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Biographies — page 56
3,283 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 56 of 69.
Story of the Life of St. Paul, the Apostle
Seymour, Mary, active 1880-1896
This narrative traces the dramatic transformation of a zealous Pharisee into a foundational figure of the early Church, charting his missionary travels, his trials, and his eventual martyrdom. It serves as an accessible, devotional account of a life defined by radical conversion and unwavering commitment to faith.
The Southern Soldier Boy: A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy
James Carson Elliott
Enlisting to chase invaders from his home, a young North Carolina private discovers that the romance of war quickly dissolves into the brutal reality of disease, siege, and captivity.
A fragment of the prison experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman: In the State Prison at Jefferson City, Mo., and the U. S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga. February, 1918–October, 1919
Emma Goldman
This brief, urgent document provides a firsthand account of the dehumanizing realities inside American penitentiaries, revealing how the state system perpetuates the very cycles of crime it claims to cure.
Cavour
Martinengo-Cesaresco, Evelyn Lilian Hazeldine Carrington, contessa
One man’s pragmatic genius transforms a fractured, autocrat-ridden peninsula into a modern constitutional state by channeling raw patriotism into disciplined political action.
Eventful Narratives: The Thirteenth Book of the Faith Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints
Robert Aveson
This collection of accounts offers a candid window into the lives of 19th-century pioneers, capturing the intense personal stakes involved in their migration and spiritual journeys. It is a portrait of conviction tested by hardship, legal obstacles, and the rugged realities of frontier life.
Hypatia
John Toland
A brilliant philosopher is brutally murdered by a mob of clergymen in fifth-century Alexandria, sparking a centuries-long debate over the morality of those who claim to act in the name of God.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Herbert F. (Herbert Francis) Peyser
The life of a musical titan unfolds here with quiet, scholarly dignity, tracing the journey from a provincial German choirboy to the undisputed master of Western counterpoint.
Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon
Louis Constant Wairy
A firsthand witness account of the final, unraveling years of the Napoleonic Empire, as told by the man who stood closest to the Emperor’s private life.
St. Domingo, its revolution and its hero, Toussaint Louverture
Charles Wyllys Elliott
The black man who rose from the plantation to command a nation remains a singular figure of history, whose life serves as a profound challenge to the prejudices of his age.
Confessions of a Tradesman
Frank Thomas Bullen
The struggle of the small, independent shopkeeper is a quiet war of attrition against debt, exhaustion, and the indifference of a changing economy.
Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave
Isaac Mason
Born into the brutal machinery of American chattel slavery, a man struggles through decades of forced labor and displacement to finally secure his own hard-won freedom in the North.
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
The corridors of Versailles and the Palais Royal breathe with the secret pulse of a world where ambition is a currency, scandal is a weapon, and the smallest slight can rewrite the destiny of a kingdom.
Memoirs of the Marchioness of Pompadour (vol. 1 of 2)
Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de
A royal favorite navigates the volatile inner sanctum of Versailles, balancing personal devotion to a sovereign with the crushing weight of statecraft. This record offers an intimate, sharp-eyed view of power during the reign of Louis XV.
Reminiscences of a Prisoner of War and His Escape
Daniel Avery Langworthy
HOOK Driven by the desire to survive, a Union officer endures the brutal deprivation of Confederate prison camps and risks his life on a harrowing six-week trek toward freedom.
The Story of John Paul Jones
Chelsea Curtis Fraser
A storied life of seafaring defiance, this biography recounts the meteoric rise of an audacious Scottish immigrant who became the foundational architect of the United States Navy. Through relentless naval combat and a fierce, unyielding spirit, he etched his name into the annals of history as a master of the high seas.
Twenty Years on Horseback
W. M. (William Marion) Weekley
The rugged hills of nineteenth-century West Virginia provide the backdrop for this evocative account of a circuit-riding minister’s life, defined by arduous travel, deep faith, and the simple hospitality of mountain communities.
Under the guns
Annie Wittenmyer
The life of a wartime volunteer is defined not by the grand movements of armies, but by the weight of a single letter from a dying soldier and the persistence required to see a hungry man fed.
Catharine de Bora: Social and Domestic Scenes in the Home of Luther
John G. (John Gottlieb) Morris
The domestic life of a revolutionary icon is brought into focus through his marriage to a former nun, revealing the profound humanity behind a world-altering theological movement.
The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard: Containing a Particular Account of His Many Robberies and Escapes
Daniel Defoe
A young carpenter turned thief captures the imagination of eighteenth-century London by repeatedly escaping the most secure prisons in the city. His audacity transforms him from a common criminal into a legend of impossible ingenuity.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 19: Back Again to Paris
Giacomo Casanova
A restless traveler navigates the salons and intrigues of 18th-century Europe, treating every encounter—whether a high-stakes wager or a romantic pursuit—as a stage for his own performative wit.
Thrilling incidents of the Indian war of 1862
L. (Lavina) Eastlick
A mother’s harrowing journey through the 1862 Minnesota conflict leaves an indelible mark, documenting a family’s survival, the loss of her husband and children, and a desperate struggle to return home.
Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery
Filson Young
This account chronicles the relentless, singular ambition of a man who pursued a "sublime Idea" across decades of poverty and rejection, ultimately altering the map of the world. It is a portrait of a man driven by both profound faith and a cunning, often ruthless, determination to bend history to his will.
