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American Literature — page 94
4,619 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 94 of 97.

Plantation echoes
Elliott Blaine Henderson
This collection of turn-of-the-century dialect poetry offers a raw, unfiltered window into the daily life, anxieties, and resilient humor of an era defined by struggle and transition.

Scott Burton in the Blue Ridge
Edward G. (Edward Gheen) Cheyney
A young forester arrives in the Blue Ridge Mountains to manage a timber contract, only to find himself trapped in the crosshairs of a generational blood feud. He must navigate local hostility and violence to bring professional order to a lawless landscape.

Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 11, July 3, 1858
Unknown
In a world of mid-nineteenth-century political theater and urban grit, one man documents the tragic decline of a local poet and the moral decay of his bustling city.

The educated Negro and his mission
W. S. (William Sanders) Scarborough
Higher learning is not a luxury for a developing people, but the essential compass that guides brawn with wisdom and secures a lasting future.

The Good Neighbors
Edgar Pangborn
The arrival of a gargantuan, drifting creature over American cities triggers a panicked military response, leading to a catastrophe that reveals the vast, chilling indifference of a far more advanced alien civilization.

The spokesman's secretary
Upton Sinclair
A sharp-witted manicure girl from New Jersey finds herself at the center of Washington’s political machinery, secretly shaping the pronouncements of the nation’s highest office.

The Transfiguration of Miss Philura
Florence Morse Kingsley
A pinched spinster swaps resignation for radical metaphysical belief, spending her meager savings on plumes and a husband already guaranteed by the universe.

The Treasure
Kathleen Thompson Norris
Finding reliable household help becomes an unexpected catalyst for shifting family dynamics and traditional gender roles in early-twentieth-century suburbia.

The Up Grade
Wilder Goodwin
A man adrift in the Arizona territory finds redemption through grueling labor and a hard-won sense of purpose, proving that inner strength is the only reliable cure for a fractured soul.

A jar of jelly beans
Franklin Gregory
In a future crippled by overpopulation and resource collapse, one scientist proposes a radical, biological solution: shrinking the human race.

A memoir of Miss Hannah Adams
Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
This account chronicles the life of a pioneering American scholar who overcame poverty, physical frailty, and profound social isolation to establish herself as a respected literary voice in the early nineteenth century.

Bottoms Up: An Application of the Slapstick to Satire
George Jean Nathan
The theater is a temple of illusions, but this collection of satires exposes the tawdry scaffolding behind the curtain. It is a witty, biting deconstruction of the clichés that governed the American stage in the early twentieth century.

Bride Roses
William Dean Howells
A cold winter day in a floral shop becomes the setting where life, romance, and sudden bereavement collide over a single batch of white blossoms.

Harper's Round Table, July 23, 1895
Various
This midsummer edition of a classic American weekly offers a vibrant, multifaceted snapshot of nineteenth-century life, blending earnest moral instruction with the spirited, restless curiosity of the Victorian youth.

Proud Lady
Neith Boyce
A young woman’s pride and emotional reserve collide with the turbulent, demanding nature of her husband as they attempt to build a life in a provincial Midwestern town.

Religious Poems, Part 2.: Part 6 From Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
In these reflective verses, the search for spiritual meaning moves beyond rigid dogma, finding a quiet, enduring grace in the simple conduct of a life lived for others.

Rubáiyát of Doc Sifers
James Whitcomb Riley
A humble country physician of the American frontier finds a quiet, profound greatness through his simple devotion to his neighbors, his patients, and the natural world.

The Amethyst Box
Anna Katharine Green
She knew the small vial contained a single drop of deadly poison, yet as she held it above her aunt’s bedside, a sudden cry shattered the midnight silence.

The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems
Arch Alfred McKillen
A haunting collection of verse written in the aftermath of global conflict, these poems chart the desperate, intimate bonds formed between men facing the finality of war and the sea.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 6
Mark Twain
An American engineer finds himself transported to the court of King Arthur, where he attempts to overhaul a medieval society with the tools of nineteenth-century industry, science, and democratic idealism.

Across the Chasm
Julia Magruder
HOOK A young Southerner visits Northern relatives, testing whether the deep divides of post-Civil War America can be bridged by personal connection or if some gaps are destined to remain.

California
Ina D. (Ina Donna) Coolbrith
California stands as a vibrant testament to the promise of the American West, reimagining the region not merely as a frontier, but as a muse destined to inspire the next generation of great poets.

Calumet "K"
Samuel Merwin
The rush to complete a massive grain elevator against a brutal deadline pushes men to their physical and psychological limits. This intense, industrial drama captures the raw collision of engineering ambition, labor strife, and human connection.

