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Biographies — page 47
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 47 of 69.
The Life of Col. James Gardiner: Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745
Philip Doddridge
A soldier’s transformation from a life of reckless dissipation to one of profound, unwavering spiritual devotion marks the course of this historical account. It chronicles the journey of a man who found his faith on the battlefield.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 02: a Cleric in Naples
Giacomo Casanova
A restless young man wanders through 18th-century Italy, chasing fortune and romance with equal parts audacity and reckless charm.
A day with the poet Burns
Unknown
A portrait of the legendary Scottish poet, this narrative follows a single day in his life as he balances the toil of an exciseman with the spontaneous, soaring inspirations of his genius.
Diary of Ezra Green, M.D. from November 1, 1777, to September 27, 1778
Ezra Green
A century-long life begins with a front-row seat to the American Revolution, captured in the terse, observant jottings of a ship’s surgeon navigating the high-stakes naval warfare of the Atlantic.
Jacob Hamblin: A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer, Disclosing Interpositions of Providence, Severe Privations, Perilous Situations and Remarkable Escapes: Fifth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series, Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Jacob Hamblin
A frontier missionary chronicles his life among the tribes of the American Southwest, documenting his efforts to broker peace and his belief in divine intervention amid the harsh realities of pioneer life.
Mere mortals
C. (Charles) MacLaurin
Great figures of history are often viewed through a lens of myth, but their lives were ultimately dictated by the frailty, disease, and biological imperatives of the human body.
Reveries over Childhood and Youth
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
The formative years of a visionary poet are etched here in delicate, fragmented memories, tracing the long, slow passage from a fearful, lonely childhood to the birth of a national literary mission.
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 03: Tiberius
Suetonius
A master of the Roman world, this emperor finds his power a heavy burden, eventually retreating into seclusion where his paranoia and cruelty bloom in terrifying isolation.
A political pilgrim in Europe
Ethel Snowden
Witness the crumbling landscape of post-war Europe through the eyes of a persistent diplomat navigating the wreckage of empires and the birth of a fragile new order.
My Southern Home
William Wells Brown
This collection of sketches blends memoir, observation, and social commentary, offering an intimate look at the realities of life in the American South before and after the Civil War. It captures the resilient spirit of a people navigating systemic oppression with wit, faith, and endurance.
Random Shots from a Rifleman
J. (John) Kincaid
A veteran’s firsthand account of the Napoleonic Wars captures the gritty, often darkly humorous realities of life in the ranks with remarkable candor and wit.
The Case of Mrs. Clive
Mrs. (Catherine) Clive
A celebrated actress takes to the press to challenge the theatrical managers who hold her livelihood hostage, exposing a monopoly that stifles both art and the basic rights of performers.
The prisoners' memoirs, or, Dartmoor prison
C. (Charles) Andrews
This firsthand account chronicles the harrowing survival of American sailors held within the damp, cold walls of Britain's most notorious prison during the War of 1812.
Theodore Roosevelt: An Address Delivered by Henry Cabot Lodge Before the Congress of the United States
Henry Cabot Lodge
This eulogistic address serves as a formal, intimate appraisal of the life and character of Theodore Roosevelt. It captures the trajectory of a man who transformed himself from a physically fragile youth into a national icon, exploring the moral and political principles that defined his public service and his…
Across the Plains to California in 1852: Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell
Lodisa Frizell
A pioneer woman records her arduous journey from Illinois to the Pacific in 1852. Her observant, clear-eyed journal captures both the terrifying fragility of life and the immense, beautiful scale of the American frontier.
Chronicles of Chicora Wood
Elizabeth W. Allston (Elizabeth Waties Allston) Pringle
The beauty of a vanished landscape and the wreckage of a social order are distilled into a memoir of a South Carolina childhood, capturing both the refinement of a wealthy rice-planting family and the encroaching ruin of the Civil War.
Letters from Mesopotamia in 1915 and January, 1916: From Robert Palmer, who was killed in the Battle of Um El Hannah, June 21, 1916, aged 27 years
Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer
These letters offer a candid, unvarnished look at a young officer’s life in the Mesopotamian campaign, capturing the mundane struggles of military bureaucracy alongside the profound, quiet realization of a soldier’s duty.
Narrative of a Private Soldier in His Majesty's 92d Regiment of Foot
George Billany
A soldier’s plain account of the Napoleonic Wars reveals the quiet, persistent struggle to maintain a moral life amidst the brutality and physical degradation of military service.
Out of the briars
A. H. (Alexander Herritage) Newton
From a life bound by indentured servitude in North Carolina to the pulpit of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a veteran’s journey chronicles the struggle for dignity and spiritual freedom in post-Civil War America.
The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into an Uproar
Allen, William G., active 1849-1853
This account chronicles a man’s harrowing escape from an American mob, a journey fueled by the courage to defy a nation’s obsession with racial purity and the rigid, often violent, boundaries of color.
The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. As Fully and Voluntarily Made to Thomas R. Gray, in the Prison Where He Was Confined, and Acknowledged by Him to be Such when Read Before the Court of Southampton
Nat Turner
This account presents the stark, final testimony of a man who led a violent uprising in 1831, offering a grim window into the mind of a condemned leader and the panic of a slave-holding society. It stands as a foundational document of American history, capturing the voices of both the incarcerated rebel and the…
A Dominie's Log
Alexander Sutherland Neill
A young teacher finds his voice by turning his private journal into a daring critique of the rigid, joyless schooling system that stifles the children in his care.
"Back from hell"
Samuel Cranston Benson
A former pacifist crosses the Atlantic to witness the ravages of the Great War, eventually finding himself caught behind enemy lines and accused of espionage.
