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Biographies — page 43
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 43 of 69.
The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac
Charles W. (Charles William) Colby
This chronicle explores the volatile career of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, the iron-willed governor who steered New France through its most precarious decades. It is a portrait of colonial survival, defined by the collision of royal ambition, frontier warfare, and the stubborn personality of an aging…
The Iron Furnace
John H. (John Hill) Aughey
This personal narrative recounts a minister’s harrowing flight from Mississippi as the Civil War begins, detailing his imprisonment for his Unionist convictions and his desperate, clandestine journey to safety.
Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, lady companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, Volume 1 (of 2): with extracts from her journals and anecdote books
Ellis Cornelia Knight
This intimate chronicle offers a rare, clear-eyed view of eighteenth-century European high society and the stifling, tragic isolation of British royalty. It is a portrait of a life spent serving others, observed by a woman of sharp intellect and quiet endurance.
Sebastian Bach
Reginald Lane Poole
This biography offers a scholarly yet accessible portrait of one of music's greatest masters, tracing his journey from a modest Thuringian organist to the architect of universal sacred art. It is a work of historical reclamation, grounding the life of a legend in the rigorous archival research of the nineteenth…
Three Times and Out: Told by Private Simmons, Written by Nellie L. McClung
Nellie L. McClung
A Canadian soldier’s harrowing, true-to-life account of surviving German prison camps and the desperate, iterative quest to regain his freedom.
Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest
Kinzie, John H., Mrs.
This chronicle captures the vanishing world of the American frontier, preserving the memories of a life built at the edge of the wilderness before the rapid march of settlement erased its original character.
Whip and Spur
George E. (George Edwin) Waring
The bond between a rider and his mount serves as the heartbeat of this collection, tracing a life defined by the saddle, from the civilian parks of New York to the bloody, burning fields of the American Civil War.
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 1
George Müller
A record of profound reliance on prayer, this account traces the transformation of a wayward youth into a servant of the needy, demonstrating a radical commitment to trusting solely in divine provision for his life’s work.
Excellent Women
Various
These accounts document the lives of several women whose private convictions propelled them into public service and enduring legacies. They reveal how profound religious faith reshaped the social and charitable landscape of the nineteenth century.
Lessons from the life of Florence Nightingale
Charlotte A. (Charlotte Albina) Aikens
This work examines the transformation of nursing from a social afterthought into a disciplined, respected profession. It serves as a study of the character, grit, and administrative genius required to change a nation’s medical landscape.
Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Baronet, K.C.B
Unknown
A portrait of a nineteenth-century naval officer whose life of professional brilliance and personal tragedy becomes a meditation on the quiet strength of Christian character.
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 7: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan
A firsthand account of the final years of the Bourbon monarchy, this narrative chronicles the descent of a royal family from the splendor of Versailles to the isolation of the Temple prison.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 5
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
A relentless, firsthand account of the Civil War’s final, grueling campaigns, written with the clear-eyed, unvarnished pragmatism of the general who directed them.
S.O.S. Stand to!
Reginald Grant
The roar of the artillery defines the soldier’s existence in the Great War, a reality where survival depends on precision, nerves, and the relentless, mechanical demands of the front line.
The life of Poggio Bracciolini
William Shepherd
The life of a scholar who traversed the turbulent corridors of 15th-century Europe, this account unearths the intellectual rebirth of the Renaissance through the eyes of a central, if often combative, witness. It charts the intersection of private ambition and public upheaval.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 12: Return to Paris
Giacomo Casanova
A restless traveler navigates the shifting currents of 18th-century European high society, balancing grand financial schemes against the intimate, often precarious, entanglements of his own heart.
The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography
J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie
To understand the Victorian era’s most polarizing statesman, one must look past his monumental legacy and into the scattered, humanizing details of his long, restless career.
Woman's Endurance
A. D. (August D.) Luckhoff
Through the daily, relentless toll of the Bethulie concentration camp, a young chaplain bears witness to the fractured lives of Boer families, finding fragments of grace amidst the overwhelming sorrow of war.
Count Frontenac: Makers of Canada, Volume 3
William Dawson LeSueur
A singular, commanding figure dominates the early history of New France, navigating the treacherous waters of colonial survival and ecclesiastical conflict. This account maps the turbulent era of Louis de Buade, Count Frontenac, as he steers a fledgling colony through war, political factionalism, and the harsh…
Edvard Grieg
Thomas Tapper
This biography captures the life of a musician who drew his inspiration from the mountains and folklore of Norway. It serves as a gentle introduction to the artistic spirit of a composer who stayed true to his own voice.
Life of Robert Burns
Thomas Carlyle
A portrait of the legendary Scottish bard that delves into the spiritual wreckage and transcendent genius of a man who lived as a tragedy in his own right.
President Heber C. Kimball's Journal: Seventh Book of the Faith-Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Heber C. (Heber Chase) Kimball
A dedicated account of missionary zeal and endurance, this record captures the foundational experiences of an early church leader as he spreads his faith across oceans and internal divides.
Principal Cairns
John Cairns
This biography documents the life of a Scottish Presbyterian leader who prioritized human connection and church unity over the pursuit of academic or professional prestige. It traces the trajectory of a man whose quiet devotion shaped a generation.
Q.6.a and Other places: Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918
Francis Buckley
A precise, unvarnished account of three years in the trenches, this memoir records the daily rhythms of a soldier in the Northumberland Fusiliers during the Great War.
Life of Charles T. Walker, D.D.: ("The Black Spurgeon") Pastor Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, New York City
Silas Xavier Floyd
A dedicated clergyman rises from humble roots in the post-Civil War South to become a national voice for justice and the beloved shepherd of a divided New York congregation.
Mohammed, The Prophet of Islam
Herbert E. E. (Herbert Edward Elton) Hayes
This critical biography presents a strident, polemical evaluation of the life of Muhammad, written to serve as a corrective to what the author views as dangerously idealized portrayals of Islam. It is a work of early twentieth-century missionary literature, functioning less as a neutral historical account and more…
Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865
Henry Harrison Eby
A raw, firsthand account of a young cavalryman’s journey from the mud-slicked skirmishes of the Western theater to the harrowing, dehumanizing depths of Confederate prison camps.
The strange career of the Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont
J. Buchan (John Buchan) Telfer
The life of the Chevalier d'Eon remains one of history’s most baffling puzzles, weaving together international espionage, high-stakes diplomacy, and the enigma of a shifting identity.
The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
The hard-won enfranchisement of British women is chronicled here by a central leader of the movement, tracing the shift from bitter parliamentary defeat to the final, necessary victory of 1918.
Ariel: A Shelley Romance
André Maurois
A brilliant and volatile spirit caught in the friction of his own ideals, a young poet navigates the brutal conventions of the nineteenth century. This portrait captures the luminous, often tragic intersection of genius and ordinary human frailty.
Fifteen years in hell
Luther Benson
The path to ruin is often paved with small, seemingly innocuous choices, yet for some, the descent is swifter and more absolute than the world can comprehend.
Lafayette, We Come!: The Story of How a Young Frenchman Fought for Liberty in America and How America Now Fights for Liberty in France
Rupert Sargent Holland
A young aristocrat abandons his life of luxury to champion the cause of freedom, forging an enduring bond between two nations that echoes from the American Revolution to the battlefields of the First World War.
Reminiscences of Queensland, 1862-1869
William Henry Corfield
A young Englishman abandons the predictability of home for the rugged, unknown horizons of Queensland, helping to forge a new society in the harsh Australian interior.
The Autobiography of a Cornish Smuggler: (Captain Harry Carter, of Prussia Cove) 1749-1809
Harry Carter
A life forged in the lawless shadows of the Cornish coast gives way to an unexpected spiritual awakening, transforming a notorious smuggler into a man of quiet, enduring faith.
The Bay State Monthly
Various
This collection of historical sketches and chronicles documents the civic, religious, and personal development of Massachusetts communities. Through detailed portraits of prominent figures and municipal milestones, it preserves the cultural lineage of New England.
Alfred the Great
Unknown
A dark night of foreign invasion yields to a visionary king who rebuilds a shattered nation through laws, naval defense, and the power of the written word.
Anne Bradstreet and Her Time
Helen Campbell
This inquiry explores the life and limitations of America’s first woman of letters, tracing how a Puritan woman’s internal devotion clashed with the rigid, often harsh expectations of the seventeenth-century colonial frontier.
Extracts from the Diary of William Bray
William Bray
A remarkably sustained chronicle of an eighteenth-century life, this record documents decades of social engagements, professional duties, and quiet routines. It offers a rare, unadorned window into the steady pulse of a long-lived English gentleman.
Franz Joseph Haydn
Thomas Tapper
Before he ever commanded an orchestra, a tiny boy stood in an Austrian village and scraped two wooden sticks together to match his parents' singing, eager to capture a music he could feel long before he could play it.
Precious Memories: Sixteenth Book of the Faith Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Unknown
An intimate look at Victorian-era conversion, this volume collects firsthand accounts of ordinary British families who abandoned their traditional lives for faith in the American West.
The Battle of Atlanta: and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc
Grenville Mellen Dodge
A Union general looks back across decades of fire and prairie, setting down the brutal, unglamored mechanics of how a nation was held together.
The Gold-Headed Cane
William Macmichael
A gold-headed cane, once the constant companion of London’s most celebrated physicians, recounts the shifting fortunes and quiet triumphs of the medical profession across two centuries. This silent witness preserves the private conversations and public legacies of the healers who carried it.
A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of
An unsparing portrait of a reigning monarch gives way to an extraordinary collection of aphorisms on the dark mechanics of human nature, power, and statecraft.
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
Unknown
A young republic struggles to define its constitutional boundaries while projecting quiet strength across its expanding borders and distant seas.
A warrior who fought Custer
Wooden Leg
A young Northern Cheyenne warrior coming of age during the plains wars of the late nineteenth century records his life, his community's customs, and the legendary clash at the Little Bighorn.
Autobiography of Z. S. Hastings
Z. S. (Zachariah Simpson) Hastings
A devoted preacher charts his journey through early pioneer midwestern life, endless rural travel, and the personal griefs that anchor a quiet faith.
Average Americans
Theodore Roosevelt
A warm, clear-eyed account of citizen-soldiers in the First World War, combining vivid frontline realism with an unsparing critique of national unpreparedness.
Father Henson's Story of His Own Life: Truth Stranger Than Fiction
Josiah Henson
A harrowing journey from chattel slavery to international prominence yields a testament to human resilience, moral courage, and the transformative power of practical faith.