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Biographies — page 58
3,074 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 58 of 65.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456: Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century miscellany offers a panoramic view of Victorian life, blending earnest social advocacy with grim gothic fiction, scientific curiosity, and the practical spirit of an expanding British empire.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War
John Lothrop Motley
The fall of a foundational statesman mirrors the agonizing collapse of European peace on the eve of a continental slaughter. This history examines how fragile political stability dissolves when religious intolerance and private ambition take precedence over the common good.
Schöne Aussicht: A Journal of Our Trip Abroad
Louise Spilker
A fresh, unpretentious American lens turns European sights into lively personal history, capturing the thrill and absurdities of a grand turn-of-the-century tour.
The Bay State Monthly
Various
Discover how mid-nineteenth-century New England understood its own history, industry, and heroic figures through this rich period journal.
The Doctor's Secret Journal
Daniel Morison
A solitary surgeon’s mate at a remote Great Lakes outpost endures years of systematic violent assaults, petty corruption, and bureaucratic indifference from his superior officers.
The Golden South: Memories of Australian Home Life from 1843 to 1888
Kathleen Lambert
A young woman steps ashore at Sydney Harbour in 1843, watching a quiet coast that will, over her lifetime, transform into a bustling modern nation.
The Life and Letters of the Rev. George Mortimer, M.A.: Rector of Thornhill, in the Diocese of Toronto, Canada West
John Armstrong
Through personal letters and quiet reflections, a 19th-century Anglican clergyman navigates the pull between personal intellect, evangelical passion, and the practical demands of parish life across two continents.
The Life of James Renwick: A Historical Sketch Of His Life, Labours And Martyrdom And A
Thomas Houston
This historical sketch chronicles the final, defiant years of the seventeenth-century Scottish Covenanters through the life and ultimate sacrifice of their last martyr, James Renwick.
Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission
Daniel C. (Daniel Clarke) Eddy
Courageous women abandon comfortable American homes to preach, teach, and endure horrific privations across the nineteenth-century global mission field.
Kelly of the Foreign Legion: Letters of Légionnaire Russell A. Kelly
Russell Anthony Kelly
A young American volunteer records his brief, clear-eyed journey from enlisting in France to the bloody trenches of the Western Front, where romantic notions of war swiftly vanish.
Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky: Containing an Account of His Three Escapes, in 1839, 1846, and 1848
J. D. (Jacob D.) Green
Driven by a fierce resolve to escape the lash, an enslaved man repeatedly risks his life to break free from the brutal plantation system of nineteenth-century Maryland and Kentucky.
William Shakespeare: His Homes and Haunts
S. L. (Samuel Levy) Bensusan
The past remains a living landscape, and even the most famous of lives can be traced through the quiet corners and enduring geography of a long-lost Elizabethan world.
A journal containing an accurate and interesting account of the hardships, sufferings, battles, defeat, and captivity of those heroic Kentucky volunteers and regulars, commanded by General Winchester, in the year 1812-13: Also, two narratives, by men that were wounded in the battles on the River Raisin, and taken captive by the Indians
Elias Darnell
This firsthand account chronicles the harrowing experiences of Kentucky volunteers during the War of 1812, detailing their brutal defeat at the River Raisin and the subsequent captivity of the survivors among Indigenous tribes.
Alice Cogswell Bemis: A Sketch by a Friend
Anonymous
A life shaped by colonial ancestry, western migration, and quiet philanthropy unfolds through the steady, unpretentious narrative of an extraordinary New England family.
From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles: A Midshipman's Log
Wolston B. C. W. (Wolston Beaumont Charles Weld) Forester
A fifteen-year-old cadet steps from the rigid routine of a naval college directly into the chaos of global war. Across world-spanning seas and sudden naval bombardments, he grows up fast under the shadowing threat of destruction.
Narrative of Mr. John Dodge during his Captivity at Detroit
John Dodge
To oppose a royal governor in the frontier backcountry of the American Revolution is to risk not just one's fortune, but one's skin, body, and breath.
Silver Chimes in Syria: Glimpses of a Missionary's Experiences
William S. Nelson
A foreign missionary encounters the rugged beauty, rich ancient history, and deep social shifts of early twentieth-century Syria while striving to build schools, churches, and lasting human connections.
A Sketch of the Life and Times of Judge Haliburton
R. G. (Robert Grant) Haliburton
The life of a colonial judge turned literary icon serves as a window into the evolution of the British Empire, revealing how one man’s wit shaped public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of insatiable curiosity and sharp administrative instincts, the author chronicles his life in 17th-century London with unflinching, intimate candor. His daily records capture both the grand shifts of the Restoration and the messy, private textures of a household in flux.
George Washington Carver National Monument Junior Ranger Activity Book: The Plant Doctor
United States. National Park Service
This interactive guide invites young explorers to discover the life and legacy of George Washington Carver through hands-on engagement with the historical site of his birth.
Into the Jaws of Death
Jack O'Brien
A Canadian infantryman survives the lethal trench warfare of the Western Front, endures brutal captivity in a German prison camp, and executes a harrowing escape across heavily guarded borders to freedom.
Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq
Henry Hunt
An ambitious Wiltshire gentleman trades the comfortable routines of a country landowner for the perilous, high-stakes arena of early nineteenth-century political reform.
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
This is a masterwork of observation, charting the twilight of a Sun King whose brilliant court masks a landscape of crumbling finances, petty rivalries, and the slow, inevitable erosion of absolute power.
