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Biographies — page 55

2,670 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 55 of 56.

Cover of The Song of the Rappahannock: Sketches of the Civil War

The Song of the Rappahannock: Sketches of the Civil War

Ira Seymour Dodd

The Civil War is often remembered through the grand movements of armies and the decisions of generals, yet its true character resided in the personal ordeals of the young men who filled the ranks.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement

Theodore Roosevelt

This volume serves as a primary historical record, documenting the transition of the American executive into the twentieth century through the official papers, messages, and administrative proclamations of a seminal political era.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Abraham Lincoln: The Practical Mystic

Abraham Lincoln: The Practical Mystic

Francis Grierson

A portrait of a legendary leader, this exploration reframes a familiar historical figure not as a mere politician, but as an intuitive force guided by powers beyond the visible world.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Adventures and Reminiscences of a Volunteer

Adventures and Reminiscences of a Volunteer

George T. Ulmer

A young boy’s persistent, irrepressible desire to serve his country leads him from a ragged childhood in New York to the muddy, dangerous front lines of the American Civil War.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Beyond the Marne: Quincy, Huiry, Voisins before and during the battle

Beyond the Marne: Quincy, Huiry, Voisins before and during the battle

Henriette Cuvru-Magot

This diary captures the intimate, harrowing silence of a French village caught in the path of the German advance toward Paris in 1914. It is a quiet testament to the endurance of those who remained behind when the world seemed to be ending.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Bill Porter

Bill Porter

Upton Sinclair

A captive writer transforms the misery of his prison term into the vivid, bittersweet tales that would define his legacy as a voice for the forgotten. This play dramatizes the intersection of art, survival, and the shadows of the past.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of From Lower Deck to Pulpit

From Lower Deck to Pulpit

Henry Cowling

This memoir recounts a journey from the harsh discipline of the Victorian-era Royal Navy to the pulpit of a Baptist church, revealing how a young boy’s early yearning for ministry survived years of sea-hardened adversity.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of John Cheap, the Chapman's Library. Vol. 2: Religious and Scriptural: The Scottish Chap Literature of Last Century, Classified

John Cheap, the Chapman's Library. Vol. 2: Religious and Scriptural: The Scottish Chap Literature of Last Century, Classified

Dougal Graham

This collection revives the rugged, urgent voice of 18th-century Scotland, preserving the spiritual anxieties and heroic narratives that once filled the pockets and hearths of a pious, hard-pressed people. It functions as a portable monument to a vanishing world of faith and folklore.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of Life of Luther

Life of Luther

Julius Köstlin

The legacy of the German Reformation rests upon the shoulders of a man whose inner turbulence transformed the religious and political landscape of Europe. This account maps the evolution of a monk into a defiant revolutionary.

Biographies8 min read
Cover of Memoir of John Howe Peyton: in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

Memoir of John Howe Peyton: in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

Unknown

A testament to a lost era of Virginia legal giants, this collection gathers the tributes and private correspondence of a man whose reputation survives not through his own writings, but through the enduring awe of his peers.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Memoirs of a Veteran Who Served as a Private in the 60's in the War Between the States: Personal Incidents, Experiences and Observations

Memoirs of a Veteran Who Served as a Private in the 60's in the War Between the States: Personal Incidents, Experiences and Observations

I. (Isaac) Hermann

This memoir offers an unvarnished, boots-on-the-ground perspective of a Confederate soldier navigating the chaos of the American Civil War and its immediate, turbulent aftermath.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave. Second Edition

Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave. Second Edition

William Wells Brown

The North Star is the only compass that matters when the path to freedom lies across a landscape of chains, whips, and legally sanctioned brutality.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Bay State Monthly

The Bay State Monthly

Various

This collection serves as a vibrant, multifaceted portrait of Massachusetts in the late 19th century, offering readers a glimpse into the historical, political, and cultural currents that shaped New England’s identity during the 1880s.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Dispatch Carrier and Memoirs of Andersonville Prison

The Dispatch Carrier and Memoirs of Andersonville Prison

William N. (William Nelson) Tyler

A Union soldier recounts the harrowing transition from the life of a mobile dispatch carrier to the starvation and struggle for survival within the walls of Andersonville Prison.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 05: Milan and Mantua

The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 05: Milan and Mantua

Giacomo Casanova

A restless young man maneuvers through the high-stakes games and hidden dangers of 18th-century Italy, driven by an unquenchable thirst for fortune, intrigue, and the favors of beautiful women.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Widger's Quotations from Project Gutenberg Edition of The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau

