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Biographies — page 40
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 40 of 69.
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.
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.
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.
The Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester: from the Original MS., with Historical and Explanatory Notes and a Biographical Memoir
Worcester, Edward Somerset, Marquis of
A visionary collection of mechanical concepts, this work preserves the fleeting sparks of genius that ignited the engine of the industrial age. It offers a rare window into the mind of a seventeenth-century aristocrat wrestling with the limits of physical possibility.
The Passing of New France
William Wood
HOOK This historical account chronicles the final, desperate struggle of New France, centering on the martial life and tragic end of the Marquis de Montcalm.
'Three Score Years and Ten': Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve
This memoir traverses the nineteenth century through the eyes of a woman whose life began at the dawn of the American frontier and stretched into the era of the modern metropolis. It is a quiet, reflective chronicle of resilience.
William Gilbert, and Terrestial Magnetism in the Time of Queen Elizabeth: A Discourse
Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips) Thompson
This discourse serves as both a biography of a pioneering physician and an investigation into the birth of modern experimental science during the Elizabethan era. It captures the transition from medieval superstition to the rigorous, evidence-based study of the physical world.
A Kut Prisoner
Harry Coghill Watson Bishop
A British officer recounts his survival of the grueling Siege of Kut, his subsequent captivity in the Ottoman Empire, and his perilous journey to freedom across the Black Sea.
A Writer's Recollections
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
The act of looking back carries a quiet, stubborn pride for those who have witnessed an era’s passing. These reflections offer a deliberate, panoramic view of a life steeped in the intellectual and literary fervor of the nineteenth century.
An Astronomer's Wife: The Biography of Angeline Hall
Angelo Hall
This biography of an American woman traces the life of a determined, intellectual spirit navigating the constraints of nineteenth-century society. It serves as both a family tribute and a testament to the quiet dignity of a life committed to learning and motherhood.
Cadet Life at West Point
Hugh T. Reed
A young man’s arrival at the United States Military Academy marks the beginning of a transformative trial by fire. This account documents the rigid, often jarring transition from civilian life to the disciplined existence of a West Point cadet.
Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863
Adam Gurowski
This urgent, unfiltered account captures the frantic pulse of Washington during the American Civil War, written by an uncompromising radical who viewed the conflict as a crusade for human rights.
Emile Zola
William Dean Howells
This meditative study explores the complex duality of a titan of literature, examining how a self-proclaimed man of science remained, at his core, an epic poet of profound moral conviction.
Luther and the Reformation:: The Life-Springs of Our Liberties
Joseph Augustus Seiss
The story of a miner's son who challenged the masters of the world, this work traces the spiritual and civil inheritances that shaped the foundations of modern liberty.
The Maréchale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)
James Strahan
A fearless evangelist transforms the lives of the marginalized across Europe by stripping away religious pretense and offering a radical, unyielding message of divine love. This portrait captures the intense, dramatic reality of a woman who viewed every human soul as a battleground for salvation.
The Memoirs of Maria Stella (Lady Newborough)
Ungern-Sternberg, Maria Stella Petronilla, Baroness
A woman of humble beginnings fights to reclaim a royal identity she believes was stolen at birth through a clandestine, illicit trade of infants.
Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts Relative to the Marshpee Tribe
William Apess
The struggle for self-governance by the Mashpee people against state-imposed oversight and land appropriation is a seminal document of nineteenth-century Indigenous resistance. It exposes the legal mechanisms used to strip a community of its rights and dignity.
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
William Henry Hurlbert
Upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire. This diary of an American observer captures the turbulent heart of the Irish Land War, offering a sharp, contemporary witness to the struggle between local tradition and the reach of the law.
Life of St. Declan of Ardmore and Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore
Unknown
These medieval Irish biographies depict the lives of two foundational saints, blending historical tradition with local legend to chronicle the early spread of Christianity through the Decies and beyond.
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
This is an intimate, unfiltered account of a life defined by extraordinary intellectual achievement, profound social alienation, and a deepening conviction of being the victim of a grand, invisible conspiracy. It remains one of the most famous and contentious pieces of autobiography ever written.
The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet
George Q. (George Quayle) Cannon
This biographical account chronicles the tumultuous ministry and violent martyrdom of a nineteenth-century religious leader, portraying his life as a divine mission constantly besieged by prejudice and political betrayal.
The Public Life of Queen Victoria
John McGilchrist
A portrait of a monarch defined by duty, this account explores the intersection of private character and public necessity during the early decades of the Victorian era.
With Rimington
L. March (Lisle March) Phillipps
A first-hand account of the South African War, this narrative captures the transition from the idealism of early colonial combat to the grim, grinding reality of a protracted guerrilla insurgency.