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Biographies — page 42
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 42 of 69.

Life of Luther: with several introductory and concluding chapters from general church history
Gustav A. Just
Faith is forged in the crucible of persecution, refined by trial, and secured only through a relentless defense of the plain truth.

Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
An unusual network of curious minds across Britain exchanges insights on rare manuscripts, obscure local folklore, linguistic roots, and disputed biographical facts.

Oliver Cromwell
Samuel Rawson Gardiner
A titan of English history is weighed not by myth, but by the practical limits of power.

Robert Browning: How to Know Him
William Lyon Phelps
A master key to one of England’s most challenging poets, this guide unlocks the human heart behind the complex verse. It turns difficult art into an accessible, lifelong friend.

The Anzac Book
Unknown
Under the relentless sun and cold autumn gales of Gallipoli, soldiers huddled in hand-dug earthworks face down mortar fire, illness, and impossible terrain, fashioning art, humor, and dignity directly out of the ashes of campaign hardship.

The Bay State Monthly
Various
A tapestry of New England life unfolds through biographical portraits, colonial land disputes, Revolutionary histories, and the vibrant civic institutions of a rising nineteenth-century society.

The Subterranean Brotherhood
Julian Hawthorne
A gentlemanly writer steps into the shadows of a federal prison and uncovers an invisible empire of routine cruelty, broken men, and silent endurance.

Wanderings of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque, Volume 1 (of 2) : During four-and-twenty years in the east
Fanny Parkes Parlby
An adventurous officer’s wife steps off a British transport into nineteenth-century India and abandons the quiet routine expected of her, throwing herself into a twenty-four-year pilgrimage of unbridled curiosity, vivid journal-keeping, and deep cross-cultural fascination.

A Rebel's Recollections
George Cary Eggleston
This work offers a candid, firsthand account of life within the Confederate ranks, stripping away the romantic veneer of the Civil War to reveal the logistical absurdities, class tensions, and profound human exhaustion that defined the Southern experience.

Anatole France
Georg Brandes
The true author is recognizable by the existence on every page of his work of at least one phrase that only he could have written. This study explores the mind and artistic evolution of such a figure.

Canada and the British immigrant
Emily P. (Emily Poynton) Weaver
Canada emerges in these pages as a vast, demanding, and promising frontier, offering a profound test of character for those willing to leave the familiarity of the Old World behind.

From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva
Carmen Sylva
This intimate memoir explores the profound shaping power of memory, as a royal life unfolds against a backdrop of sorrow, resilience, and the enduring presence of those who have passed away.

Paris War Days: Diary of an American
Charles Inman Barnard
This diary captures the transformation of Paris during the harrowing opening weeks of the First World War, documenting a city shifting from exuberant peace to the somber, disciplined reality of a nation under siege.

The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S
George John Romanes
This biography captures the intellectual intensity and personal warmth of a prominent Victorian naturalist, documenting a life defined by rigorous scientific inquiry and an earnest, lifelong struggle to reconcile faith with the burgeoning theory of evolution.

William Cobbett: A Biography in Two Volumes, Vol. 2
Edward Smith
A pugnacious voice for the common man, this biography traces the tumultuous middle and later years of a self-taught polemicist who rattled the foundations of the British establishment.

Chopin
Thomas Tapper
This interactive biography offers a gentle introduction to the life and works of the celebrated Polish pianist, designed to turn the act of reading into a personal, hands-on project for young music students.

Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery
Theodore Reichardt
This unvarnished daily record captures the grit and grind of the American Civil War through the eyes of a Rhode Island artillerist serving in the heart of the Army of the Potomac.

Dr. Southwood Smith: A Retrospect
Gertrude Hill Lewes
A dedicated physician transforms nineteenth-century public health, proving that sanitary reform is the essential foundation for both human well-being and moral progress.

History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, Fifth Army Corps, at Santiago: With a Few Unvarnished Truths Concerning that Expedition
John H. (John Henry) Parker
A young lieutenant navigates military bureaucracy and systemic incompetence to deploy a makeshift machine-gun unit, proving the devastating tactical value of the Gatling gun during the 1898 Santiago campaign.

In the Ranks of the C.I.V
Erskine Childers
A raw, intimate account of a civilian soldier’s journey from the slushy streets of London to the sun-scorched veldt, offering an unvarnished look at the reality of colonial warfare.
Of the Capture of Ticonderoga: His Captivity and Treatment by the British
Ethan Allen
A self-taught frontier leader recounts his experiences during the American Revolution, detailing his daring capture of a strategic fortress and the harrowing, years-long ordeal of his subsequent imprisonment by the British.

The Bay State Monthly
Various
This collection captures the civic, industrial, and intellectual pulse of 19th-century Massachusetts, grounding its broader observations in the specific histories of its influential families, growing cities, and evolving social beliefs.

Thirty Years in the Itinerancy
W. G. (Wesson Gage) Miller
A man of the cloth traverses the rugged landscape of pioneer Wisconsin, documenting three decades of religious expansion and personal sacrifice. His journey captures the transformation of a wilderness into a network of faith and community.

Twelve Naval Captains: Being a Record of Certain Americans Who Made Themselves Immortal
Molly Elliot Seawell
These men defined the early identity of a young nation through the crucible of iron and oak. Their lives represent the rise of the American Navy from a collection of merchant ships to a formidable global force.

Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter
Elliott O'Donnell
This collection of firsthand accounts explores the unsettling intersection of the material and the supernatural, documenting two decades spent investigating phantom footsteps, haunted offices, and spectral manifestations across three continents. It serves as a candid record of a dedicated, if often unnerved,…

Cavalry of the Clouds
Alan Bott
This account of the First World War air war provides an intimate, unvarnished look at the early days of military aviation, where young men navigated the skies with primitive machines and boundless audacity.