Widger's Quotations from Project Gutenberg Edition of The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The life of a man who feels everything is a record of both profound connection and profound alienation. This narrative maps the internal landscape of a singular mind, tracing the development of a soul from childhood vulnerability to the burdens of public fame.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852

Various

This collection captures the mid-nineteenth-century spirit through a blend of rigorous historical biography, serialized fiction, and urgent political commentary on the state of the British Empire.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), Essay 10: Auguste Comte

Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), Essay 10: Auguste Comte

John Morley

Auguste Comte emerges as a figure of singular intellectual intensity, a man whose ambition to reorganize society through scientific rigor led him from brilliant sociological insights to the creation of a rigid, secular religion.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

Shelby M. (Shelby Moore) Cullom

A seasoned statesman recounts fifty years of political shifts, spanning the rise of the Republican Party, the Civil War, and the emergence of the United States as a global power.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of My German Prisons: Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War

My German Prisons: Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War

Horace Gray Gilliland

HOOK A vivid, firsthand account of two and a half years held captive in Germany during the Great War, detailing the relentless struggle for survival and the desperate, high-stakes quest for freedom.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of My Three Years in a German Prison

My Three Years in a German Prison

Henri Béland

The Great War began as a distant rumble of news in the Pyrenees and transformed into a three-year crucible of confinement for a Canadian physician trapped behind enemy lines.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Ten Years and Ten Months in Lunatic Asylums in Different States

Ten Years and Ten Months in Lunatic Asylums in Different States

Moses Swan

To endure silence for a decade is a heavy burden, yet to document the brutality of those years is an act of fierce, necessary defiance. This account serves as both a harrowing testimony and a desperate plea for reform.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2

The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2

Various

This magazine issue offers a panoramic view of nineteenth-century New England, blending industrial biography, regional travelogues, and literary history into a portrait of a society deeply rooted in its own past.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Mentor: Makers of Modern Opera, Vol. 1, Num. 47, Serial No. 47

The Mentor: Makers of Modern Opera, Vol. 1, Num. 47, Serial No. 47

Henry Edward Krehbiel

Born from a scholarly attempt to recreate the power of Greek drama, modern opera evolved into a global language of melody and realism that continues to define the musical stage.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 568, September 29, 1832

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 568, September 29, 1832

Various

This compendium of nineteenth-century curiosity serves as a vibrant microcosm of the Victorian-era appetite for knowledge, blending biographical sketches, scientific inquiry, and historical anecdote into a single, accessible package.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of The War Stories of Private Thomas Atkins

The War Stories of Private Thomas Atkins

James Milne

This book is a collection of firsthand accounts from British soldiers serving on the front lines of the First World War. Through their own letters home, these men document the brutal, absurd, and deeply human realities of life in the trenches, from the terror of artillery fire to the simple joy of a shared meal. It…

Biographies6 min read
Cover of A Garden Diary, September 1899—September 1900

A Garden Diary, September 1899—September 1900

Emily Lawless

The quiet observation of a single garden becomes a lens for understanding both the natural world and the vast, unsettling movements of history. Within these pages, the humblest plot of earth reflects the human condition.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Mutiny Memoirs: Being Personal Reminiscences of the Great Sepoy Revolt of 1857

Mutiny Memoirs: Being Personal Reminiscences of the Great Sepoy Revolt of 1857

A. R. D. (Alfred Robert Davidson) Mackenzie

The Great Sepoy Revolt of 1857 remains one of the most transformative and harrowing episodes in the history of British India. Written by a young cavalry subaltern who lived through the upheaval, these memoirs offer an immediate, ground-level account of the conflict’s sudden start, the brutal siege of Delhi, and the…

Biographies6 min read
Cover of My three years in Manipur

My three years in Manipur

Ethel St. Clair Grimwood

The Residency at Manipur, once a garden oasis of polo and photography, becomes the site of a brutal political uprising, forcing a young woman to trade her quiet domestic life for a harrowing flight through the jungle.

