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Biographies — page 56
2,670 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 56 of 56.
The House of Quiet: An Autobiography
Arthur Christopher Benson
The life of a man is often measured by its triumphs, but this quiet meditation suggests that our most profound truths are found in the stillness of our failures and the fragility of our mortal frames.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A candid, unvarnished portrait of seventeenth-century life, this record captures the inner workings of a man’s mind amidst the rise and fall of political giants and the rhythms of a changing city.
From flag to flag
Eliza Ripley
Driven from their Louisiana plantation by Civil War gunboats, a family flees across Texas into revolutionary Mexico, eventually attempting to rebuild their lives on a Cuban sugar estate.
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
In the shadowed hallways of Versailles, a master observer meticulously records the erosion of an absolute monarch’s power and the fragile, frantic dance of those vying to inherit the remains of a sun-king’s legacy.
Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment
John G. B. (John Gregory Bishop) Adams
A raw, unvarnished account of four years spent in the shadow of war, this narrative captures the daily existence of the men who marched from Massachusetts to the heart of the Confederacy and back.
Trips in the Life of a Locomotive Engineer
Henry Dawson
These pages offer a rare, visceral account of nineteenth-century railroading, written from the vantage point of the men who actually gripped the throttle and faced the daily peril of the iron horse.
Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon
George Manville Fenn
Courage, resilience, and quiet faith sustain Britain’s industrial class through catastrophic accidents, dangerous labor, and the daily hazard of earning a living.
Memoirs of Doctor Burney (Vol. 2 of 3): Arranged from his own manuscripts, from family papers, and from personal recollections by his daughter, Madame d'Arblay
Fanny Burney
In the crowded drawing rooms of late eighteenth-century London, a distinguished musicologist and his sharp-eyed daughter capture the famous, the brilliant, and the eccentric at their most vulnerable.
The Americanism of Washington
Henry Van Dyke
To understand the true character of George Washington, one must look beyond the myths of perfection and the cynical claims that he was merely a lucky English gentleman. His greatness lay in a deeply moral, shared American ideal.
The Uncensored Letters of a Canteen Girl
Katharine Duncan Morse
A young American woman leaves for France in 1917 to serve hot chocolate and morale to doughboys, keeping an uncensored journal to bypass military mail review.
The Wonderful Story of Lincoln: And the Meaning of His Life for the Youth and Patriotism of America
C. M. (Charles McClellan) Stevens
Driven by an unyielding desire to cultivate his mind, a boy from the wilderness rises through hardship to preserve a fractured nation and redefine the moral meaning of American freedom.
Two Suffolk Friends
Francis Hindes Groome
A quiet, luminous portrait of nineteenth-century East Anglia emerges through local memory, regional speech, and affectionate personal recollection.
A Middy's Recollections, 1853-1860
Victor Alexander Montagu
A high-born Victorian lad enters the Royal Navy at twelve, sailing directly into mid-century global conflicts with a pocketknife mark on his nose and a boyish hunger for action.
An Englishwoman's twenty-five years in tropical Africa
George Hawker
This biography traces a quarter-century of missionary service in the Congo, documenting the daily trials, humor, and unwavering resolve of an Englishwoman working in the heart of Africa.
Auld lang syne
F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller
A life rich in learning and chance encounters yields a quiet, reflective look at nineteenth-century European intellect and art through the eyes of an eminent scholar.
Hugh Miller
W. Keith (William Keith) Leask
A Scottish stonemason crafts a life of science and fierce principle, leaving his mark on the rocks of Cromarty and the religious battles of Edinburgh.
Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France
Power play, personal survival, and royal scandal collide in this vivid personal record from the heart of the sixteenth-century French court. Writing with sharp intelligence and aristocratic poise, a princess of France charts the perilous political waters of her youth.
Samuell Gorton: A Forgotten Founder of our Liberties
Lewis G. (Lewis George) Janes
A fiercely independent thinker steps into the wilderness of colonial New England, challenging both civil magistrates and religious authorities to demand absolute freedom of conscience and strict rule of law.
Sixty years with Plymouth Church
Stephen Morrell Griswold
A eyewitness account of a famous Brooklyn congregation captures six decades of American spiritual life, political upheaval, and pulpit eloquence.
Social life in old New Orleans
Eliza Ripley
A vanished world of grand parlors, hoopskirts, and riverboats comes back to life through the sharp, affectionate eyes of a woman who lived it.
The Cause of the Charge of Balaclava
Thomas Morley
A former cavalry sergeant sets out to dismantle the romantic myths surrounding a legendary military disaster, offering a blunt, eyewitness correction to official history.
The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane Capable of Sustained Free Flight: Langley's Success as a Pioneer in Aviation: From the Smithsonian Report for 1914, pages 217-222, Publication 2329, 1915
Albert Francis Zahm
A luckless accident in 1903 sidelined a pioneering craft, but its design harbored the mechanics of true sustained flight.
The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox
Charles E. (Charles Eugene) Morris
A leader must be a doer of the work, not merely a listener to promises.
Women as army surgeons
Flora Murray
When the British War Office refused to officialize women surgeons at the outbreak of the First World War, a band of pioneer medical women simply bypassed the military hierarchy, set up their own voluntary units in France, and proved their surgical brilliance on the battlefield.
A Day with Browning
Unknown
An intimate portrait of Robert Browning’s Venetian routine reveals a life where daily habit, intense observation, and moral optimism merge into enduring art.
General Gordon, Saint and Soldier
Joseph Wardle
A life of extraordinary military genius and radical Christian humility collides with the shifting demands of nineteenth-century imperial power.
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 4: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan
An intimate portrait of Marie Antoinette’s private chambers reveals how grand political illusion, courtly betrayal, and relentless public slander dismantled the French monarchy from within.
Rambles of a Naturalist
John D. (John Davidson) Godman
Beneath the quiet surfaces of everyday American landscapes lies a world of vibrant, intricate design waiting for an attentive eye.
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 12: Domitian
Suetonius
A dark portrait of imperial madness, this biography tracks how an isolated youth of unchecked vanity slowly transformed absolute power into a bloody, paranoia-fueled reign of terror.
The Rocket: The Story of the Stephensons, Father and Son
Helen C. (Helen Cross) Knight
An unlettered pit-boy teaches himself to read by engine-fire, masters mechanical engineering through sheer persistence, and builds the steam locomotive that transforms global travel forever.