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Biographies — page 46
2,466 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 46 of 52.

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.

The Confessions of a Collector
William Carew Hazlitt
A career spent chasing rare books and coins offers a glimpse into the vanished world of 19th-century collecting, where a sharp eye could turn a dusty shop discovery into a lifetime of scholarly satisfaction.

The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
A singular, restless spirit finds his home on the wild Cornish coast, where poetry, eccentricity, and a deep, unconventional devotion collide. This life story traces the arc of a man who lived as much in his own vivid dreams as in the physical world.

Virgin Saints and Martyrs
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
The devotion of extraordinary women—from the early martyrs of Rome to the Victorian nurses of England—remains a powerful, if often overlooked, force in the shaping of history.

William Tyndale
James J. (James Joseph) Ellis
The scholar who gave common people the Bible in their own language paid for the gift with his life, leaving behind a legacy that fundamentally shaped the English tongue and the spiritual history of his nation.

A Society Clown: Reminiscences
George Grossmith
HOOK This memoir offers a candid, witty window into the Victorian stage, charting the life of a performer who navigated both the prestigious Savoy Theatre and the intimate, often unpredictable world of private drawing-room entertainment.

John Gutenberg, First Master Printer: His Acts and Most Remarkable Discourses and his Death
Franz von Dingelstedt
The life of a visionary is often marked by obscurity, and this account follows the inventor of the printing press through his final years of struggle, blindness, and exile.

Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885
T. Wemyss (Thomas Wemyss) Reid
The life of a Victorian journalist reveals the intersection of personal ambition, national politics, and the rapid, often turbulent, evolution of the British press during the nineteenth century.

Starr King in California
William Day Simonds
A preacher of rare eloquence and magnetism arrives in San Francisco just as the Civil War begins, single-handedly turning the tide of public opinion to secure California for the Union.

The Life of James Renwick: A Historical Sketch Of His Life, Labours And Martyrdom And A
Thomas Houston
This historical sketch chronicles the final, defiant years of the seventeenth-century Scottish Covenanters through the life and ultimate sacrifice of their last martyr, James Renwick.

A Woman's Part in a Revolution
Natalie Harris Hammond
A woman navigates the harrowing uncertainty of the 1895–1896 Johannesburg political uprising, finding herself caught between the clash of empires and the personal agony of her husband’s imprisonment.

John Knox
William M. (William Mackergo) Taylor
The life of a man whose singular voice once rattled the foundations of kingdoms, this biography traces the arc of a revolutionary spirit who redirected the course of Scottish history. It offers an intimate portrait of a Reformer who sought not personal power, but the total alignment of the state with his conscience.

Me: A Book of Remembrance
Onoto Watanna
Driven by youthful ambition and a restless spirit, a young woman leaves home to navigate the precarious professional and social landscapes of early twentieth-century North America.

Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons
William Gray Elmslie
This portrait of a brilliant Scottish theologian captures a life of profound intellectual intensity and active pastoral warmth, cut short in its prime. It is both a tribute to a remarkable man and a collection of his most enduring insights.

The Secrets of the German War Office
Armgaard Karl Graves
A self-proclaimed German spy details the clandestine maneuvers, political intrigues, and military preparations that preceded the outbreak of the First World War.

Through the school: The experiences of a mill boy in securing an education
Frederic Kenyon Brown
A nineteen-year-old mill worker arrives at a university with little more than three dollars and an unwavering resolve to educate himself. This account traces his journey from a manual laborer to a college graduate, revealing the profound personal costs and triumphs of such an ascent.

With Manchesters in the East
Hurst, Gerald B. (Gerald Berkeley), Sir
The Territorial soldier of the Great War was often a man of humble civilian origins whose quiet devotion to duty, rather than professional martial training, defined his contribution to the global conflict. This account preserves the memory of those citizen-soldiers who served in the East, capturing the mixture of…

Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
John McElroy
A harrowing, firsthand account of life and death within the Confederacy's most notorious prison, this record chronicles the endurance of Union soldiers facing starvation, disease, and the collapse of humanity behind a wooden stockade.

Life of Robert Browning
William Sharp
This life of a titan of Victorian literature balances intimate biographical detail with a critical survey of the poet’s complex, often challenging body of work. It captures the essential trajectory of a genius who remained unfazed by both early neglect and late-life adulation.

The 1926 Tatler
Unknown
This artifact of 1920s American adolescence serves as a time capsule for Northrop Collegiate School, capturing the earnest spirit, social hierarchies, and daily rituals of a private Minneapolis education.

A Narrative of the Siege of Delhi: With an Account of the Mutiny at Ferozepore in 1857
Charles John Griffiths
This memoir offers a candid, firsthand perspective on the 1857 Indian Rebellion, documenting the grueling siege of Delhi through the eyes of a British officer serving with the 61st Foot.

Anne Hyde, Duchess of York
J. R. Henslowe
A daughter of the English establishment rises to the throne’s shadow, navigating the volatile currents of the 17th-century court. Her path is marked by secret romance, political exile, and the heavy toll of royal life.

Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898
W. W. (William Wallace) Mills
Around my fire a friendly group to draw And tell of all I felt and all I saw.

