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Biographies — page 21
994 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 21 of 21.

The Life of George Borrow
Herbert George Jenkins
A restless wanderer and linguistic polymath, George Borrow transformed from an obscure literary hack into a celebrated adventurer by carrying the Bible into the rugged, dangerous heart of 19th-century Spain.

The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2): or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols
Mrs. (Anna) Jameson
Some of the world's most enduring poetry was carved from the private heartache, devotion, and domestic quietude of women whose names are now synonymous with the men who immortalized them.

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Thomas Jefferson
Clear-eyed, meticulous, and fundamentally idealist, this collection records the daily work of statecraft as the American republic tests its footing at home and abroad.

Hands Up
D. J. (David J.) Cook
A silver watch, a missing horse, or a chest of stolen gold off a stagecoach—in the nineteenth-century West, any of these could pull a lawman hundreds of miles across frozen plains.

Marse Henry: An Autobiography, Complete
Henry Watterson
A eyewitness to the American nineteenth century looks back over a lifetime of politics, ink, and war, offering a shrewd, unvarnished portrait of a changing republic.

The Secrets of a Kuttite: An Authentic Story of Kut, Adventures in Captivity and Stamboul Intrigue
Edward O. (Edward Opotiki) Mousley
Captive soldiers endure a brutal, endless march across scorched plains while internal military intrigue and dangerous escape attempts shape their survival in wartime Turkey.

The Women of Mormondom
Edward W. (Edward William) Tullidge
Persecuted, exiled, and misunderstood, the female pioneers of early Mormonism built an empire in the desert while establishing a radical spiritual vision of female authority.

Alice, grand duchess of Hesse, princess of Great Britain and Ireland: Biographical sketch and letters. With portrait
Alice, Grand Duchess, consort of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt
Behind official court gazettes and royal portraits lies the private life of a British princess navigating war, loss, and public duty in her adopted German homeland.

Malthus and his work
James Bonar
Human populations expand at a geometric rate, but their food supply grows only in simple arithmetical steps, trapping societies in a endless cycle of scarcity.

Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 4 (of 10)
J. G. (John Gibson) Lockhart
Navigating a high-stakes financial crisis, a beloved poet rejects official crowns, sails the rugged northern seas, and quietly publishes the book that changes prose fiction forever.

Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman: With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War
James Harvey Kidd
A firsthand account of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade's Civil War campaigns, offering a vivid portrayal of life on the front lines.

The Story of Geronimo
Jim Kjelgaard
A young Apache boy watches from the high grass, learning how to steal horses, hunt deer, and outwit enemy trackers. From these quiet beginnings rises a legendary war leader whose name will echo across the Southwest.

Wallace
active 1470-1492 Blind Hary
A long-lost leader rises from the ashes of a conquered kingdom to wage relentless, bloody guerrilla warfare against an occupying English tyrant.

A Day with Keats
May Byron
A fragile young poet paces a sunlit Hampstead garden, transforming his inner turmoil and devotion into immortal verse.

Akbar, Emperor of India: A Picture of Life and Customs from the Sixteenth Century
Richard Garbe
A visionary sixteenth-century ruler transforms a fractured realm into a unified empire through radical tolerance, administrative genius, and unyielding personal courage.

Personal reminiscences of Henry Irving
Bram Stoker
Behind the velvet curtain of nineteenth-century theatre stood a towering figure of artistic ambition, seen not from the auditorium, but through the eyes of the man who managed his world.

The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence: A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns
William Lawrence
A young runaway tradesman enlists for a sixteen-guinea bounty and spent seventeen years in the ranks, marching across Spain, France, and Flanders straight into the fury of Waterloo.

An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot
J. Wood (James Wood) Brown
To separate a thirteenth-century scholar’s genuine scientific achievements from the dark, persistent myths of medieval magic, an investigator must carefully trace surviving manuscripts through European cloisters, royal courts, and monastic libraries.

Alexander the Great: Makers of History
Jacob Abbott
A young prince tames an unmanageable warhorse, inherits an empire before his prime, and leads a disciplined army across continents to tear down the power of Persia.

Captain John Smith
Charles Dudley Warner
A clear-eyed, witty debunking of America’s favorite tall-tale hero, this volume strips away centuries of romance to reveal the real, deeply flawed, yet endlessly fascinating human being beneath the myth.

Diplomatic Days
Edith O'Shaughnessy
A young diplomat's wife arrives in Mexico City just as a thirty-year dictatorship crumbles, witnessing a delicate social world unraveling against the backdrop of impending revolution.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851
Various
A vibrant mid-nineteenth-century repository of high narrative, global travelogue, domestic comedy, and contemporary news, offering an expansive mirror of Victorian public taste.

The Diary of a U-boat Commander: With an Introduction and Explanatory Notes by Etienne
King-Hall, Stephen, Sir
Beneath the cold steel of the Imperial German Navy lies a fragile heart, torn between fanatical duty, harrowing undersea warfare, and an agonizingly fatal romance.

The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
George Smith
A rural cobbler with an unquenchable gift for languages transforms himself into the pioneer of modern Asian missions, translating ancient texts and reshaping nineteenth-century Bengal.

The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick: Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings
Unknown
A young captive breaks his chains to transform an entire island, forging a national faith through miraculous encounters, unyielding devotion, and stubborn, enduring love for a foreign shore.

There was once a slave
Shirley Graham Du Bois
A boy born into chattel slavery looks up at the northern stars and decides that his mind, his body, and his destiny belong to no man.

Alcuin of York
G. F. (George Forrest) Browne
Through a detailed examination of early medieval manuscripts, letters, and council records, an English scholar traces the profound impact of Anglo-Saxon learning on the intellectual and ecclesiastical foundation of Continental Europe.

Dickens
Ward, Adolphus William, Sir
The energetic spirit of the nineteenth century’s greatest storyteller finds here a measured, thoughtful portrait, revealing the man behind the legendary library of characters. It is an enduring examination of artistic genius struggling with the personal weight of fame.

The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln
Helen Nicolay
A quiet pioneer lineage gives rise to an extraordinary American life, forged in backwoods labor and tested by national catastrophe.

The Boys of '61
Charles Carleton Coffin
A front-line reporter watches the American republic fracture and rebuild itself through four years of relentless fire, recording the mud, blood, and quiet human courage that defined a nation's fiercest struggle.

The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies
Walter Besant
An early death cut short a life of quiet observation, but a fellow writer stepped forward to record the singular spirit and solitary vision that transformed English nature writing into visionary art.

Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Sharp mountain air, rugged glens, and quiet encounters fill an observant traveller's notebook. Everyday moments of nineteenth-century journeys come alive through exact observation, unhurried prose, and a profound eye for landscape and human dignity.

My Airships
Alberto Santos-Dumont
Before humanity mastered the skies, a single Brazilian inventor proved that a powered balloon could be steered above Paris.

Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals
Maria Mitchell
Stargazing through a modest telescope on a Nantucket roof, a quiet librarian spots a faint, unknown blur—and unexpectedly steps onto the world stage of nineteenth-century science.