Dealings with the Inquisition
Giacinto Achilli
A former high-ranking Dominican friar recounts his harrowing imprisonment by the Roman Inquisition and his subsequent break from the Church. This narrative serves as both a personal testament and a scathing critique of mid-nineteenth-century papal authority.
Missing Friends: Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)
Thorvald Peter Ludwig Weitemeyer
The immigrant experience is rarely as orderly as official pamphlets suggest; for those arriving in colonial Queensland, it was often a chaotic scramble for survival defined by hunger, resilience, and the thin line between success and ruin.
Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood
Grace Greenwood
This biographical sketch invites readers into the private and public world of a monarch who defined an era, capturing the transition from a sheltered girlhood to the heavy responsibilities of sovereignty. It offers an intimate, fireside perspective on one of history’s most recognizable figures, framed by the…
Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer
G. Moxley (Gilbert Moxley) Sorrel
This memoir offers an intimate, firsthand account of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, written by a key staff officer who served directly under James Longstreet.
Richard Strauss
Herbert F. (Herbert Francis) Peyser
This concise biography offers an intimate look at the life and creative evolution of one of music’s most technically brilliant and often polarizing figures. It traces the trajectory of a composer who navigated fame, scandal, and shifting artistic tides with remarkable composure.
The Lone Star Defenders
S. B. (Samuel Benton) Barron
A soldier’s unvarnished account of life in the Third Texas Cavalry, this narrative traces the grueling path of a Confederate regiment from its idealistic formation to the final collapse of the Southern cause.
The private life of Henry Maitland: A record dictated by J. H
Morley Roberts
This unconventional biography offers a raw, unvarnished portrait of a struggling novelist, capturing the tragic friction between a writer’s high ideals and the crushing, mundane realities of poverty.
Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 1
Aaron Burr
A controversial figure of the early American Republic steps out from behind the shadow of his reputation to offer an intimate, self-authored account of his formative years, military service, and political life.
My .75: Reminiscences of a Gunner of a .75m/m Battery in 1914
Paul Lintier
The Great War begins not with a roar, but with the quiet, stifling anticipation of men waiting for a signal that will change their world forever. This narrative captures the visceral reality of those first months, mapping the transformation of ordinary citizens into hardened instruments of artillery fire.
Our Standard-Bearer
Oliver Optic
This narrative biography frames the life of Ulysses S. Grant as a providential rise from humble origins to the role of national savior. It serves as an earnest, patriotic tribute to the military commander who concluded the American Civil War.
Presidential Problems
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland offers a measured, firsthand account of four defining crises of his presidency, arguing that the strength of the American government rests upon executive integrity and a steady adherence to national duty.
Life of Sir Walter Scott, with Abbotsford Notanda
Robert Chambers
A legendary novelist’s life unfolds from wild border walks and sudden literary triumph to catastrophic financial ruin and an unyielding, honorable struggle to clear his debts.
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 2: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan
An intimate eyewitness account from the heart of the French monarchy, this narrative captures the fading splendor of Versailles and the personal unraveling of a queen trapped by tradition and changing times.
Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan, a Confederate Soldier
Thomas D. (Thomas Dudley) Duncan
The young soldier’s perspective of the American Civil War serves as both a private memorial to a lost cause and a rugged account of life under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest. It captures the harrowing, visceral nature of combat through the eyes of one who grew up in the saddle.
The Memoirs of Charles-Lewis, Baron de Pollnitz, Volume IV: Being the Observations He Made in His Late Travels from Prussia thro' Germany, Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England, &C. in Letters to His Friend. Discovering Not Only the Present State of the Chief Cities and Towns
Pöllnitz, Karl Ludwig, Freiherr von
A restless nobleman wanders across early eighteenth-century Europe, documenting the shifting alliances of kings and the hidden lives of cities in a series of candid, observant letters.
The Story of Joan of Arc the Witch-Saint
M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch) Mangasarian
A martyr to dogma, a girl of nineteen, and the shifting tides of historical memory form the center of this piercing examination of institutional power.
Theodor Leschetizky
Annette Hullah
The keyboard becomes a gateway to the soul under the exacting, spirited guidance of a master who demands nothing less than total concentration from those who seek his tutelage.
Why crime does not pay
Sophie Lyons
A seasoned underworld veteran recounts a lifetime of high-stakes larceny, offering a gritty, unvarnished look at the inevitable failure of a criminal life.
Confessions of an anarchist
W. C. Hart
A former insider pulls back the curtain on London’s radical underworld to expose the hypocrisy, factionalism, and absurdities of early twentieth-century Anarchism.
Elsie Inglis: The Woman with the Torch
Eva Shaw McLaren
** Elsie Inglis transformed the landscape of medical practice and women’s rights, leading her own hospital units through the brutal chaos of World War I with unwavering resolve and a vision that reached beyond herself.
Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Auguste Levasseur
An aging hero returns to the land he helped liberate, tracing the triumphs and unhealed wounds of a young republic. Through observant eyes, this chronicle records a nation’s joyous gratitude alongside its deepest contradictions.
The Real Jefferson Davis
Landon Knight
A portrait of the Confederacy's president reveals a remarkably gentle, disciplined leader whose unyielding principles guided him through military triumphs, political battles, and total defeat.
With the Indians in France
Willcocks, James, Sir
A veteran returns home to his village on the Jhelum to recount the harrowing, noble realities of fighting in the mud-laden trenches of the Western Front.
Biographies of Working Men
Grant Allen
A poor upbringing cannot chain a determined mind, nor can hard manual labor stifle a quiet genius.
John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, volume 3 (of 3)
John Gibson Paton
A white-bearded Scottish preacher travels the globe, braving sleepless nights and hostile theological debates to secure funding, political bans, and a new steamship for his beloved South Pacific mission.