From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign: A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw
William Meade Dame
A young artilleryman recounts the grueling final campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia, documenting a soldier’s daily life amidst the thunder of the Wilderness and the slaughter of Spottsylvania.

Gouverneur Morris
Theodore Roosevelt
This brisk, insightful biography recovers the reputation of a brilliant Founding Father. It follows a sharp-witted diplomat from the American Revolution through the chaotic rise and fall of the French monarchy.

In the Claws of the German Eagle
Albert Rhys Williams
A self-described pacifist travels into the heart of the Great War, only to find his convictions shattered as he is swept into the terrifying, mesmerizing vortex of the conflict.

Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Volume II., Part 3
William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman
Through the lens of a relentless commander, this narrative chronicles the decisive campaigns of 1864, revealing the tactical calculations and hard truths that defined the struggle for the American South.

Memoirs of the Late War, Vol 1 (of 2): Comprising the Personal Narrative of Captain Cooke, of the 43rd Regiment Light Infantry
Cooke, John Henry, Sir
These memoirs capture the visceral, day-to-day reality of a British officer serving in the Light Infantry during the Peninsular War, charting a journey from youthful romantic musings to the stark, bloody business of siege warfare.

Personal recollections of the war of 1861
Charles A. (Charles Augustus) Fuller
A law student leaves his books for the front, joining the 61st New York Infantry to witness the brutal reality of the Civil War. His memoir captures the transition from patriotic idealist to battle-hardened veteran.

Station Amusements in New Zealand
Lady (Mary Anne) Barker
This collection of reminiscences offers an intimate, unvarnished portrait of colonial life in New Zealand, capturing the everyday rhythms and absurdities of a remote sheep station. It is a vivid, firsthand account of domestic endurance, unexpected dangers, and the quiet beauty of a rugged, untamed landscape.

The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern
William U. Moulton
A portrait of a literary firebrand, this volume captures the rise of a woman who turned personal hardship into a sharp-edged public voice. It invites readers to look behind the curtain of a celebrated nineteenth-century writer.

Thomas Campbell
J. Cuthbert (James Cuthbert) Hadden
A candid portrait of a nineteenth-century literary star whose early fame faded into a lifetime of financial struggle, personal tragedy, and chronic melancholy.

William Penn
Rupert Sargent Holland
The son of an English Admiral trades a life of courtly privilege for the radical, persecuted faith of the Quakers, ultimately carving a "green country town" out of the American wilderness to serve as a sanctuary.

A Day with the Poet Tennyson
Unknown
This contemplative portrait invites readers into the secluded, rhythmically ordered world of Alfred Tennyson, revealing the domestic life and creative habits of a man whose verse captured the nineteenth century.

Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution
Anne MacVicar Grant
These recollections offer a rare, intimate window into the vanishing world of pre-Revolutionary Albany, capturing the vanished grace of a colonial society built on Dutch traditions, frontier resilience, and communal duty.

Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia with Some Account of the Late Emperor the Late Emperor Theodore, His Country and People
Henry Blanc
A gripping eyewitness account of a diplomatic mission turned nightmare, where a desperate struggle for freedom unfolds against the erratic, violent backdrop of an Ethiopian monarch’s final, crumbling reign.

The Life of Abraham Lincoln
Henry Ketcham
This portrait of a backwoods lawyer who rose to preserve a fracturing nation traces a journey from the log cabin to the martyr’s grave. It captures the quiet persistence of a man tasked with history’s heaviest burden.

The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the History of Penny Postage, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Hill, Rowland, Sir
A visionary reformer transforms a cumbersome, exclusionary communication system into a universal service, proving that lowering costs can paradoxically ignite growth and social progress.

Thomas Henry Huxley: A Character Sketch
Leonard Huxley
An intellectual dynamo of the Victorian age, this man of science fought for the truth with the ferocity of a gladiator and the tenderness of a devoted husband.

A Moslem seeker after God
Samuel Marinus Zwemer
A restless search for ultimate truth drives a brilliant philosopher away from academic fame and into years of solitary pilgrimage across the medieval Islamic world.

Adventures and Recollections
Bill o'th' Hoylus End
This memoir captures the restless, wandering life of a self-styled "son of Mischief, Art and Guile" navigating the industrial landscape of nineteenth-century Yorkshire. It serves as a candid, vivid chronicle of a man who refused to be defined by the rigid expectations of his time.

Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years
Florence Elizabeth Maybrick
An American woman endures fifteen years of harsh British imprisonment after a flawed court trial convicts her of poisoning her husband.

Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis
John A. J. (John Angel James) Creswell
The life of a resolute champion for the American Union, framed by the solemnity of a memorial address delivered in the halls of Congress shortly after the Civil War.

The Manifestation of the Miraculous Medal: A Brief Account of Its History and of the Establishment of the Association
Association of the Miraculous Medal
This historical account details the origins of the Miraculous Medal and the formal establishment of its devotional association, centering on the visionary experiences of a French nun in the early nineteenth century.

The Nation Behind Prison Bars
George L. (George Lewis) Herr
This collection of personal testimony, sermons, and correspondence documents the life and evangelistic mission of a Kentucky man dedicated to the spiritual and social rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals.