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Biographies — page 36
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 36 of 69.
Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford
Mary Louisa Boyle
A room filled with historic canvas portraits becomes a gateway to the drama, political intrigue, and personal heartbreaks of British history.
Lavengro : The Scholar
George Borrow
A wanderer with a gift for languages roams the backroads and garrets of nineteenth-century Britain, searching for purpose among soldiers, scholars, prize-fighters, and Gypsies.
Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Thomas Moore
The trajectory of a sparkling wit who conquered the London stage, bought its greatest theater, and became one of Parliament's grandest orators ends in political isolation and private ruin.
Smeaton and Lighthouses: A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel
Anonymous
Striking off the dangerous rocks of the English Channel, an early network of masonry and light tamed the waters for mariners who had long navigated in deadly dark.
The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli
Johann Jakob Hottinger
A giant of the Swiss Reformation steps onto the historical stage, carrying both the scholar's pen and the soldier's sword. His radical vision for church and society pits neighbor against neighbor across the Alps, culminating in a tragic, inevitable clash.
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV
Theophilus Cibber
Eighteenth-century literary life appears not as a serene hall of classics, but as a crowded, noisy arena where genius, vanity, and sudden poverty wrestle for survival.
Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him
Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick) Tumulty
A dedicated private secretary records the inner life and political trials of a president, revealing a idealist fighting to reshape American governance and global diplomacy.
Dr. Arne and Rule, Britannia
William Hayman Cummings
A natural musical gift is never enough to secure lasting success; without moral discipline and professional rectitude, even the most brilliant talent risks falling into conflict, financial neglect, and obscurity.
Gutenberg, and the Art of Printing
Emily C. (Emily Clemens) Pearson
A single visionary’s obsession transforms how human knowledge is preserved, paving the way for a quiet revolution that carries thought across centuries.
Journal of a Residence at Bagdad: During the Years 1830 and 1831
Anthony Norris Groves
Caught in a besieged, plague-stricken city at the edge of the Ottoman world, a solitary missionary records the collapse of civil order and the quiet survival of his faith.
My experiments with volcanoes
Thomas Augustus Jaggar
Driven by a conviction that science must save lives, a young geologist leaves the classroom behind to measure earth's violent forces directly from the edges of erupting craters.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 11: Paris and Holland
Giacomo Casanova
A man of world-wise charm navigates high-society Paris and the financial corridors of Holland with equal measures of brazen audacity, cynical romanticism, and financial opportunism.
Adopting an Abandoned Farm
Kate Sanborn
A weary city woman rents a dilapidated New England farm for forty dollars a year, setting off a season of hilarious misadventures with stubborn livestock, shady auctioneers, and overambitious rustic decor.
An Autobiography
Catherine Helen Spence
A nineteenth-century Scottish girl arrives in young South Australia and spends seven decades shaping its schools, courts, press, and parliament.
Santa Teresa: An Appreciation: With Some of the Best Passages of the Saint's Writings
Alexander Whyte
A Spanish nun crafts a revolutionary approach to prayer while enduring deep spiritual dry spells, founding strictly reformed monasteries and writing sharp, witty classic literature along the way.
The Bay State Monthly
Various
A landscape of memory, civic pride, and historic conflict unfolds across New England's past and rapid nineteenth-century growth.
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 04: Caligula
Suetonius
A terrifying descent from beloved prince to erratic tyrant, Suetonius’s profile reveals how absolute power corrodes the human soul.
Bayard: the Good Knight Without Fear and Without Reproach
Christopher Hare
Bound by honor in an age of shifting alliances, a noble knight traverses the battlefields of Renaissance Europe, proving that unwavering loyalty and quiet integrity endure longer than the conquests of kings.
Life of George Washington, volume 3 of 5
Washington Irving
The middle years of the American Revolution demanded a commander whose patience matched his fortitude, turning endless retreats and political interference into a quiet, enduring victory.
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits
Thomas Hughes
Before the great universities ceded their monopoly on learning, a wounded Spanish soldier laid down his armor to erect a global pedagogical network based on rigor, free instruction, and strict centralization.
Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer
Charles Sotheran
Poetic genius often masks a radical political and philosophical mind, transforming a celebrated artist into an ardent champion of human liberation.
The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 1
James Harrison
Determined to excel at sea from boyhood, a fragile Norfolk rector's son faces ice, fever, and heavy cannonades to become Britain's most fearless naval strategist.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 2: John Adams
Unknown
Stepping into an executive office during a time of European warfare, domestic rebellion, and deep political division requires balancing national security with democratic restraint.
Andreas Vesalius, the Reformer of Anatomy
James Moores Ball
A young physician in sixteenth-century Europe defies religious taboo and ancient dogma to strip away centuries of medical error, dissecting human corpses with his own hands to reshape how humanity understands its physical inner machinery.
Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician
William A. (William Andrus) Alcott
A veteran 19th-century doctor reflects on a lifetime of patients, medical follies, and the quiet healing power of nature over toxic remedies.
