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Biographies — page 40
2,563 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 40 of 54.
The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 2
James Harrison
Driven by duty and personal pride, Britain’s most celebrated admiral navigates shifting Mediterranean alliances, military insubordination, and the relentless strain of command before meeting his fate at Trafalgar.
The Secrets of a Savoyard
Henry A. Lytton
A master of the light comic stage reflects on a life spent within the distinct, witty world of Victorian musical theatre. This memoir captures the disciplined joy of preserving a theatrical legacy while navigating the precarious realities of a performer’s career.
The Soul of the War
Philip Gibbs
War strips away the illusions of chivalry, leaving behind a raw portrait of human endurance, panic, and ruin. Philip Gibbs captures the sudden catastrophe of 1914 not from afar, but from the very mud and heart of a crumbling Europe.
William Penn
George Hodges
A gentle, serious youth rejects his admiral father's worldly ambitions, embraces the persecuted Quakers, and creates an American refuge founded on religious freedom and absolute justice.
Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell
Hugh Blair Grigsby
A portrait of a brilliant, elusive statesman, this discourse chronicles the life of Littleton Waller Tazewell, capturing the mind and character of a Virginian who wielded immense influence while shunning the spotlight of national fame.
Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation
W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore) Dau
This volume serves as a vigorous, scholarly defense of Martin Luther, systematically dismantling the polemical portrayals of the reformer often found in early 20th-century Catholic literature. By grounding his analysis in historical context and primary source material, the author seeks to reevaluate a figure he…
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
A fallen colossus spends his final years in exile, trading the map of Europe for the isolation of a rocky Atlantic island and the bitterness of a captive’s daily life.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume VI, Kansas Narratives
United States. Work Projects Administration
The resilience of the human spirit echoes through these firsthand accounts of survival, defining the transition from the crushing weight of enslavement to the hard-won independence of life in Kansas.
A Surgeon in Belgium
Henry Sessions Souttar
This account captures the harrowing, high-stakes reality of a medical volunteer working in the chaos of Belgium during the opening months of the Great War. It provides a sobering, firsthand perspective on the shift from nineteenth-century battlefield expectations to the brutal, industrialized realities of modern…
John Hus: A brief story of the life of a martyr
William Dallmann
The life of a medieval scholar becomes a testament to the power of conviction when a humble priest dares to prioritize the authority of his conscience over the hierarchy of a crumbling church.
Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812
Reynolds, James, active 1812
A captured surgeon’s mate chronicles the harrowing daily life of American prisoners of war held by the British in 1812. This blunt, observant diary captures the confusion, neglect, and survival of soldiers caught in the opening months of a forgotten frontier conflict.
My Ten Years' Imprisonment
Silvio Pellico
The quiet dignity of a man enduring a decade of unjust imprisonment transforms a political memoir into a profound meditation on the human spirit’s resilience.
The Life of Daniel De Foe
George Chalmers
Fame of families is a hollow cheat; it is personal virtue alone that makes an individual truly great. This biographical study traces the tumultuous, prolific life of a man whose literary shadow eventually eclipsed his turbulent reality.
The Somnambulist and the Detective
Allan Pinkerton
A professional investigator uncovers the dark secrets of a banking heist and a domestic conspiracy, using unconventional methods to outmaneuver criminals. These accounts, drawn from the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, offer a vivid window into the methods of nineteenth-century private detection.
The Son of a Servant
August Strindberg
This is a raw, unflinching examination of a young man’s development, mapping the forces of class, family, and ego that shape a burgeoning identity. It serves as a stark, honest portrait of how an individual struggles to reconcile his own nature with the restrictive expectations of mid-19th-century Swedish society.
A sailor's life under four sovereigns, Volume 2 (of 3)
Keppel, Henry, Sir
A Victorian naval officer chronicles his decades of global service, capturing the transition from sail to steam and the realities of empire, diplomacy, and combat across the high seas.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845
Various
This collection of essays, reviews, and literary critiques serves as a window into the intellectual life of the nineteenth-century British intelligentsia, capturing the era’s shifting tastes in politics, poetry, and social morality.
Henry the Sixth
John Blakman
This quiet, intimate portrait captures a maligned monarch not through the lens of political failure, but through the singular devotion of a man who served him. It offers a rare, humanizing glimpse into the daily life and spiritual interior of a king defined by his sanctity rather than his crown.
Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian: A Memoir
T. B. (Thomas Boyles) Murray
A young man from the Arctic reaches of Greenland enters the British world, embracing a new faith and education before his life ends prematurely. This quiet memoir traces his remarkable journey from an isolated tribe to the centers of Victorian learning.
Memories
Fannie A. Beers
This collection of recollections serves as a testament to the Confederate medical effort, capturing the harrowing, intimate reality of nursing soldiers who fought for a lost cause. It remains a poignant record of service, seen through the eyes of one woman who witnessed the war’s slow consumption of a generation.
Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform
Eleanor C. Hill Smyth
This biography of a visionary reformer traces the arduous struggle to dismantle a prohibitive postal system, replacing exclusionary costs with the universal penny post that democratized communication for all.
The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield
Edward Robins
This biography recounts the rise of Anne Oldfield, an 18th-century English actress whose charm and talent transformed her from a girl of modest means into the undisputed queen of the London stage. Through vivid historical snapshots, it captures the glittering, often volatile world of the Drury Lane theatre and the…
Through Shot and Flame: The Adventures and Experiences of J. D. Kestell Chaplain to President Steyn and General Christian De Wet
J. D. (John Daniel) Kestell
A chaplain to the Boer leadership chronicles the agonizing final years of the South African War, bearing witness to a struggle between a small, determined nation and the vast might of the British Empire.
