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Biographies — page 45
2,670 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 45 of 56.
A Mediaeval Mystic: A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Blessed John Ruysbroeck, Canon Regular of Groenendael A.D. 1293-1381
Vincent Scully
To enter the world of fourteenth-century Brabant is to step into a landscape of forested solitude, where intense spiritual longing meets the quiet rigor of monastic devotion.
A Russian Gentleman
S. T. (Sergei Timofeevich) Aksakov
In the vast, untamed steppes of eighteenth-century Russia, a fierce patriarch builds an empire out of wilderness while his family navigates the raw currents of love, power, and survival.
Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits;: A Study in Ethics, with an Epilogue Addressed to Theologians
Clark S. (Clark Smith) Beardslee
A soul forged in penury and tested by civil war reveals how absolute moral integrity can unite a nation and clarify the nature of God.
Four American naval heroes : Paul Jones, Oliver H. Perry, Admiral Farragut, Admiral Dewey
Mabel Borton Beebe
A lineage of maritime duty connects the founding of the republic to its rise as a global power, forged through shipboard discipline, tactical daring, and quiet sacrifice.
Historia Calamitatum
Peter Abelard
Brilliant, contentious, and wrecked by his own passions, a preeminent medieval philosopher lays bare the undoing of his career and the violent ending of his grand romance.
Monumentum Ancyranum: The Deeds of Augustus
Emperor of Rome Augustus
A sovereign’s final accounting becomes a monumental testament, carving personal ambition directly into the permanent civic memory of Rome.
My First Battle: A Sergeant's Story
Adam Mickiewicz
Before the smoke clears on a field of glory, a young recruit learns that his heart belongs not to abstract honor, but to an eight-pound piece of bronze.
The Academic Gregories
Agnes Grainger Stewart
A Scottish bloodline transforms from violent Highland outlawry into an unmatched dynasty of professors, mathematicians, and pioneering physicians across two centuries of university life.
The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others
Georgiana Fullerton
Physical life yields entirely to the spirit in these lives of Christian ascetics, where bodily torment and ecstasy meet in quiet Rome.
The Winning of Canada: a Chronicle of Wolfe
William Wood
A frail, ambitious young commander dies in the moment of his greatest victory, securing a continent for an empire through a brilliant combination of naval power and bold amphibious tactics.
Vergil: A Biography
Tenney Frank
A rigorous reconstruction traces how a reserved provincial youth transformed into imperial Rome's defining epic poet through personal turmoil, philosophical study, and political upheaval.
A Biography of Edmund Spenser
John W. (John Wesley) Hales
A visionary poet navigates the sparkling heights of the Elizabethan court and the bleak realities of Irish exile, crafting immortal verse while chasing a security that forever eludes him.
A Life of St. John for the Young
George Ludington Weed
A youth raised along the shore of Galilee encounters a transformative teacher, following him from quiet waters through national turmoil to the ultimate peak of spiritual vision.
A Prisoner in Turkey
John Still
A capture at the height of battle opens a three-year ordeal through the harsh interior of Anatolia, where survival hinges on dark humor, quiet solidarity, and sheer endurance.
A sketch of the life of the late Henry Cooper, barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk circuit
William Cooper
A brilliant courtroom orator rises from obscurity to challenge British authority, only for his sudden death to ignite a bitter struggle over how his legacy will be remembered.
Into the Jaws of Death
Jack O'Brien
A Canadian infantryman survives the lethal trench warfare of the Western Front, endures brutal captivity in a German prison camp, and executes a harrowing escape across heavily guarded borders to freedom.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld
John Lothrop Motley
A frail, sixty-year-old statesman manages the affairs of a fragile new republic while European empires mobilize for a devastating religious war. When domestic fanaticism and military ambition turn against him, his devotion to the rule of law leads straight to the scaffold.
Montrose
Mowbray Morris
A brilliant strategist risks everything to unify a divided nation, only to be destroyed by the unyielding passions of civil war.
Mozart
Ebenezer Prout
A life of incredible musical genius meets the cold realities of eighteenth-century patronage, financial strain, and administrative indifference.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 1
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
An unvarnished, self-effacing account of personal life and military command reveals how a quiet Midwestern boy was unexpectedly shaped into a formidable battlefield general.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
Framing human struggle through personal memoirs, romantic fables, military dispatches, and sharp political critique, this issue captures a nation attempting to understand its own ideals amidst impending unraveling.
The True Story of My Parliamentary Struggle
Charles Bradlaugh
Denied a seat by parliamentary majorities despite repeatedly winning election, a nineteenth-century secularist fights for his right to represent his constituents without taking a religious oath.
An Oration on the Life and Services of Thomas Paine
Robert Green Ingersoll
This tribute serves as a passionate defense of a maligned revolutionary, framing his life as an essential struggle for human liberty against the twin tyrannies of monarchical statecraft and institutional superstition.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of the seventeenth century records his daily life with such startling candor that the private habits and public pressures of his era remain as vivid today as they were three hundred years ago.
Indian Biography; Vol. 1 (of 2)
B. B. (Benjamin Bussey) Thatcher
To document the lives of the original inhabitants of North America is to offer a necessary restitution of historical justice, acknowledging the genius and principle of leaders who shaped an era of profound change.
Life and Writings of Thomas R. Malthus
Charles R. (Charles Robert) Drysdale
This analytical study examines the life and intellectual legacy of Thomas Robert Malthus, specifically focusing on the socio-economic implications of his population theory and its continued relevance to late 19th-century debates on poverty and reform.
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 6: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan
In the shadow of the guillotine, a loyal attendant chronicles the final, frantic years of the French monarchy, offering an intimate witness to the collapse of a golden world.
Oliver Cromwell
Theodore Roosevelt
Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth, thy glorious way hast ploughed.
The autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
The quiet, methodical nature of an American president reveals itself in these pages, offering a portrait of a man who viewed statesmanship not as a performance, but as a series of deliberate, steady tasks. This reflection on a life spent in public service demonstrates how a reserved individual from rural Vermont…
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 05: Claudius
Suetonius
An unlikely survivor of the brutal intrigues surrounding the early Roman emperors, Claudius stumbles from the shadows of his own family into the most powerful office in the world, only to find that ruling is as dangerous as hiding.
Dr. Grenfell's Parish: The Deep Sea Fisherman
Norman Duncan
A portrait of a dedicated physician navigating the treacherous, icy coasts of Labrador to provide medical relief to isolated fishing communities. This account documents a life of service amidst an unforgiving environment.
English Men of Letters: Coleridge
H. D. (Henry Duff) Traill
The genius of the English Romantic movement remains as elusive as it is profound, trapped within the wreckage of a brilliant mind plagued by physical suffering and a fatal, self-medicating addiction.
Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln: A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England
Charles L. (Charles Latimer) Marson
A defiant, intellectually rigorous saint navigates the brutality of the Middle Ages, challenging kings and archbishops alike to uphold the moral independence of the church.
Life of Beethoven
Ludwig Nohl
This biography traces the evolution of a musical titan, chronicling his rise from a precocious child in Bonn to the solitary, deaf genius who redefined the limits of human expression in Vienna.
Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of the Court of Queen Anne Vol. 1 (of 2)
Thomson, A. T., Mrs.
A formidable woman rises from the periphery of the court to become the most influential advisor to a queen, only to find that power is as fragile as it is intoxicating.
My Diary in Serbia: April 1, 1915-Nov. 1, 1915
Monica M. Stanley
The chaos of the Great War is viewed here through the lens of a volunteer nurse, whose daily routine of surgical dressings and hospital administration offers a stark, grounded perspective on a humanitarian crisis.
Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army
Philip Henry Sheridan
A relentless professional soldier recounts the decisive maneuvers that shaped the American Civil War, the volatile frontiers of the Reconstruction era, and his observations of European warfare.
Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi
Maksim Gorky
This is a portrait of a man who held the world in his hands and fought to reconcile his own god-like stature with the common, crumbling reality of human existence.
A sailor's life under four sovereigns, Volume 1 (of 3)
Keppel, Henry, Sir
A spirited naval career unfolds across the globe, capturing the raw vitality and rigid hierarchy of the British Royal Navy during the nineteenth century.
Biography of a Slave, Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson, a Preacher of the United Brethren Church, While a Slave in the South.: Together with Startling Occurrences Incidental to Slave Life
Charles Thompson
Even through the darkest nights of bondage, a steadfast faith in the divine offers a fragile but defiant path toward spiritual autonomy and eventual liberation.
Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist
Fritz Kreisler
A celebrated violinist recounts his harrowing four weeks serving in the Austrian army during the early months of the First World War, documenting the brutal reality of the Eastern front.
John Jacob Astor
Elbert Hubbard
A young immigrant arrives in America with little more than a set of German flutes, only to build a vast fortune through an uncanny ability to anticipate the growth of a continent.
Legends: Autobiographical Sketches
August Strindberg
This haunting account of a mind fracturing under the weight of its own isolation captures the terrifying boundary where personal history dissolves into supernatural obsession. It stands as a visceral testament to a psyche desperate for meaning in a godless universe.
Letters to Helen: Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front
Keith Henderson
This collection of correspondence offers a quiet, unvarnished look at the First World War through the eyes of an artist tasked with mapping the terrain of the Western Front. It captures the tension between the mundane routines of military life and the catastrophic reality of the trenches.
Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812
Sarah J. Rhea
HOOK Driven by a restless, scholarly intellect and a profound, singular devotion, a young academic leaves the comfort of England to translate the Scriptures in the heat and peril of India and Persia.
Life of Thomas à Becket
Henry Hart Milman
The dramatic clash between a king and his former friend, who transforms from a worldly chancellor into a defiant martyr, remains one of the most compelling chapters in English history.
Memoir of Queen Adelaide, Consort of King William IV
Dr. (John) Doran
A quiet, steady life of duty unfolds within these pages, revealing a woman who navigated the tumultuous storms of British reform and royal expectation with unyielding grace and private kindness.
Robert Fulton
Alice Crary Sutcliffe
An ambitious Pennsylvania farm boy spends his youth painting portraits and designing mechanical draftings, eventually crossing the Atlantic to reshape global commerce and military strategy through the power of steam and underwater navigation.