Dirty Work for Doughgod
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The quiet life of a frontier town turns into a frantic, slapstick disaster when a group of bumbling cowhands tries to manage an unexpected visitor. A series of misunderstandings spirals out of control, leaving everyone involved bruised, exhausted, and desperately trying to outrun their own mistakes.

Life on the Mississippi, Part 8
Mark Twain
The river is a stage for both the noble and the absurd, where a traveler’s sharp eye unmasks the truth hidden beneath a veneer of romantic pretense.

The Battle of the Bells
Jerome Bixby
The Battle of the Bells is a whimsical, philosophical fantasy that explores the cosmic significance of human morality through the lens of a small-town prank.

Ticknor and Company Book Catalog (1887)
Ticknor and Company
A comprehensive window into the literary landscape of 1887, this catalog reveals the diverse tastes, intellectual ambitions, and artistic standards of late nineteenth-century American readers.

A heroine of 1812
Amy Ella Blanchard
A spirited young woman navigates the personal and political turbulence of the War of 1812, balancing familial loyalty with her own burgeoning independence in the face of conflict.

Cold Ghost
Chester S. Geier
The relentless, subzero wilderness of Alaska provides the backdrop for a chilling study of guilt. A greedy trapper attempts to commit the perfect crime, only to find that some debts are paid in ice.

Little Pilgrim at Aunt Lou's
Ella Rodman Church
A young girl trades the familiar comforts of her city home for the sprawling adventures of a summer on a bustling farm.

Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor
Unknown
This collection gathers the voices of a nation finding its sense of humor, ranging from the gentle irony of the parlor to the sharp, frontier-hardened wit of the backwoods. It is a portrait of a developing cultural identity told through laughter.

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.

Tattle-tales of Cupid
Paul Leicester Ford
Love is a battlefield of misdirection, where the most earnest intentions are often undone by the very schemes designed to secure them.

The Chameleon Man
William P. McGivern
The world is full of people who leave no impression, but few possess the literal power to vanish into the background. For one man, this gift is a profound isolation, until a desperate talent scout sees the ultimate stage trick.

The Hand
Jerry Sohl
A rural housewife, a hostile husband, and a stray dog collide with the desperate crew of a crashed spacecraft. In this haunting encounter, the cost of human cruelty is measured in flesh and bone.

The Old-Time Spelling School
John G. Ellenbecker
The past is a country we visit through memory, and here the border is a one-room schoolhouse filled with the sharp, competitive joy of a winter spelling bee. This narrative poem captures a forgotten frontier ritual, preserving the spirit of a community that found its greatest excitement in the precision of language…

The Tree of Appomattox
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
Two cousins, divided by the tragic rupture of a nation, navigate the brutal, closing chapters of the American Civil War with unwavering loyalty to their separate causes.

Bruvver Jim's Baby
Philip Verrill Mighels
The transformation of a rough, neglected mining camp through the arrival of a singular, fragile foundling proves that even the most hardened lives are capable of profound tenderness.

Call Him Savage
Howard Browne
A time-traveling alien Indian tries to reconquer America for Native Americans, but modern life gets in his way.

Oklahoma and Other Poems
Freeman Edwin Miller
A wild frontier springs to life through ringing meter, where the thunder of a land run yields to quiet farmsteads and the ache of memory.

The Angel of the Tenement
George Madden Martin
A lost child dropped into a harsh city building transforms the lives of its weary working-class residents through sheer innocence, kindness, and quiet affection.

Through unknown ways
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
A young woman navigates the social hierarchies and religious anxieties of Restoration England, finding her own path through life’s unexpected detours. This intimate, character-driven story maps a journey from servitude to personal autonomy and peace.

Wolf's Head: 1911
Charles Egbert Craddock
In a remote wilderness where the law is often a death warrant, a young woman’s impulsive mercy becomes the only shield for a man branded as a beast. She risks everything to rewrite a narrative that was never hers to judge.

A Select Party
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A wealthy visionary builds a glittering palace out of evening clouds and invites the world's most elusive, legendary, and hypothetical figures to a grand banquet.

American ideas for English readers
James Russell Lowell
These collected addresses document the diplomatic and literary life of a celebrated American thinker during his time in England. They serve as a bridge between the nineteenth-century transatlantic world and the enduring necessity of international friendship.

Best laid schemes
Meredith Nicholson
The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry, and in these interconnected tales, the unintended consequences of human ambition provide a wry look at the social and moral fabric of early twentieth-century American life.

Classified object
John Victor Peterson
A stray, unpiloted vessel lands in a public park, concealing a weapon capable of extinguishing the world. Its arrival forces a brilliant, haunted physicist to confront a truth more terrifying than the ship itself.

Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the American dream found a unique expression in the rigid, disciplined halls of the United States Military Academy. This narrative follows two inseparable friends as they navigate the rigorous transition from boyhood to the threshold of a commissioned officer’s life.