From Boyhood to Manhood: Life of Benjamin Franklin
William Makepeace Thayer
This biography chronicles the ascent of a quintessential American figure, tracing his trajectory from a humble candle-maker’s son in Boston to a statesman of global influence. It serves as an earnest portrait of industry and self-improvement, framing his life as a moral blueprint for the aspiring youth of a…
John Forster: By One of His Friends
Percy Fitzgerald
A domineering Victorian man of letters climbs from obscure journalism to London's literary pinnacle through raw intellect, loud bluster, and fiercely loyal friendships.
Six modern women: Psychological sketches
Laura Marholm
An unnatural breach opens when a woman's intellectual ambition clashes with the deep requirements of her heart.
The Mysteries of Montreal: Being Recollections of a Female Physician
Ch. (Charlotte) Führer
A midwife’s quiet vigilance reveals the hidden shames, illegal schemes, and sudden reckonings pulsing beneath nineteenth-century Montréal’s pious facade.
Wagner
Thomas Tapper
A young boy who loves theater and translated Homer grew up to shatter musical rules and populate the stage with mythic figures.
When They Were Girls
Rebecca Deming Moore
These twenty-five concise biographical sketches trace how simple childhood inclinations, habits of mind, and domestic chores laid the groundwork for extraordinary historical achievements.
Captain Bill McDonald, Texas Ranger: A Story of Frontier Reform
Albert Bigelow Paine
Single-handed and without hesitation, an uncompromising lawman rides into the lawless pockets of the Texas frontier, subduing mobs, outlaws, and corrupt officials using little more than raw nerve and an unbending moral code.
Joan of Arc
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
A simple peasant girl hears heavenly voices calling her to save her ruined country, leads an army to victory, and dies at the stake.
Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A brilliant thinker navigates high-society salons, royal courts, and revolutionary tribunals, turning the pursuit of liberty into an enduring literary legacy.
My Diary: North and South (vol. 2 of 2)
Russell, William Howard, Sir
Amidst the raw chaos of the American Civil War's opening months, a sharp-eyed British journalist records a nation tearing itself apart at the seams.
Robert Moffat, the missionary hero of Kuruman
David J. Deane
A Scottish gardener’s apprentice journeys to the South African frontier, transforming a notorious outlaw into a peaceful believer and laboring fifty years to translate the Bible into Sechwana.
Seeking Fortune in America
F. W. (Frederick William) Grey
An emigrant’s search for bread across North America reveals a land of punishing labor, casual violence, and fleeting camaraderie.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 10: under the Leads
Giacomo Casanova
In a damp, lead-roofed cell overlooking Venice, a man sits listening to the chimes of St. Mark’s and calculating the precise thickness of his floorboards.
Daniel Defoe
William Minto
This portrait of a restless, endlessly inventive mind examines the turbulent life of the man who mastered the art of the pamphlet and the modern novel.
Henrik Ibsen: A Bibliography of Criticism and Biography with an Index to Characters
Ina Ten Eyck Firkins
An indispensable road map for navigating nineteenth-century drama, this volume maps the vast critical architecture surrounding one of modern theater's most formidable architects.
Heroines of Service: Mary Lyon, Alice Freeman Palmer, Clara Barton, Frances Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Shaw, Mary Antin, Alice C. Fletcher, Mary Slessor of Calabar, Madame Curie, Jane Addams
Mary Rosetta Parkman
These profiles of pioneering women celebrate the transition from the secluded domestic sphere to a public life of meaningful, compassionate labor in the service of humanity.
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
William Henry Hurlbert
Ireland’s political turmoil is viewed through the sharp, skeptical lens of an American observer during the height of the agrarian and nationalist agitations of the late 1880s. This account captures the social fractures and the fierce ideological battle between traditional order and revolutionary change.
Memoirs and Historical Chronicles of the Courts of Europe: Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of France, Wife of Henri IV
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France
These memoirs offer a rare, intimate view into the volatile sixteenth-century French court, as told by a princess caught between shifting religious loyalties and the dangerous ambitions of her royal kin.
Opium Eating: An Autobiographical Sketch by an Habituate
Anonymous
The path to ruin often begins with a desperate attempt to endure the unendurable, turning a temporary refuge into a lifelong prison.
Western Worthies: A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West of Scotland Celebrities
J. Stephen (James Stephen) Jeans
Nineteenth-century Glasgow thrives through industrial ambition, political debate, scientific breakthroughs, and social reform, as reflected in the lives of its leading public figures.
A Minstrel in France
Lauder, Harry, Sir
The grief of a father becomes a rallying cry for a nation in this deeply personal account of a world turned upside down by the Great War.
Franz Liszt
Thomas Tapper
Franz Liszt, the child prodigy from Hungary, rose to become the world’s most celebrated pianist, ultimately finding his greatest legacy in his selfless promotion of other composers and his devotion to teaching.
George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life
George Manville Fenn
The life of a legendary Victorian storyteller is revealed through his own eyes and the lens of a trusted friend. This biography maps the transition from a restless, globe-trotting war correspondent to a master of historical fiction.