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Biographies — page 35
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 35 of 69.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War
John Lothrop Motley
The aging statesman struggles to preserve a fragile republic against the rising tides of religious extremism and military ambition. His life becomes the final barrier between a nation of laws and the encroaching shadow of absolute rule.
Simón Bolívar (The Liberator): Patriot, Warrior, Statesman, Father of Five Nations, a Sketch of His Life and His Work
Guillermo A. (Guillermo Antonio) Sherwell
A portrait of the man who liberated five South American nations, charting his transformation from a privileged youth to a weary, solitary leader sacrificed to the cause of continental independence.
Letters to a Friend, Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879
John Muir
This collection of personal correspondence captures the formative years of a legendary naturalist, revealing a restless, poetic spirit as he transitions from a solitary wanderer to an articulate voice for the American wilderness.
Oscar Wilde: An Idler's Impression
Edgar Saltus
A portrait of a singular wit, this account traces the rise of a literary star and his subsequent descent into ruin, offering a glimpse of the man behind the carefully curated persona.
The Life of John Clare
Frederick Martin
The literary world once hailed a Northamptonshire farm laborer as the "English Burns," only to abandon him to a lifetime of grinding poverty and, ultimately, the silence of a state asylum.
When Men Grew Tall, or The Story of Andrew Jackson
Alfred Henry Lewis
A portrait of a man who rose from the red clay of North Carolina to the center of American power, driven by a fierce, singular capacity for both love and hatred.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 3: Franklin Pierce
Unknown
The records of a presidency defined by territorial expansion, fierce sectional friction, and the looming shadows of civil conflict are distilled here through official executive communication.
Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle
Maud Stepney Rawson
A formidable matriarch carves her legacy into the limestone of Elizabethan England, balancing the crushing burden of guarding a captive queen against her own insatiable hunger for status, land, and dynastic security.
Blessed Edmund Campion
Louise Imogen Guiney
A brilliant scholar finds his true calling in the shadow of the scaffold, choosing a life of perilous devotion over the comforts of Elizabethan academia.
Campaign of the Indus: In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division
T. W. E. Holdsworth
This primary source collection offers a direct, unvarnished window into the First Afghan War, capturing the grueling realities of 19th-century colonial military life through the intimate, immediate correspondence of a British officer on the march.
Children of the Dead End: The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy
Patrick MacGill
The life of an Irish laborer is a desperate, wandering gauntlet of hunger, backbreaking toil, and the relentless search for a place to belong. This narrative offers an unvarnished look at the soul of the road.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man caught in the machinery of history records his own life with such startling intimacy that the distance of centuries dissolves. Every page breathes with the immediate, messy reality of a world both strange and familiar.
Forty Years Among the Indians: A true yet thrilling narrative of the author's experiences among the natives
Daniel W. (Daniel Webster) Jones
The vast, shifting landscape of the American West comes alive through the eyes of a man who spent his life mediating between frontiersmen, indigenous tribes, and his own Mormon community.
From Libau to Tsushima: A narrative of the voyage of Admiral Rojdestvensky's fleet to eastern seas, including a detailed account of the Dogger Bank incident
Evgenii Sigizmundovich Politovskii
A doomed armada traverses the globe, its journey a long, claustrophobic slide toward an inevitable and catastrophic conclusion. This firsthand account captures the slow disintegration of a naval superpower from within the bowels of its flagship.
Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, From 1848 to 1861
Queen of Great Britain Victoria
The Highlands become a sanctuary of wild beauty and quiet liberty in these intimate, unadorned records of a sovereign’s private life. They offer a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the heart of a monarch seeking respite from the demands of the throne.
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
A private secretary captures the singular, restless energy of a leader whose ambition would reshape the map of Europe. This intimate account chronicles the rise of a man who equated his own destiny with the immortality of history.
Night Bombing with the Bedouins
Robert Henry Reece
The vast, mechanical skies of the Great War serve as the backdrop for this account of long-distance night bombing, where the fragility of human life meets the relentless evolution of aerial combat.
Reminiscences of the King of Roumania
Mite Kremnitz
A German prince travels to a volatile corner of Europe to forge a new nation, only to find his throne resting on a precarious foundation of shifting borders and internal discord.
Silver Queen: The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor
Caroline Bancroft
The life of Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor remains one of the most haunting tales of the American West, tracing an arc from Gilded Age splendor to a frozen, lonely death in a mountain shack.
With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train
Bennett, E. N. (Ernest Nathaniel), Sir
A firsthand account of the South African War, this narrative offers a sober, unvarnished look at the reality of ambulance service, far removed from the romanticized jingoism of the era.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 2: John Quincy Adams
Unknown
The life and public service of a founding statesman unfold through his own meticulous records, revealing the dense administrative machinery of a young nation finding its footing on the world stage.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 8, part 2: Chester A. Arthur
Unknown
This document serves as a formal historical record of the executive actions, policy recommendations, and legislative communications of the twenty-first President of the United States. It offers a structured window into the administrative machinery of the American government during the early 1880s.
Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 1
Elizabeth Sarah Kite
A master of invention and intrigue, Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais serves as the unlikely architect of French support for the American Revolution. His vibrant, singular life bridges the gap between watchmaker and revolutionary diplomat.
Daniel Webster
Henry Cabot Lodge
A titan of American oratory navigates the turbulent expansion of the nineteenth-century Republic, ultimately grappling with the catastrophic fracture of the Union he spent his life defending.
