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Biographies — page 48
3,136 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 48 of 66.
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.
Memoirs of Orange Jacobs
Orange Jacobs
A youth who survived the overland trek of 1852 spent eight decades growing alongside the Pacific Northwest, leaving behind a sharp, humorous, and deeply felt chronicle of a vanishing American frontier.
"Old Put" the patriot
Frederick A. (Frederick Albion) Ober
Before a formal military rank ever touched his name, Israel Putnam had already squeezed through a frozen, knee-scraping rock fissure to face down a cornered wolf in the dark.
Three Wisconsin Cushings: A sketch of the lives of Howard B., Alonzo H. and William B. Cushing, children of a pioneer family of Waukesha County
Theron Wilber Haight
Three brothers raised in frontier hardship take radically different paths through the violence of nineteenth-century America, leaving behind a legacy forged in artillery smoke, river raids, and border warfare.
Fletcher of Saltoun
George W. T. (George William Thomson) Omond
A rigid moralist stands in a chaotic chamber, fighting to preserve a nation's independence while proposing to enslave its idle poor.
Letters from the peninsula, 1808-1812
Warre, William, Sir
Underneath the official histories of Wellington’s campaigns lies a far more candid story of wet boots, frustrating allies, and the gritty day-to-day work of forging a functioning army.
My Escape from Donington Hall, Preceded by an Account of the Siege of Kiao-Chow in 1915
Gunther Plüschow
A solitary German aviator wages an aerial campaign over a besieged Chinese outpost, falls into British hands, and pulls off a daring escape through the heart of wartime London.
My Escape from Germany
Eric A. Keith
A stubborn civilian prisoner navigates false leads, wet woods, and cold cells to outwit his captors and slip across the border into Holland.
Old Melbourne Memories: Second Edition, Revised
Rolf Boldrewood
Boundless open pastures, violent frontier skirmishes, and the heady thrill of building a colony from scratch animate this rich pastoral memoir. Rolf Boldrewood captures the untamed spirit of early Victoria through vivid, authentic recollections.
The Diary of a Turk
Çerkesseyhizade Halil Halit
A provincial boy leaves his ancestral home in Asia Minor to navigate the autocracy of Constantinople, only to choose exile over submission.
To and Through Nebraska
Frances I. Sims Fulton
Courageous, observant, and disarmingly cheerful, a young woman leaves Pennsylvania in 1883 to chronicle the lives of homesteaders transforming the wide prairies of Nebraska.
White Queen of the Cannibals: the Story of Mary Slessor of Calabar
A. J. Bueltmann
A young Scottish mill girl answers a call to foreign missions, trading the harsh slums of Dundee for the uncharted jungles of Nigeria.
Chitta Ranjan
Sukumar Ranjan Das
A lifetime of intellectual brilliance and material wealth yields to a higher calling when a master of the bar surrenders his fortune to lead a non-violent revolution for his country's soul.
Homes of American Statesmen
Various
A journey across the thresholds of early America reveals how domestic private lives forged the public character of a new republic.
Little Masterpieces of Autobiography: Actors
George Iles
A great actor must vanish completely into a role, yet no artist leaves behind a more personal, elusive record of human passion and dedication.
Seven Wives and Seven Prisons
L. A. Abbott
A restless nineteenth-century itinerant travels the American Northeast, repeatedly entering hasty marriages, escaping furious in-laws, and enduring grim prison sentences before securing a quiet country life.
Sixty Years a Bookman, With Other Recollections and Reflections
Joseph Shaylor
A life shaped by the quiet rhythm of pages, presses, and trade sales yields an affectionate portrait of Victorian and Edwardian print culture.
The Utah Batteries: A History: A complete account of the muster-in, sea voyage, battles, skirmishes and barrack life of the Utah batteries, together with biographies of officers and muster-out rolls
Charles Rendell Mabey
Citizen soldiers trade the quiet towns of the American West for the heat and danger of a Pacific campaign. Written by a veteran sergeant, this account captures the reality of artillerymen fighting far from home.
Thirteen months in the Rebel Army : being a narrative of personal adventures in the infantry, ordnance, cavalry, courier, and hospital services
William G. Stevenson
Pressed into a hostile army by local vigilance committees, a young Northern traveler finds that survival requires becoming a soldier for the very cause he despises.
Thomas Carlyle
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A fiery Scottish thinker challenges the smug assumptions of nineteenth-century progress, insisting that history is driven by passionate spiritual power rather than mechanical systems or smooth political theories.
What I Remember, Volume 2
Thomas Adolphus Trollope
A bustling Victorian literary life unfolds across European stage-coaches and Florentine salons in this warm, wide-ranging memoir.
Life of Frederick Marryat
David Hannay
A life forged in naval gunfire and quiet sea routine shapes the foundation of a literary career built on sharp observation, practical sense, and unpretentious prose.
Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. of Trinity College, Cambridge: Extracted from His Letters and Diaries, with Reminiscences of His Conversation by His Friend Christopher Carr of the Same College
Arthur Christopher Benson
A gifted young Cambridge graduate abandons ordinary academic ambition to forge an uncompromising inward philosophy, testing his ideals through travel, heartbreak, and devastating personal loss.
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
A intimate, eye-level view of the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte reveals a leader operating at the thin margin where boundless personal ambition, administrative genius, and sheer luck collide.