Engineers and their triumphs: the story of the locomotive, the steamship, bridge building, tunnel making
F. M. (Frederic Morell) Holmes
This narrative surveys the rapid evolution of 19th-century mechanical progress, detailing the daring innovations that conquered distance through steam, iron, and subterranean excavation.

Essay on Burns
Thomas Carlyle
The life of a poet is a tragedy of unfulfilled potential, a brilliant but broken spirit forced to reconcile the soaring fire of genius with the cold, damp realities of a peasant’s life.

Four Years in France
Henry Digby Beste
This account offers a reflective, deeply personal meditation on shifting one’s religious foundations and navigating the cultural landscape of post-Napoleonic France.

Katharine von Bora: Dr. Martin Luther's Wife
Armin Stein
Katharine von Bora’s life offers a quiet, resilient counterpoint to the thunderous history of the Reformation, revealing the domestic heart behind the man who changed the world. This narrative portrait traces her journey from a cloistered nun to the steadfast wife of Martin Luther, capturing the personal cost and…

The Adventures of Captain John Patterson: With Notices of the Officers, &c. of the 50th, or Queen's Own Regiment from 1807 to 1821
John Patterson
HOOK This memoir offers a vivid, boots-on-the-ground account of the British soldier’s experience during the Peninsular War, capturing the grim realities and fleeting camaraderie of a life spent in the service of the Queen’s Own.

The Bay State Monthly
Various
This collection captures the spirit of late 19th-century New England, offering a mosaic of historical accounts, biographical sketches, and regional observations that preserve a vanishing way of life.

The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 08: Convent Affairs
Giacomo Casanova
This memoir captures the breathless, transgressive pace of 18th-century Venetian life, where the sacred and the profane collide within the walls of a convent. It is a portrait of an adventurer whose appetites for beauty, risk, and philosophy are as insatiable as they are self-destructive.

The Preaching Tours and Missionary Labours of George Müller (of Bristol)
Susannah Grace Sanger Müller
A lifelong preacher steps out from his settled life to traverse the globe, sharing a message of faith and service across five continents in his final decades.

"Thirty Years In Hell" Or, "From Darkness to Light"
Bernard Fresenborg
A former priest recounts thirty years spent within the Catholic Church, ultimately breaking away to warn the American public of what he describes as a pervasive and dangerous system of religious and political control.

Wagner
John F. Runciman
A relentless portrait of artistic obsession, this account traces the turbulent ascent of a composer who fundamentally reshaped the landscape of Western music through sheer, uncompromising force of will.

William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery
Bayard Tuckerman
A principled legal scholar stakes his reputation on the belief that the American Constitution is the most potent weapon for ending the scourge of slavery. He fights not with mobs, but with logic.

Women of Belgium: Turning Tragedy to Triumph
Charlotte Kellogg
Behind the devastation of occupied territory, thousands of quiet volunteers run soup kitchens, clinics, and workrooms to keep an isolated population alive.

An Onlooker in France 1917-1919
Orpen, William, Sir
The battlefield is a place of mud and immense sorrow, yet even amidst the wreckage of the Great War, the human spirit flickers with unexpected grace. This account serves as a quiet, observant witness to the ordinary lives caught in the machinery of history.

From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book
John Kendrick Bangs
A life spent on the road reveals that the humor of human inconsistency is the most reliable companion one can find. Through the chaos of travel, the true character of a nation emerges.

The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume III
Theophilus Cibber
This collection of biographies chronicles the lives and literary output of forty English and Irish poets, spanning the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It offers a window into the professional struggles, social entanglements, and artistic reputations of figures ranging from the celebrated John Dryden to…

The Story of a Life
J. Breckenridge (John Breckenridge) Ellis
A portrait of devotion and industry, this chronicle follows two educators as they build a legacy of Christian learning across continents and decades.

A Practical Illustration of "Woman's Right to Labor": A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia
Marie E. (Marie Elizabeth) Zakrzewska
A pioneering female physician recounts her arduous journey from Prussian hospital halls to the nascent medical scene of nineteenth-century America, proving that a woman’s right to labor is a fundamental necessity, not a privilege.

Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
John McElroy
This is a grueling, visceral account of survival inside the most notorious prison of the American Civil War. It documents not only the physical erosion of the human body but the internal politics and desperate resilience of the men confined within the stockade.

Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother
Arthur Christopher Benson
A devoted brother maps the vibrant, restless life of a gifted priest, capturing the intimate, unvarnished portrait of a man who moved with singular intensity through faith and art.

Life of Abraham Lincoln: Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324
John Hugh Bowers
From the humble silence of a backwoods log cabin to the heavy burdens of the presidency, this account traces the steady, deliberate rise of a man defined by his honesty, his melancholy, and his profound empathy for humanity.

Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of the Court of Queen Anne Vol. 2 (of 2)
Thomson, A. T., Mrs.
A portrait of power and its inevitable erosion, these memoirs chart the rise and fall of a woman who shaped the trajectory of a throne. They remain a sharp, unvarnished look at the architecture of eighteenth-century influence.

On the right of the British line
Gilbert Nobbs
A man’s journey from the quiet anticipation of the English countryside to the harrowing front lines of the Somme, and finally into the cold reality of a German prisoner-of-war camp. This harrowing firsthand account offers an unvarnished look at the transition from civilian to soldier, the dehumanizing machinery of…