John Law of Lauriston: Financier and Statesman, Founder of the Bank of France, Originator of the Mississippi Scheme, Etc
A. W. Wiston-Glynn
A brilliant financial visionary, this eighteenth-century outsider rose to command the French economy, only to preside over a catastrophic collapse that left a nation in ruin and his own reputation in tatters.
The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3
Various
This August 1885 issue of a Massachusetts periodical serves as a time capsule, capturing the intellectual, political, and cultural preoccupations of late nineteenth-century New England through a collection of biographical sketches, travelogues, and social commentary.
The generals of the last war with Great Britain
John S. (John Stilwell) Jenkins
Courage, duty, and tactical fortitude define the leaders who forged a young nation's military identity during its second war for independence.
A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck: Delivered before the New-York Historical Society, May 17th, 1870
William Cullen Bryant
This commemorative address serves as a graceful, scholarly portrait of a man whose long life mirrored the development of New York’s civic, legal, and intellectual institutions during the nineteenth century. It is a thoughtful exploration of a public servant whose quiet, studious influence shaped the city’s character.
Four Years in the Underbrush: Adventures as a Working Woman in New York
Anonymous
A writer leaves the comfort of her literary circle to experience the harsh reality of urban labor, discovering that the most grueling challenges of city life lie hidden in the plain sight of the working class.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 3
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
A calm, methodical mind works through the chaos of war, relying on practical logic and absolute clarity to solve the deadly puzzle of the Mississippi River.
Sir Robert Hart
Juliet Bredon
An intimate portrait of a legendary figure in Chinese diplomatic history, this account reveals the quiet resolve and complex character of the man who modernized the nation’s customs service.
The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"
Minnie Lindsay Rowell Carpenter
A frail London woman transforms into a formidable urban missionary, risking her health to pull the forgotten and destitute from city slums.
The Lincoln Country in Pictures
Carl Frazier
A quiet landscape of log cabins, rutted roads, and river mills captures the physical world of a young prairie lawyer before he stepped onto the national stage.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 20: Milan
Giacomo Casanova
A glittering 18th-century world opens through the eyes of a self-styled nobleman whose currency is charm, cash, and sheer audacity. Every encounters—whether in highborn salons, gambling dens, or cheap inns—becomes a canvas for endless intrigue.
The Mentor: Famous Composers, Vol. 1, Num. 41, Serial No. 41
Henry T. Finck
This collection offers a concise, authoritative introduction to the lives and legacies of six pivotal figures in Western classical music, detailing their aesthetic contributions and the personal struggles that shaped their art.
Upper Canada Sketches
Thomas Conant
A record of frontier endurance gives way to an affection for the clearing, where hard-won soil becomes home.
Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery
Filson Young
A soul driven by immense visionary pride sails into uncharted oceans, only to watch his triumph collapse into mutiny, squalor, and the destruction of the world he claimed.
In the Prison City, Brussels, 1914-1918: A Personal Narrative
J. H. (Julia Helen Watts) Twells
Trapped behind enemy lines, a city endures four years of occupation, fighting back not with weapons, but with quiet defiance and whispered truths.
Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops: Personal Narratives of events in the War of the Rebellion, being papers read before the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society. No. 7, Second Series
Joshua M. (Joshua Melancthon) Addeman
In a war that remade a nation, thousands of newly freed men stepped forward to fight for a Union that had only just recognized their right to bear arms.
Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs
Maria Edgeworth
HOOK A polymath and devoted landlord, this restless Irish intellectual navigates the Enlightenment with a practical mind, bridging the divide between scientific curiosity and the heavy responsibilities of managing a troubled estate.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
Written against the backdrop of the American Civil War, this issue of the nineteenth-century monthly gathers fiction, biography, political commentary, and historical essays to weigh the moral, military, and human forces dividing a nation.
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.
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 narrative of some remarkable incidents, in the life of Solomon Bayley
Solomon Bayley
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. This record of faith and struggle documents a life defined by the relentless pursuit of freedom and the unwavering conviction of divine providence.
Colonial memories
Lady (Mary Anne) Barker
Across decades of travel and imperial service, a life unfolds in landscapes as disparate as the snowy plains of New Zealand and the sun-drenched gardens of Mauritius. These recollections offer a candid, intimate look at the domestic realities of nineteenth-century colonial life.
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.
Edward FitzGerald and "Posh": "Herring Merchants"
James Blyth
The unlikely friendship between a scholarly recluse and a rugged fisherman reveals the fragile, human heart hidden behind a famous literary mask.
Gems for the Young Folks: Fourth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-Day Saints
Various
A young man fleeing his past finds an unexpected family in the West, while traveling ministers survive shipwrecks, river mobbing, and extreme wilderness hardship through sheer, unyielding faith.
Lives of Two Cats
Pierre Loti
The soul of an animal is a quiet, profound mystery, and these two feline lives serve as the gentle anchors for a man’s memories of home, love, and the inexorable passage of time.
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
An intimate, unsentimental portrait of power by the man who held Napoleon's pen, tracking how a brilliant republic's general transformed into an unyielding autocrat whose ambition consumed his own empire.