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Biographies — page 11
514 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 11 of 11.

Confessions of St. Augustine
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
A soul in torment lays bare its fractures, transforming personal regret into a brilliant, searching dialogue with the divine.

Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Sarah Knowles Bolton
An accumulation of personal fortune becomes meaningful only when transformed into a public legacy through purpose, discipline, and deliberate generosity.

Richard III: His Life & Character, Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research
Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
Unexamined partisan slanders have obscured the truth of a misunderstood reign, replacing a capable ruler with a grotesque literary monster. This detailed historical review systematically strips away Tudor propaganda to restore the real character of a fallen prince.

The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and Letters
E. E. (Emma Elizabeth) Brown
A boy who once drove mules along an Ohio canal reaches the White House through sheer intellectual vigor and moral resolve, only to have his life cut short by an assassin’s bullet.

The Soul of Abraham Lincoln
William E. (William Eleazar) Barton
Faith, skepticism, and political strategy converge in a exhaustive study that unpicks decades of partisan myth to reveal the evolving interior life of America's sixteenth president.

George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)
George Eliot
A mind of intense intellectual power navigating the friction between private vulnerability and public renown leaves behind a self-portrait marked by rare honesty.

Life and times of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Forced into bondage, stripped of his family, and hardened by the lash, a determined young man secretes himself aboard northbound trains to claim his freedom, transforming his lived agony into the defining moral voice of nineteenth-century America.

My Memoirs, Vol. II, 1822 to 1825
Alexandre Dumas
Youthful ambition meets literary discovery in an early-nineteenth-century France balancing political turbulence and personal awakening.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers: Dr Lord's Uncompleted Plan, Supplemented with Essays by Emerson, Macaulay, Hedge, and Mercer Adam
John Lord
Through historical, biographical, and literary analysis, a chorus of critical voices evaluates the intellectual giants who shaped modern thought and poetry.

Two Years in the Forbidden City
Princess Der Ling
A young woman educated in French convent schools returns to Peking and enters the innermost sanctuary of the Qing dynasty, stepping directly behind the silk screens of the Imperial Court.

Las Casas: "The Apostle of the Indies"
Alice J. Knight
Through the blood-stained era of Spanish conquest in the Americas, one resolute priest stood between ruthless European conquerors and the native peoples they sought to enslave, dedicating nine decades of his life to mercy and justice.

The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons
Lawrence Beesley
A calm, observant passenger steps off a sinking ocean liner to record the precise truth, replacing sensational rumor with clear facts, steady human dignity, and urgent proposals for safety reform at sea.

The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And Susi
David Livingstone
A dying explorer travels deep into uncharted central African river systems, sustained by an obsession to locate the ultimate sources of the Nile and recorded in raw, daily field notes until his very final breath.

Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern
Unknown
A vast, ambitious index of human expression attempts to map the entire terrain of global letters, gathering centuries of voices into a single unified gallery.

Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3
Benson John Lossing
A quiet dignity governs the final act of America’s foundational leader, whose steady resolve anchors a fragile republic through its tumultuous early years.

The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
A statesman’s political death, a crown’s violent fall, and an old man wandering among European ruins while his world dissolves into memory and history.

Curiosities of Human Nature
Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich
An extraordinary collection of real lives shows that human potential escapes every attempt to standardise intelligence, morality, physical form, or social position.

The Letters of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
A brilliant mind wrestles with poverty, intense passion, and failing health across a candid lifetime of personal letters.

Anthony Trollope
T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet) Escott
A boy’s awkwardness and official failures give way to the steady discipline of a writer who turns daily life and public service into a masterclass in Victorian fiction.

An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections
Albert D. (Albert Dresden) Vandam
An eyewitness moves through the high salons and unruly bohemian quarters of nineteen-century Paris, capturing a world of brilliant artists, schemers, and fallen sovereigns before war and revolution bring the century to a violent close.

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
An open window into a brilliant, fragile life, these letters reveal a literary craftsman battling chronic illness while chasing art, friendship, and joy across the globe.

The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 2 (of 3): 1859-1880
John Morley
Deep inside the high machinery of Victorian statecraft, a mid-nineteenth-century finance minister discovers that lowering taxes can actually yield more revenue, unleashing a quiet financial revolution that forever alters British democracy.

Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A meticulously detailed window into seventeenth-century London, capturing the exact pulse of a government administrator balancing public office, domestic friction, and private ambitions.

Tolstoy
Lilian Winstanley
The nineteenth-century Russian literary awakening transformed European thought through writing of unprecedented vigor, moral urgency, and raw human truth.

Letters of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Driven by an uncompromising artistic standard, a celebrated young composer navigates the frustrating machinery of royal patronage, public performance, and personal grief while maintaining his vibrant creative voice.

The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her friends, Volume 2 (of 2)
Hügel, Friedrich, Freiherr von
An exhaustive inquiry into the human soul reveals how mystical ecstasy, psychological fragile states, and rigorous philosophical thought intertwine to form the bedrock of genuine spiritual life.

The Brownings, Their Life and Art
Lilian Whiting
A profound intellectual fellowship and a devotion to verse unite two extraordinary writers, transforming their private romance into one of the nineteenth century’s most celebrated literary partnerships.

The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
Ellen Terry
A childhood spent climbing stage poles and floating as a ceiling angel gives way to a lifetime of grueling rehearsals, enduring creative partnerships, and the quiet realization that art demands everything a performer has to give.

Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1
John Hill Burton
A young Scottish scholar sets out to map the human mind, charting a path through philosophical audacity, military adventure, and intellectual stardom.

The Life of a Regimental Officer During the Great War, 1793-1815
A. F. (Augustus Ferryman) Mockler-Ferryman
A modest, steady officer marches through two decades of global warfare, recording the grueling mechanics of an army transforming itself from brutal inefficiency into a disciplined force.

Queen Victoria
Lytton Strachey
A young princess, sheltered amid fierce family rivalries, rises to command the premier empire of the modern world with an iron, unyielding will.

The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Alexander Wheelock Thayer
A fiercely dedicated artist turns private torment into public mastery while battling the absurdities of patronage, theatre politics, and his own unraveling life.

The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders
Scott, Ernest, Sir
A dedicated naval officer braves violent storms, uncharted seas, and shipwreck to map an unexplored continent, only to find his greatest trial waiting in an enemy governor's prison cell.

American Men of Mind
Burton Egbert Stevenson
A nation's true foundation rests not merely on soldiers and presidents, but on the creative thinkers, scientists, and innovators who forge its cultural and practical life.