On the Edge of the War Zone: From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes
Mildred Aldrich
HOOK An American woman living in the French countryside documents the slow, harrowing endurance of a nation at war, from the initial shock of the Marne to the long-awaited arrival of her countrymen.
A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 2
George Müller
This account details the daily, rigorous application of faith, tracking how one man navigated severe illness, personal doubt, and the constant financial pressures of running an orphanage without ever asking for funds. It serves as a meticulous study of a life defined by the practice of prayer.
Confessions of a railroad signalman
James O. (James Octavius) Fagan
The American railroad system at the turn of the twentieth century is a dangerous machine, and only a fundamental shift in how employees and management perceive their responsibilities will secure the safety of the traveling public.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
The most intimate window into a vanished world, this record captures the bustling, fragile, and often absurd reality of seventeenth-century London through the eyes of an indispensable observer.
Life of John Brown
Michael Gold
An old, austere Puritan farmer wages a relentless, bloody war against the institution of American slavery, culminating in the raid on Harpers Ferry and a martyr's death on the gallows.
My Mission to London, 1912-1914
Lichnowsky, Karl Max, Fürst von
The final German ambassador to London before the Great War offers an insider’s autopsy of the diplomacy that failed, exposing the rigid fatalism and miscalculations that led his nation into global catastrophe.
My Robin
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A solitary writer sits motionlessly in a quiet, walled English rose garden until a wild creature decides she is entirely safe.
Priestley in America, 1794-1804
Edgar Fahs Smith
Driven from England by political and religious persecution, a legendary natural philosopher seeks refuge across the Atlantic to rebuild his life and continue his pioneering experiments.
The Confessions of the Celebrated Countess of Lichtenau, Late Mrs. Rietz: Now Confined in the Fortress of Gloglau as a State-prisoner
Heinrich Husen
HOOK A daughter of a humble trumpeter climbs to the heights of the Prussian court, only to fall into the abyss of a state prison. Her own words document the chilling intersection of seduction, surveillance, and political ruin.
The life of Rev. Henry Martyn
John Hall
A young scholar leaves behind a brilliant academic future in England to endure a life of physical hardship and spiritual struggle as a missionary in India and Persia.
The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher: A True Story
Isabel C. (Isabel Coston) Byrum
HOOK Born into the cold neglect of a Pennsylvania almshouse, a solitary child finds his way through a world of hardship by following a silent, divine inner light.
With the Connaught Rangers
Edward Herbert Maxwell
From Irish garrison towns to the snowy Himalayan peaks, a British officer chronicles decades of military life, foreign travel, and rugged adventure across an expanding empire.
"Born of the Spirit;" or, Gems from the Book of Life
Zenas Osborne
Divine power breaks into human lives through startling physical manifestations, miraculous provisions, and an unyielding call to recover the fiery spiritual intensity of early Methodism.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Amidst official state business, naval wars against the Dutch, and the creeping shadow of the plague, a seventeenth-century administrator records the daily textures of ordinary and extraordinary life in London.
Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist
Fritz Kreisler
A celebrated violinist recounts his harrowing four weeks serving in the Austrian army during the early months of the First World War, documenting the brutal reality of the Eastern front.
Golden Lads
Arthur Gleason
HOOK This urgent, firsthand account from the front lines of the Great War chronicles the moral crisis of a generation and the indomitable courage of those who defied a systematic campaign of terror.
Notes of hospital life from November, 1861, to August, 1863
Anonymous
A dedicated nurse records the raw, human reality of a Philadelphia military hospital during the American Civil War, offering a quiet testament to the soldiers who fought and suffered.
Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon
Louis Constant Wairy
A private view of the man behind the empire reveals the human domesticity, calculated theatrics, and grueling routine of a ruler seen through his servant’s eyes.
Synge and the Ireland of His Time
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
This is a portrait of a singular artistic mind finding its voice within the untamed landscapes of Ireland, written by a peer who witnessed the struggles of genius against the constraints of its time.
At Ypres with Best-Dunkley
Thomas Hope Floyd
This intimate account captures the daily rhythms of soldiers awaiting the Third Battle of Ypres. It stands as a modest, essential tribute to the men who fought and the commander who led them to their final objective.
Björnstjerne Björnson, 1832-1910
William Morton Payne
A master of letters shapes a nation's voice, intertwining peasant realism with heroic sagas to champion human freedom, truth, and love across a turbulent era.
Life and Confession of Ann Walters, the Female Murderess!!: Also the Execution of Enos G. Dudley, at Haverhill, N. H., May 23, 1849. To Which Is Added the Confession of Mary Runkle, Who Was Executed for Murder
Anonymous
This collection of nineteenth-century criminal narratives examines the darkest edges of human behavior, offering a grim, moralizing window into the era’s fascination with "notorious" offenders and the finality of the gallows.
Political Recollections: 1840 to 1872
George Washington Julian
A fierce, thirty-year battle for the nation's moral sanity unfolds through the memory of a leader who stood in the center of the storm.
Reminiscences of a Private, Company "G", First Arkansas Regiment Infantry: May, 1861 to 1865
William E. Bevens
A young Confederate private chronicles four years of grueling marches, fierce battles, and enduring camaraderie from the outbreak of the Civil War to the final postwar reunions in Arkansas.
The book of Saint Nicholas
James Kirke Paulding
A collection of whimsical tales and legends celebrating Dutch culture and the spirit of Saint Nicholas in early America.