The Autobiography of Thomas Platter, a schoolmaster of the sixteenth century
Thomas Platter
Driven by a desperate hunger for learning, a poor Swiss goat-boy travels Europe on foot to transform himself into a Renaissance master.
The Life and Adventures of Rear-Admiral John Paul Jones, Commonly Called Paul Jones
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
Driven by an unyielding desire for glory and justice, a Scottish-born sailor navigates political petty jealousies and lethal naval battles to lay the groundwork for a new nation’s maritime power.
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 14: Lives of the Poets
Suetonius
Behind the grandeur of ancient Rome's golden age of literature lies a human reality composed of imperial patronage, deadly political grudges, social climbing, and sudden, quiet tragedies.
The works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 11 (of 32)
John Wesley
An austere vision of Christian perfection takes shape through the rigorous self-examination and unrelenting zeal of three exceptionally devout men.
William Morris: A Critical Study
John Drinkwater
An energetic youth amidst Essex woodlands grows into a lifelong crusade to reclaim art, work, and community from modern industrial ugliness.
A Boy's Experience in the Civil War, 1860-1865
Thomas Hughes
Witnessing the transformation of a city under siege, a young boy observes the final, fading years of the Confederacy from the vantage point of Richmond. These recollections provide a rare, intimate view of a society in the grip of existential collapse.
Attack: An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916
Edward G. D. (Edward George Downing) Liveing
This is a searing, immediate account of a young officer’s experience during the opening of the Battle of the Somme. It captures the transition from the mundane routines of war to the sudden, chaotic violence of an infantry assault.
Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis to John S. Dwight
George William Curtis
Two young idealists step away from mid-nineteenth-century American conventions to live, farm, and reflect together, initiating a lifelong bond defined by art, transcendental philosophy, and mutual devotion.
Monk
Julian Stafford Corbett
The man who steered England through the chaos of its most turbulent century, George Monck, remains a figure of quiet, iron-willed endurance. He stands as the singular, steady hand that brought a fractured nation back from the brink of perpetual civil war.
Portrait and Biography of Parson Brownlow, The Tennessee Patriot
William Gannaway Brownlow
This volume documents the defiant journey of a Tennessee clergyman who risked execution to preserve the American Union. It serves as both a political testament and a vivid portrait of loyalty amidst the fracturing of a nation.
The war in Nicaragua
William Walker
Driven by an unyielding sense of manifest destiny, a small band of Americans attempts to reshape the political landscape of Central America through armed intervention in the Nicaraguan civil wars of the 1850s.
When I Was a Boy in Japan
Sakae Shioya
A young boy navigates the changing tides of late 19th-century Japan, balancing traditional family expectations with the rapid modernization of a country opening its doors to the wider world.
A Day with John Milton
May Byron
This slender volume captures a single day in the life of John Milton, a man navigating the twilight of his years, his sight, and his political hopes. It offers a meditative, intimate portrait of a titan of English literature living in the quiet, often contentious isolation of 1665 London.
Abraham Lincoln
T. M. (Thomas Mears) Eddy
The shadow of a martyred leader falls across a nation in mourning, prompting a powerful reflection on the moral duty to preserve the Union and complete the work of emancipation through divine and national resolve.
André Michaux's Travels into Kentucky, 1793-96
Thaddeus Mason Harris
The American frontier was not merely a map of wilderness; it was a living, breathing laboratory of botany, commerce, and human resilience. These journals offer a rare, ground-level perspective of a nation in its infancy.
George Buchanan
Robert Wallace
A towering Renaissance intellectual, this scholar shaped European thought and Scottish political life while navigating the treacherous waters of the sixteenth century. His story remains a testament to the enduring power of the written word.
Lives of Celebrated Women
Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich
This collection of biographical sketches explores the lives of notable women, challenging the notion that their influence should be confined to the domestic sphere. It celebrates figures who exerted power, intellect, and courage on the world stage.
Painted Windows
Elia Wilkinson Peattie
A childhood revisited through the lens of memory offers a sanctuary for the restless heart, proving that even the most ordinary days hold the weight of profound revelation.
The Man Behind the Bars
Winifred Louise Taylor
A woman’s lifelong dedication to befriending incarcerated men reveals the humanity behind the criminal label. This account challenges the reader to look past the crime and see the person trapped within the penitentiary walls.
A Relic of the Revolution
Charles Herbert
This is a raw, firsthand account of the brutal reality of the American Revolutionary War from the perspective of an imprisoned sailor, documenting the deprivation, resilience, and daily grind of survival behind enemy lines.
Earliest Years at Vassar: Personal Recollections
Frances Ann Wood
A pioneer educator captures the intimate, unvarnished reality of building a collegiate institution for women from the ground up, where the grand mission of learning met the daily, human comedy of communal life.
Fifteen Months in Dixie
W. W. (William Worthy) Day
This is a raw, unflinching account of a Union soldier’s endurance through the systemic deprivation of Confederate prison camps. It serves as a stark testament to the human capacity to survive in the face of absolute misery.
Great Englishwomen: An Historical Reading Book for Schools
M. B. (Margaret Bertha) Synge
These accounts of notable women from British history serve as a primer for young students, blending moral instruction with the narrative of their lives.
How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon: A True Romance of Patriotic Heroism Christian Devotion and Final Martyrdom
Oliver W. (Oliver Woodson) Nixon
This account chronicles a pivotal figure in the American settlement of the Northwest, framing a missionary’s perilous journey as the decisive act that secured the Oregon Territory for the United States.