Biographies5 min read
Cover of The Life of Hugo Grotius: With Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands

The Life of Hugo Grotius: With Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands

Charles Butler

A life defined by the pursuit of intellectual liberty and international order, this account traces the remarkable trajectory of a jurist, scholar, and diplomat caught in the violent religious conflicts of the seventeenth-century Netherlands.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 13: Grammarians and Rhetoricians

The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 13: Grammarians and Rhetoricians

Suetonius

These brief, candid biographies capture the precarious lives of the scholars and teachers who shaped the intellectual foundation of Rome, often navigating the line between prestige and utter poverty.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Red Rugs of Tarsus: A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909

The Red Rugs of Tarsus: A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909

Helen Davenport Gibbons

HOOK In the spring of 1909, an expectant mother trapped in the volatile heart of Armenia navigates a harrowing landscape of massacre and courage.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of Trains of Recollection: Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes

Trains of Recollection: Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes

D. B. (David Blyth) Hanna

A veteran railroader traces the rise of Canada’s transcontinental lines, blending personal memoir with the hard-won lessons of building a national system from the raw, open prairie.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of A Memoir of Sir Edmund Andros, Knt.,: Governor of New England, New York and Virginia, &c., &c

A Memoir of Sir Edmund Andros, Knt.,: Governor of New England, New York and Virginia, &c., &c

William Henry Whitmore

A soldier and statesman who navigated the treacherous politics of the seventeenth-century British Empire, Edmund Andros served as a royal governor across three major American colonies despite being widely detested by his subjects.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of An English woman-sergeant in the Serbian Army

An English woman-sergeant in the Serbian Army

Flora Sandes

An Englishwoman joins the Serbian Army during the Great War, serving as a front-line soldier and sergeant. She shares an intimate, mud-splattered account of life, survival, and camaraderie in the trenches.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian

Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian

Canniff Haight

This memoir captures the vanishing textures of nineteenth-century Ontario, offering a vivid, unvarnished window into the daily rhythms, social customs, and rugged realities of pioneer life.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Emperor William First, the Great War and Peace Hero

Emperor William First, the Great War and Peace Hero

A. Walter

A life defined by military duty and the unification of a fractured nation, this portrait captures the ascent of a prince who became the first German Emperor. It traces a long, disciplined journey from the Napoleonic wars to the pinnacle of European power.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Ignaz Jan Paderewski

Ignaz Jan Paderewski

Edward Algernon Baughan

A brilliant, tempestuous force of the concert hall, this portrait captures the man behind the myth. It explores how a singular Polish artist transformed from a struggling student into the most celebrated pianist of his generation.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Le Petit Nord

Le Petit Nord

Anne Grenfell

A volunteer nurse trades the comforts of civilization for a rugged, wind-swept frontier, finding that the harsh reality of the far north holds a profound and lasting human warmth.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Lloyd George: The Man and His Story

Lloyd George: The Man and His Story

Frank Dilnot

A whirlwind of political ambition and relentless energy, this portrait captures the ascent of a small-town boy who dared to challenge the British establishment and ultimately command the nation during its hour of greatest peril.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI

Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI

Mme. Du Hausset

HOOK This intimate chronicle offers an insider’s view of the French monarchy’s final, crumbling days, as witnessed by a devoted confidante within the Queen’s private circle.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Miniature essays: Igor Stravinsky

Miniature essays: Igor Stravinsky

Anonymous

This short volume offers a concentrated, contemporary assessment of a composer whose rapid evolution challenged the musical conventions of the early twentieth century. It serves as both a biographical primer and a defense of his shifting aesthetic.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of My Life In The South

My Life In The South

Jacob Stroyer

A man who spent his youth in bondage recounts the daily reality of Southern plantation life, the harrowing experience of forced labor during the Civil War, and the profound transformation of his world upon emancipation.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Old Portraits and Modern Sketches: Part 1 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

Old Portraits and Modern Sketches: Part 1 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier

An exploration of the lives of historical figures, this collection of biographical sketches examines the intersection of personal conscience, religious conviction, and the often-harsh political realities of their respective centuries.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Pathfinders of the Great Plains: A Chronicle of La Vérendrye and his Sons

Pathfinders of the Great Plains: A Chronicle of La Vérendrye and his Sons

Lawrence J. (Lawrence Johnstone) Burpee

A testament to the relentless human impulse to map the unknown, this chronicle follows a French explorer and his sons into the heart of the North American wilderness.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Quotations from Diary of Samuel Pepys

Quotations from Diary of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

The private record of an ambitious seventeenth-century bureaucrat, this work offers an unparalleled window into the Restoration era, capturing the collision of high-stakes politics, the terror of plague and fire, and the small, messy details of daily life.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Robert E. Lee: A Story and a Play

Robert E. Lee: A Story and a Play

Ruth Hill

A portrait of a man shaped by Virginia and the crucible of war, this account follows a legendary general from his early life to his final days as a college president.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860

The Greville Memoirs, Part 3 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 2): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860

Charles Greville

The corridors of mid-Victorian power reveal their secrets through a keen observer’s lens. This chronicle captures the shifting tides of British politics, diplomacy, and the private anxieties of a governing class navigating a rapidly changing world.

Biographies7 min read
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