A Woman's Wartime Journal: An account of the passage over a Georgia plantation of Sherman's army on the march to the sea, as recorded in the diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt
Dolly Sumner Lunt
A woman’s intimate, harrowing record of survival, this journal captures the collision of a quiet Georgia plantation with the terrifying momentum of the Civil War’s final, decisive campaign.
Caught by the Turks
Francis Yeats-Brown
The life of a prisoner of war is a descent into a shadowland of wasted days, yet for the daring, it remains a stage for the most elaborate of performances.
Christopher Columbus
Joachim Heinrich Campe
This narrative chronicles the life and voyages of Christopher Columbus, focusing on his unrelenting perseverance in the face of royal indifference, mutinous crews, and the eventual personal tragedy of his political downfall.
Female Scripture Biography, Volume I
F. A. (Francis Augustus) Cox
This collection of portraits illuminates the lives of women in the Bible, arguing that their experiences offer timeless lessons in piety, resilience, and domestic virtue for the modern reader.
Henry Ossian Flipper, the Colored Cadet at West Point: Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U.S.A., First Graduate of Color from the U.S. Military Academy
Henry Ossian Flipper
The story of a pioneer who weathered institutional isolation and systemic hostility, this memoir chronicles the first African American graduate of West Point as he navigates the rigorous, often unforgiving life of a nineteenth-century cadet.
Madame de Staël
Bella Duffy
A brilliant, unconventional mind defies the political currents of a turbulent era, finding herself a target of Napoleon and a beacon for the intellectual elite of Europe.
Verdi
Thomas Tapper
This brief, interactive biography traces the life of a legendary composer, following his journey from a music-obsessed village boy to an internationally celebrated master of opera.
Arthur Machen: A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin: With Two Uncollected Poems by Arthur Machen
Vincent Starrett
This evocative study functions as both a literary appraisal and a rescue mission for one of the early 20th century’s most overlooked visionaries. It serves as an essential map for readers seeking to navigate the strange, shadowed landscapes of a master of the "soul.
Elijah Kellogg, the Man and His Work: Chapters from His Life and Selections from His Writings
Unknown
This volume serves as both a memorial and a literary portrait of a singular 19th-century figure who bridged the worlds of the pulpit, the classroom, and the bookstore. It documents the life of a man whose legacy is as much about the moral development of young Americans as it is about his own theological and social…
Exits and Entrances
Eva Moore
The theater is a place of fleeting shadows and ephemeral triumphs, where a performer’s life is measured in the applause of an evening and the silence of the dressing room after the curtain falls.
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848
Various
This collection captures the diverse literary pulse of mid-nineteenth-century America, blending historical biography, sentimental fiction, poetry, and critical review into a single, vibrant monthly installment.
Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days
Annie L. Burton
This account of a life lived through the crucible of American slavery and the subsequent struggle for autonomy offers a rare, intimate perspective on the transition from bondage to freedom. It stands as both a personal memoir and a robust defense of the post-emancipation progress made by African Americans.
Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
A dramatic historical portrait of the military leader who steered the fragile Plymouth colony through its most perilous years of survival, diplomacy, and conflict.
On Commando
Dietlof Van Warmelo
This account captures the raw, unadorned reality of the South African War, written by a man who lived the transition from conventional soldiering to the bitter, nomadic existence of a guerilla fighter.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 4
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
An unflinching account of command during the American Civil War, these pages detail the tactical chess of the Tennessee and Virginia campaigns through the eyes of the man who led them.
Royal Romances of To-day
Kellogg Durland
Behind the gilded spectacle of turn-of-the-century European monarchies lie the private lives of three queens, whose personal romances and domestic struggles reveal the human hearts beating beneath their inherited crowns.
The History of Sir Richard Whittington
Unknown
A poor boy arrives in London seeking streets paved with gold, only to find a city of dirt, hunger, and indifference. Through charity and a singular, feline stroke of luck, he rises to become the city’s most celebrated benefactor.
The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848-1888, vol I
James Henry Mapleson
A veteran impresario recounts the chaotic, glamorous, and often absurd reality of managing nineteenth-century opera stars across the Atlantic.
A Man of the People: A Drama of Abraham Lincoln
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
In the crucible of the American Civil War, a beleaguered President fights to preserve a fractured Union while navigating the political treachery of his own party.
Bismarck: some secret pages of his history (Vol. 3 of 3). Being a diary kept by Dr. Moritz Busch during twenty-five years' official and private intercourse with the great Chancellor
Moritz Busch
This final installment of a twenty-five-year chronicle offers an intimate, often biting look at the power struggles within the German Empire. It captures the fading light of a political titan as his influence wanes.
Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry
John G. (John George) Edgar
These portraits of history’s architects argue that greatness is not a matter of sudden genius, but the steady, quiet result of persistent toil in the shadows.
Illustrated Edition of the Life and Escape of Wm. Wells Brown from American Slavery: Written by Himself
William Wells Brown
A harrowing firsthand account of human endurance, this narrative documents the brutal machinery of American slavery and the courageous pursuit of freedom. It remains a foundational text in the literature of the enslaved.
Memories of the future
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox
The future is a mirror reflecting the anxieties of the present, viewed through the eyes of those who have already lived it. This satirical memoir offers a wry, prophetic look at the decades between 1915 and 1972.
Of Six Mediæval Women
Alice Kemp-Welch
These intimate portraits rescue six medieval women from the shadows of history, revealing their intellectual, spiritual, and domestic lives through the lens of their own era.
Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama
George Cary Eggleston
The story of Red Eagle, a charismatic Creek leader, unfolds against the desperate, bloody backdrop of the Alabama frontier during the War of 1812, charting the collision between two irreconcilable worlds.