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Biographies — page 57
3,074 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 57 of 65.
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.
Notes of a Gold Digger, and Gold Diggers' Guide
James Bonwick
An eye for detail and a practical heart turn the chaos of the bush into a clear, usable roadmap for the wilderness.
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.
Rand and the Micmacs
Jeremiah S. (Jeremiah Simpson) Clark
An intimate look into a forgotten nineteenth-century Canadian mission, this volume preserves the life, language study, and spiritual devotion of a polyglot scholar who dedicated forty years to the Indigenous peoples of the Maritime Provinces.
Samuel Butler: A Sketch
Henry Festing Jones
A life of restless intellectual independence unfolds through a quiet, meticulously ordered existence in mid-Victorian London.
The Affecting Case of the Unfortunate Thomas Daniels: Who Was Tried at the Sessions Held at the Old Bailey, September, 1761, for the Supposed Murder of His Wife
Thomas Daniels
Condemned to hang for murdering his wife by throwing her from a window, an ordinary London carpenter fought his way back from the shadow of the gallows to reclaim his innocence.
Dinsmore Ely, One Who Served
Dinsmore Ely
A young man’s journey from a childhood vow to the skies of the Great War, this collection of letters captures the idealism and sobering reality of a volunteer pilot’s brief, intense life.
John Nicholson, the Lion of the Punjaub
R. E. Cholmeley
In the dust of nineteenth-century India, a British officer’s iron will and terrifying presence command both the terror of insurgents and the absolute, divine devotion of the local tribes.
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
An insider's view of absolute monarchy reveals how granular etiquette, ceaseless ambition, and personal rivalry shape the destiny of a kingdom.
Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon
Louis Constant Wairy
A valet’s vantage point transforms the myth of a conqueror into the granular reality of a man navigating the logistical grind of empire. These observations dismantle the distance between the sovereign and the servant.
Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——
Robert Butler
A veteran’s humble, devout record of military life, documenting the harsh realities of service in India and the spiritual resilience required to endure a world of profound suffering.
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.
Stevenson at Manasquan
Charlotte Eaton
HOOK This memoir captures a fleeting, luminous afternoon in New Jersey where a dying literary giant pauses to share stories of his past before departing for his final exile in the South Seas.
The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief
J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Collins
The life of Louis Riel serves as a volatile map of the Canadian frontier, tracing a path from regional agitation to the final, somber silence of the gallows. This historical account captures the rise and fall of a man whose name remains synonymous with the turbulent struggle for identity in the North-West.
War Experiences and the Story of the Vicksburg Campaign from "Milliken's Bend" to July 4, 1863: being an accurate and graphic account of campaign events taken from the diary of Capt. J.J. Kellogg, of Co. B 113th Illinois volunteer infantry
J. J. (John Jackson) Kellogg
These intimate recollections capture the visceral reality of the Vicksburg campaign, blending the grim mechanics of siege warfare with the irrepressible, often dark humor of men caught in a struggle for survival.
Abraham Lincoln's Religion
Madison Clinton Peters
Lincoln’s faith was a quiet, unconventional force that guided him through the nation’s darkest hours. This examination explores how a man defined by honesty and service lived a deeply spiritual life outside the bounds of institutional church membership.
Andrew Jackson
William Garrott Brown
A tall, fiery youth from the backwoods slashes his way from border brawls and Indian wars to the highest office in the nation, governing by sheer force of an unyielding personal will.
Boys' and Girls' Biography of Abraham Lincoln
James H. Shaw
From the humble dirt floors of a Kentucky cabin to the tragic finality of Ford’s Theatre, this narrative tracks the ascent of a man who rose from obscurity to define a nation’s soul. It is a portrait of a president shaped by the frontier, defined by his integrity, and tested by the crucible of a fractured country.
For Greater Things: The Story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka
William T. (William Terence) Kane
A young nobleman abandons his life of privilege for an arduous, thousand-mile pilgrimage on foot, driven by a singular, unwavering devotion that defies the expectations of his family and the world.
Haydn
John F. Runciman
The life of a musical pioneer remains a fascinating conundrum, as the man who revolutionized orchestral form lived a life of peasant-like simplicity and relentless routine.
The biography of a baby
Milicent Washburn Shinn
A clinical yet deeply affectionate record, this work captures the first twelve months of an infant’s life, mapping the transition from a reflexive newborn to a curious, walking, and communicating human being.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 28: Rome
Giacomo Casanova
A seasoned traveler navigates the treacherous and glittering social strata of 18th-century Rome, balancing precarious romances with the relentless pursuit of pleasure.
Twenty years in Roumania
Maude Rea Parkinson
A teacher of languages recounts two decades of life in a land where Oriental glamour meets European ambition, offering a warm, intimate portrait of a nation navigating the transition from a forgotten borderland to a modern state.
A Legacy of Fun
Abraham Lincoln
The wit of a leader emerges not in formal speeches, but in the spontaneous, sharp-tongued humor that sustained him through a nation’s darkest hours. This collection captures the wry spirit of a man who used laughter to navigate the burden of command.
Life of Bunyan
James Hamilton
This biography traces the turbulent inner life and enduring legacy of John Bunyan, a tinker who transformed from a restless, self-doubting sinner into one of history’s most influential spiritual writers.