historical idealism clashes with the harsh realities of the modern American dream.
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A wealthy uncle and his three spirited nieces arrive at a neglected, mysterious farm in the backwoods of Millville, where they soon find themselves embroiled in a local puzzle involving a hidden inheritance and a shady hardware merchant.
Betty Lee, Sophomore
Harriet Pyne Grove
In this vibrant slice of high school life, a grounded sophomore navigates the trials of teenage social hierarchies, track meets, and class loyalties with straightforward charm.
Brenda's Bargain: A Story for Girls
Helen Leah Reed
A bright, spirited young woman navigates the complexities of class and social responsibility while dedicating herself to a Boston settlement house during the tumultuous months leading up to the Spanish-American War.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2, No. 24, September, 1921: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy
Various
A rambunctious, kaleidoscopic snapshot of early 1920s American culture, capturing the era’s shifting social mores, cinematic fascinations, and a persistent, dry, irreverent wit.
From the ball-room to hell
Thomas A. Faulkner
The dance hall is not a playground for the innocent, but a calculated trap where societal veneer masks a descent into moral ruin and physical destruction.
Hard-Pan: A Story of Bonanza Fortunes
Geraldine Bonner
This story follows a woman navigating the precarious social landscape of San Francisco, where the ghosts of past mining fortunes haunt the present and the cruel whims of reputation dictate one's survival.
Harold the Klansman
George Alfred Brown
An earnest, polemical work of 1920s fiction, this story serves as a dramatized defense of the Ku Klansman’s worldview, framing the organization as a bulwark for traditional Christian Americanism against perceived external threats.
Over Paradise Ridge: A Romance
Maria Thompson Daviess
A spirited young woman finds her calling in the rural rhythms of Tennessee, discovering that the most profound harvest of all is the one she reaps alongside her oldest friend.
Pistols for two
H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
In this unorthodox dual biography, a pseudonymous observer attempts to capture the essence of two prominent literary figures by assembling a mosaic of trivial, contradictory, and deeply personal details rather than relying on traditional, unified narrative arcs.
Religious Poems, Part 1.: Part 5 From Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
The poet’s spirit, weary of the world’s clamor, finds a quiet harbor in these verses, seeking the eternal truth of God within the stillness of the human heart.
The Climbers
Lizzie Bates
A young boy resolves to pull himself out of poverty through grit and faith, learning that the path to success is not a single leap, but a steady, step-by-step climb.
The cowboy and the lady and her pa
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
HOOK A wealthy Pittsburgh businessman orchestrates a subtle, ruthless campaign to cure his daughter of a romantic fixation on a Western mountain guide.
The Mystery of Evelin Delorme: A Hypnotic Story
Albert Bigelow Paine
The life of a gifted artist turns into a fever dream when his obsession with two vastly different women leads to a collision between shadow and light. In this hypnotic tale, identity itself becomes the ultimate, fatal illusion.
The Novel and the Common School
Charles Dudley Warner
This critique examines the widening gap between universal literacy and literary quality, arguing that schools must move beyond basic mechanics to cultivate a genuine taste for the classics.
The Romance of an Old Fool
Roswell Martin Field
HOOK A self-proclaimed philosopher attempts to recapture his youth through an engagement to his first love’s daughter, only to discover the painful, necessary wisdom of stepping aside.
A Man and His Money
Frederic Stewart Isham
This is a spirited early-twentieth-century adventure that follows a man’s attempt to shed his inherited wealth and prove his worth on his own terms.
Danger at the Drawbridge
Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt
Penny Parker, an audacious teenaged reporter with a knack for trouble, refuses to let a barricaded drawbridge stop her from landing the story of a lifetime.
Half a dozen boys
Anna Chapin Ray
The quiet struggles of childhood often weigh as heavily as adult burdens, yet they are rarely captured with such gentle, unblinking focus. This is a story of how a small circle of boys and one dedicated young woman navigate the slow, difficult work of growing into character.
Hidden Creek
Katharine Newlin Burt
A young woman, orphaned and thrust into the rugged isolation of the Wyoming frontier, must navigate a dangerous transformation from naive girlhood to the piercing, often painful, reality of adulthood.
Marjorie Dean, Post-Graduate
Josephine Chase
A spirited group of college graduates returns to campus to champion democracy and friendship, navigating the tensions between old-fashioned social hierarchies and the modern, energetic independence of the new woman.
New Nick Carter weekly; No. 28. July 10, 1897; Nick Carter at the track
Nicholas (House name) Carter
This swift, episodic tale follows a legendary detective as he infiltrates the gritty, high-stakes world of urban horse racing to prevent a criminal sabotage. It is a quintessential piece of late-Victorian American pulp fiction.