H.M.I.: Some Passages in the Life of One of H.M. Inspectors of Schools
E. M. (Edmund McKenzie) Sneyd-Kynnersley
This account offers a rare, candid glimpse into the vanished world of late Victorian and Edwardian education, told by a man who spent decades traveling the countryside to hold schools accountable to the state. It is a witty, often irreverent record of a civil servant’s life, capturing the tensions of a rigid…
In the Days of Queen Victoria
Eva March Tappan
A young girl learns she is destined for a throne and navigates the weight of that responsibility, ultimately shaping an era through both the grandeur of her public duties and the intimacy of her private life.
On chloroform and other anæsthetics: their action and administration
John Snow
This definitive clinical study documents the emergence of modern anesthesia, mapping the transition of surgery from an agony to a controlled, scientific procedure. It serves as both a manual for medical practitioners and a somber historical record.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 2
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
A commander looks back on the defining conflict of his era, tracing his path from an obscure civilian clerk to the architect of the Union’s victory.
Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak
Henriette McDougall
The remote frontier of nineteenth-century Sarawak serves as the backdrop for a missionary wife’s intimate record of survival, cultural collision, and the steady, often perilous, expansion of a colonial outpost.
Stories of Later American History
Wilbur F. (Wilbur Fisk) Gordy
This volume chronicles the development of the United States through the lives of its primary architects, soldiers, and pioneers, tracing the nation’s growth from the early days of the Revolution to the end of the Civil War.
Translation of the Life of Omar ibn Said: Manuscript No. 1
Omar ibn Said
This profound document serves as the only known autobiography written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the United States, offering a rare, intimate window into a life fractured by the Atlantic slave trade. It stands as a testament to the complexities of identity, faith, and survival under the crushing weight of…
Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson: Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences Among the North American Indians, from 1652 to 1684
Pierre Esprit Radisson
Survival in the unforgiving North American wilderness requires grit, cunning, and the ability to navigate shifting allegiances between empires and indigenous nations. This raw, firsthand chronicle records the extraordinary life of a man caught between the competing interests of France and England in the seventeenth…
Walter Pater
Arthur Christopher Benson
A reclusive scholar navigates the tension between aesthetic sensation and intellectual rigor, leaving behind a prose style as intricate as the art he cherished. This portrait of a quiet life reveals how a singular mind transformed the way modern readers encounter beauty.
With the Turks in Palestine
Alexander Aaronsohn
Caught between the crumbling Ottoman Empire and the encroaching World War, a young man fights to protect his community in Palestine before narrowly escaping the reach of Turkish tyranny.
George Borrow, the Man and His Work
R. A. J. (Robert Alfred John) Walling
This biographical monograph reconsiders the life and literary output of the enigmatic George Borrow, stripping away the persistent myth that he was a gypsy to reveal a complex, Celtic-rooted figure shaped by intense personal eccentricities.
Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei: From "Modern Philology" vol. 13 (1915)
Allen Wilson Porterfield
A forgotten nineteenth-century poet serves as a cautionary study in literary influence, demonstrating how easily a minor name can be lost in the wake of giants like Heine.
India under Ripon: A Private Diary
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
This record captures the "awakening hour" of Indian political consciousness during the early 1880s. It provides a rare, intimate perspective on the tensions between British imperial administration and the burgeoning desire for self-determination.
Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger: Fourth Edition
E. G. (Elihu Goodwin) Holland
This account tracks the life of a nineteenth-century preacher who rejected rigid sectarianism to champion a more personal, unsectarian faith. It offers a rare window into the itinerant ministry of early American religious life.
Poetical Works
Charles Churchill
A restless, lacerating brilliance defines this collection, where the sharp edge of satire cuts through the political theater and social hypocrisies of mid-eighteenth-century England. These verses capture a singular, volatile talent, forever caught between the pursuit of virtue and the pull of ruin.
Sir William Wallace
Alexander Falconer Murison
The life of the Scottish national hero, William Wallace, remains an enduring testament to the power of resistance against overwhelming odds and the fundamental, unyielding human drive for independence.
The Real Tsaritsa
Lili Den
A poignant, firsthand account of the final days of the Russian monarchy, told by a devoted confidante who stood by Empress Alexandra during the gathering storm of revolution.
The Truth About an Author
Arnold Bennett
The literary life is often painted as a romantic dream of inspiration and fame, but the reality is a hard-nosed, practical trade. Behind the published page lies a world of deadlines, editorial maneuvering, and the persistent, unglamorous grind of earning a living.
An Ohio woman in the Philippines
Emily Bronson Conger
An adventurous widow sets out alone across the Pacific to care for her soldier son, capturing the raw, bustling realities of American expansionism in Asia.
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
To begin, I should like to observe that the man who intends to exhibit himself in public must have the courage to reveal all that is hidden in his heart.
The Fugitive Blacksmith
James W. C. Pennington
This narrative serves as a stark, first-hand account of the physical and psychological toll of chattel slavery, documenting a quest for both literal freedom and the intellectual liberation of a man denied the right to his own mind.
The Life of Gen. Thos. J. Jackson, "Stonewall": For the Young (Fourth Reader Grade), in Easy Words
Mary L. (Mary Lynn) Williamson
A rugged Virginia farm boy rises through strict discipline and unyielding faith to become one of history’s most formidable military commanders.
The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, Vol. 1 (of 3): Collected from the Family Papers Communicated by the Earl of Powis
John Malcolm
In mid-eighteenth-century India, a clerk for the East India Company shifts to military command and reshapes the subcontinent through battle, bribery, and statecraft.
Allan Ramsay
William Henry Oliphant Smeaton
Stripped of early poverty and trade prejudices, a small-town youth crafts his own path through eighteenth-century Edinburgh to become Scotland’s preeminent pioneer of national song, theater, and pastoral verse.