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Biographies — page 49
2,563 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 49 of 54.

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.

Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century
Montague Massey
This evocative memoir preserves the vanished atmosphere of a colonial city, tracing the physical and social evolution of Calcutta through the eyes of a resident who witnessed over half a century of change.

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 Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825
Gordon Sellar
This account captures the raw, arduous reality of early nineteenth-century emigration, tracing a journey from the loss of a father at Waterloo to the quiet, back-breaking labor of carving a home from the Canadian wilderness. It is a testament to the resilience of those who traded the injustices of the Old World for…

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.

A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless: In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren
Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
A woman pens a series of letters to her grandchildren, meticulously preserving the memory of their grandfather to ensure his character serves as a lasting moral compass for generations to come.

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.

The Real Robert Burns
James L. (James Laughlin) Hughes
A devotion to human dignity and freedom kindles a fiery, transformative voice that redeems a poet from the slurs of history.

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.

Arkansas Governors and United States Senators
John L. (John Lewis) Ferguson
Before statehood, territorial governors arrived from eastern states to manage a wilderness frontier. By tracing every chief executive and federal senator, this collection maps how local leadership evolved from raw appointment to enduring, self-determined governance.

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.

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.

With Zola in England: A Story of Exile
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
A celebrated novelist is driven into secret exile after taking a stand for an innocent man, finding himself stranded in an unfamiliar country where he must dodge reporters, endure isolation, and quietly await his day of justice.

A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves: Poems of James Barron Hope
J. B. H. (James Barron Hope)
The poetry of the nineteenth-century American South finds one of its most steadfast, ceremonial voices in a collection dedicated to honoring memory, public virtue, and regional heritage.

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.

Personal Reminiscences in Book Making, and Some Short Stories
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A writer who dives into cold seas to test a plot point will stop at nothing to capture the truth.

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.

Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student
S. C. (Simon Christian) Hammer
A brilliant young Scandinavian scholar absorbs the intellectual freedom of Enlightenment Britain and returns to transform the literature of his homeland.

Reminiscences of a Pioneer
Thompson, William, Colonel
A frontier memoir built of black powder, winter moss, and blunt recall, this volume leaves the Oregon trail behind to map the hard cost of settling the Pacific Northwest.

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.