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Biographies — page 18
839 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 18 of 18.
Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century
W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams
Fierce alpine storms, treacherous African rivers, and the icy seas of the Far North could not deter a remarkable series of nineteenth-century women from shattering Victorian conventions to chart the unknown world.
Einstein, the searcher
Alexander Moszkowski
An extraordinary mind turns its gaze upon the universe, reshaping our fundamental concepts of space, time, and physical reality through quiet reflection and mathematical rigor.
The Oxford Reformers: John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More
Frederic Seebohm
Three brilliant minds gather at the turn of the sixteenth century to challenge religious dogmatism, re-examine sacred texts, and envision a society built upon reason and shared humanity.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 6
United States. Work Projects Administration
A remarkably immediate set of voices emerges from these interview pages, recording the memories of elderly Black Americans who lived through the final days of slavery, the Civil War, and the long decades that followed. Recorded in the late 1930s in Arkansas, these testimonies capture lives shaped by forced labor,…
The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396-1427
Johannes Schiltberger
Captured as a youth on a medieval battlefield, a Bavarian soldier endures thirty years of captivity, wandering as a servant across the vast domains of Turkish sultans, Tatar warlords, and Egyptian monarchs.
Alfred Tennyson
Andrew Lang
A giant's strength and a child's susceptibility collide in the life of a poet who carved immortal music out of personal sorrow and public indifference.
History of Friedrich II of Prussia
Thomas Carlyle
A ruler's duty is to build, defend, and govern with relentless force, standing firm against the looming chaos of European collapse.
Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery
George Iles
Mechanics, physics, and natural history converge to demonstrate that human ingenuity advances not by sudden, magical leaps, but through the deliberate, systematic observation and transformation of natural laws.
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
A towering figure of Victorian science confronts declining health while defending empirical truth, debating theologians, and tending Alpine gentians in his final years.
Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet: An Autobiography
John Sherman
From a bright childhood on the banks of Ohio's rivers to the inner sanctums of Gilded Age power, this memoir traces forty years of defining national struggle through the eyes of a master legislative craftsman.
A Publisher and His Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray
Samuel Smiles
An ambitious London bookseller builds a literary empire by cultivating the greatest, most volatile minds of nineteenth-century Britain.
The Adventure of Living
John St. Loe Strachey
Through the quiet reflections of a veteran British editor, an intellectual journey unfolds across the political, literary, and social landscape of late Victorian and Edwardian England, driven by an abiding curiosity about human nature and public affairs.
Wagner as I Knew Him
Ferdinand Praeger
A lifelong companion pulls back the velvet curtain on Germany’s most controversial composer, revealing a man defined as much by his petty frailties as his explosive artistic genius.
American Men of Action
Burton Egbert Stevenson
Real history rivals fiction when told through the lived experiences of the men who shaped it. Crossing oceans, taming wilderness, and forging a nation require a will as unyielding as the obstacles in its path.
Agnes Strickland's Queens of England, Vol. 1. (of 3): Abridged and Fully Illustrated
Agnes Strickland
A continuous, turbulent procession of royal marriages, court intrigue, and shifting political alliances shapes the early history of England's monarchy.
Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White
Andrew Dickson White
An educator, politician, and ambassador charts a life dedicated to building durable institutions and serving a young American republic.
Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas
John F. Runciman
A mythic genius stripped of sentimental idol-worship.
"The story of my life"
Egerton Ryerson
A devout Methodist minister throws himself into the messy forge of nineteenth-century Canadian nation-building, fighting for religious freedom, free public schooling, and his own spiritual salvation.
Mark Twain: A Biography. Volume I, Part 1: 1835-1866
Albert Bigelow Paine
A boy from a dead-end river town drifts through printing shops, steamboat pilothouses, and Western mining camps before discovering that his true currency is the spoken American voice.
The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 1 (of 2): By His Wife, Isabel Burton
Burton, Isabel, Lady
An unquenchable thirst for original experience drives a British officer and scholar across continents, breaking social conventions and official mandates alike.
Great Musical Composers: German, French, and Italian
George T. (George Titus) Ferris
This historical survey traces the lives, artistic evolutions, and personal struggles of Western Europe’s premier classical composers, illustrating how individual genius reshaped the landscape of opera, symphony, and sacred song.
The Russian Turmoil
Anton Ivanovich Denikin
A high-ranking general provides a front-line autopsy of the collapse of the Imperial Russian Army, tracing how institutional decay, political vacillation, and relentless radical propaganda unraveled a nation's military power during the turbulent months of 1917.
Turgenev: A Study
Edward Garnett
A delicate, masterful mind turns its gaze upon Russian life, catching the subtle human truths and national shifts hidden within a changing world.