Outpost
Jane G. (Jane Goodwin) Austin
Hook A lost child and a boy’s desperate, secret devotion anchor this story of redemption. It explores how one person’s strength can reshape the lives of everyone in their orbit.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 9
Various
This anthology captures the distinct, often melancholic atmosphere of late 19th-century American life, tracing the quiet tensions of rural communities, the lingering echoes of the Civil War, and the solitude of those living on the fringes of society. It is a collection that prizes character study and emotional…
The Chief Legatee
Anna Katharine Green
A bride disappears hours after her wedding, setting off a desperate search across Connecticut that uncovers secret identities, fake twins, and a high-stakes conspiracy targeting a vast fortune.
The Chinese Coat
Jennette Lee
A woman discovers a forgotten, mythical garment in a dusty department store, sparking a lifelong quest that transforms her quiet existence into a pilgrimage of mythic proportions.
The Rockspur Eleven: A Fine Football Story for Boys
Burt L. Standish
This story of high-stakes athletics and personal integrity follows a gifted young athlete as he navigates the volatile pride and moral pressures of small-town life. It captures the intensity of youth, where a single mistake can feel like a life-altering tragedy.
The Smart Set: Correspondence & Conversations
Clyde Fitch
In a sequence of epistolary snippets and overheard conversations, late-nineteenth-century New York society drops its polite mask to reveal a world driven by social climbing, marital bargaining, and thin pretenses.
The Uncle of an Angel: 1891
Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone) Janvier
A bachelor of settled habits finds his quiet life upended when he takes charge of a manipulative young ward who knows how to bend every social situation to her advantage.
The Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A fifteen-year-old youth glimpses a captivating female face reflected in a forest spring, spending months lost in romantic longing until a surprise winter encounter reveals the true, earthly identity of his mysterious vision.
The Wooing of Calvin Parks
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
A traveling candy merchant finds his steady rural route upended when a resilient sea-captain's widow and a pair of interdependent cousins challenge his quiet bachelor life.
Viola's vanity
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
HOOK A beautiful socialite’s impulsive marriage to a stranger creates a web of deception that forces her to confront the true cost of her own vanity.
With the Colors: Songs of the American Service
Everard Jack Appleton
The call to service is a heavy burden, but the heart can remain light if it beats in time with a nation’s honor. This collection of verse captures the urgent, patriotic pulse of a country on the brink of a new era.
Lovey Mary
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Rebellious and sharp-tongued, an orphaned thirteen-year-old flees an institutional home to raise a baby on her own, finding unexpected redemption in a chaotic Louisville shantytown.
Maggie Miller: The Story of Old Hagar's Secret
Mary Jane Holmes
An orphaned girl raised in a grand New England estate discovers her life is built on a deception, forcing her to confront her true identity and the shattering loss of her perceived social standing.
Polly of Lady Gay Cottage
Emma C. Dowd
Polly is a selfless, spirited girl whose deep devotion to her adoptive parents and friends is tested by the sudden arrival of long-lost biological relatives. She navigates the complex demands of loyalty, sacrifice, and belonging with unwavering integrity.
Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer (from Literature and Life)
William Dean Howells
This quiet, observational chronicle captures the gentle rhythms of a Maine coastal village, finding profound meaning in the small, passing details of a late-nineteenth-century summer.
The Albany Depot
William Dean Howells
A husband’s innocent errand turns into a chaotic afternoon of mistaken identity and social peril within the frantic, echoing confines of a railway station. This lighthearted farce captures the absurdity of domestic life and the fragility of composure.
The Bobbsey Twins at School
Laura Lee Hope
When a circus train derails near their hometown, the Bobbsey children inherit a clever dog, lose their cat to the circus fat lady, and plunge into a cozy autumn of school, snowball fights, and mysterious fires.
The happiest time of their lives
Alice Duer Miller
The search for authentic connection in a world of social artifice drives this insightful exploration of love, marriage, and the shifting power dynamics between generations in high-society New York.
An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West
Alfred Ernest Rice
When high-society financial fraud turns into child abduction along the Pacific Northwest coast, a betrayed woman and a sharp-witted investigator must unravel a web of disguised identities and malicious deceptions.
Ballads of American bravery
Unknown
From the silent dawn at Ticonderoga to the fiery trials of the Civil War, these stirring ballads capture moments of supreme human courage across America's history.
Bases full!
Ralph Henry Barbour
A new boy at a traditional boarding school sets his sights on the baseball nine, risking everything for a game and a code of loyalty.
Going West
Basil King
A civilian broker enlists for war, falls in a brutal trench encounter, and wakes in a luminous spiritual reality where his love bridges the final chasm between earth and eternity.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XVIII, No. 6, June 1841
Various
A sprawling nineteenth-century periodical opens a window onto an era’s literary ambitions, chronicling dramatic sea voyages, border abductions, and historical reflections.
His fortunate Grace
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
When a wealthy New York heiress trades her youthful radical fads for an impoverished English duke, her family's stability shatters.
Roughing it De Luxe
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
A middle-aged humorist takes a train across the American Southwest, discovering that modern comfort cannot completely tame the desert, the canyons, or the colorful locals.