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British Literature — page 29
1,409 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 29 of 30.
The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men
Beerbohm, Max, Sir
A man of legendary wickedness assumes a saintly mask to win a virtuous woman’s heart, only to discover that the soul reflects the face it chooses to wear.
The Jumblies, and Other Nonsense Verses
Edward Lear
The Jumblies and Other Nonsense Verses is a collection of imaginative, rhythmic, and absurd poetry that explores the whimsy of travel, unrequited longing, and the courage required to live differently.
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 06
John Dryden
The Restoration stage is a theater of sharp satire, tragic grandeur, and moral complexity, where the boundaries between public virtue and private appetite are constantly tested. These collected works offer a vivid, unvarnished window into an era that treated wit as its highest currency and scandal as its favorite…
The Works of John Marston. Volume 3
John Marston
Two men plot a wild escape to Virginia that collapses in the stormy Thames, leaving a trail of bankrupt foolishness, vengeful spouses, and biting moral satire in early modern London.
Essays and Tales
Joseph Addison
This collection of classic eighteenth-century essays offers a refined, observant window into the social habits, intellectual curiosities, and moral aspirations of a bygone era. It serves as an elegant guide for those seeking to sharpen their wit and deepen their reflection.
A Florentine Tragedy
Oscar Wilde
The search for love often leads to a sudden, violent confrontation between the soul and its own hidden nature. In this piercing drama, a merchant and his wife face the arrival of a prince who reveals the fractures in their marriage.
Much Ado about Nothing
William Shakespeare
A sharp-witted battle of words masks the deeper, more dangerous vulnerabilities of love and honor in this enduring exploration of human folly and fragile trust.
Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e: Written during Her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in Different Parts of Europe
Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady
A sharp-witted diplomat’s wife documents her travels across Europe and into the Ottoman Empire, dismantling Western misconceptions with a skeptical eye and a formidable intellect. These dispatches remain a definitive, subversive portrait of eighteenth-century life.
The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes
Joseph Conrad
A young man is drawn into the orbit of a mysterious woman and the high-stakes world of political intrigue, finding his life irrevocably altered by a fleeting, intense obsession.
Wessex Poems and Other Verses
Thomas Hardy
The weight of human history rests on the quiet, often overlooked corners of the heart. These poems hold the fragile intersection where personal longing meets the indifferent machinery of time.
Cynthia's Revels
Ben Jonson
This satirical comedy exposes the vapid vanity of court life, where posturing courtiers obsess over trivial fashions and empty status while blinded by their own self-love.
The Little Duke: Richard the Fearless
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
This is a tale of a young boy born to a throne of swords, caught between the brutal vengeance of his Norse ancestors and the fragile ideals of a Christian king. It captures the lonely, perilous coming-of-age of a child who must navigate the treacherous waters of medieval power while striving to remain honorable.
Diana of the Crossways
George Meredith
The brilliant, impulsive Diana Merion navigates the treacherous currents of London high society, seeking both intellectual independence and the elusive security of a true heart. Caught between societal scandal and her own fierce aspirations, she learns that the most difficult battles are those waged against oneself.
King Arthur and His Knights
Maude Radford Warren
A young king rises from obscurity to unite a fractured land, seeking to build a kingdom where justice and honor define the life of every subject. This retelling follows the legendary monarch from his humble beginnings to the final, haunting departure from his realm.
The Age of Pope: (1700-1744)
John Dennis
This survey explores the intellectual climate and literary output of early eighteenth-century England, centered on the influence and career of Alexander Pope. It provides a historical map for those navigating the transition from the Restoration to the Enlightenment.
English Satires
Unknown
The sharpest edges of English wit are gathered here, offering a panoramic view of human folly from the medieval pilgrim to the Victorian undergraduate. This collection serves as a historical mirror, reflecting the enduring necessity of ridicule as a corrective force in society.
Falk: A Reminiscence
Joseph Conrad
A seafaring man confronts the haunting memory of an impossible choice made during a shipwreck, testing his desire for domestic peace against the moral judgment of his peers.
Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A gentleman thief finds his greatest thrill in the pursuit of danger, whether navigating the dark streets of London or the front lines of war.
Tales and Novels
Maria Edgeworth
These tales explore the friction between personal integrity and social performance, where the quiet weight of character ultimately outweighs the clamor of the fashionable world.
Fragments of Ancient Poetry
James Macpherson
HOOK This collection of ancient song fragments offers a haunting, mist-shrouded vision of a heroic past, where the voices of fallen warriors and grieving lovers echo across a desolate, timeless landscape.
Pharais
William Sharp
The wind whispers of ancient sorrows and the tide pulls at the fraying edges of human hope in these haunting tales of the Scottish isles.
Three Sunsets and Other Poems
Lewis Carroll
This collection of verse captures the melancholic underside of a celebrated imaginative mind, trading whimsical nonsense for earnest, often sorrowful, reflections on memory, loss, and the nature of love. These poems reveal a writer preoccupied with the passage of time and the heavy, spiritual weight of human longing.
An apology for idlers, and other essays
Robert Louis Stevenson
To be truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, of what we want and not of what we have. A spirit of idle curiosity is the surest remedy for the drudgery of existence.
Charmides, and Other Poems
Oscar Wilde
This collection of verse captures the transition from the lush, mythological romanticism of youth to the stark, introspective shadows of a soul acquainted with regret. It is a portrait of a poet caught between the allure of ancient beauty and the crushing weight of modern disillusionment.
London Pride, Or, When the World Was Younger
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 brings neither peace nor virtue to a fractured England, but rather a dangerous, glittering decay. Amidst this volatility, two sisters discover that beauty and status offer no protection against the wreckage of the human heart.
Plays, written by Sir John Vanbrugh, volume the first
John Vanbrugh
This collection of Restoration-era comedies exposes the sharp wit, tangled romantic intrigues, and cynical social maneuvering that defined the high-stakes world of the 18th-century English stage.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 1 (of 2)
Charles Dickens
A benevolent, portly gentleman and his club of bumbling associates wander the English countryside, stumbling into a series of picaresque misadventures and satirical encounters.
By What Authority?
Robert Hugh Benson
A quiet Sussex village yields to the storms of the Elizabethan settlement, testing whether personal devotion or state mandate holds ultimate power over the human soul.
The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A quiet English town witnesses a dozen years in the life of a large family as they face tragedy, struggle against their own flaws, and build a lasting purpose out of grief.
The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies
Israel Zangwill
The art of the professional beggar is elevated to a high, impudent science in this collection of stories. Manasseh da Costa, the self-proclaimed King of Schnorrers, maneuvers through eighteenth-century London with unmatched audacity.
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
Charles Dickens
Two weary apprentices abandon their work in search of pure, unadulterated idleness, only to find that the journey demands more effort than the labor they left behind.
Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning
Helen A. (Helen Archibald) Clarke
This study explores how the vibrant intellectual landscape of nineteenth-century England—its history, art, and shifting religious consciousness—shaped the poetic vision of one of the era’s most complex voices.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
The tragedy of a virtuous woman trapped between a predatory suitor and a controlling family, this work examines the devastating consequences of unchecked ego and the isolation of the spirit.
Satire in the Victorian novel
Frances Theresa Russell
A sharp, clear-eyed examination of literary judgment reveals how Victorian novelists wielded ridicule to expose social hypocrisy, turning mockery into a crucial instrument for understanding human nature.
Thomas Wingfold, Curate
George MacDonald
Faith begins not with certainty, but with the honest courage to face one's own ignorance.
Traffics and Discoveries
Rudyard Kipling
The professional soldier is a man of professional mystery, bound by codes and silent loyalties that bridge the gap between the battlefield and the hearth. This collection gathers the fragments of those lives, mapping the contours of a world where duty often defies the reach of civilian understanding.
Self-control: A Novel
Mary Brunton
A woman’s unyielding Christian virtue and strict self-mastery are tested by a charming, unscrupulous suitor, financial ruin, and the relentless pressure of a manipulative society.
The Red Thumb Mark
R. Austin (Richard Austin) Freeman
A young man faces prison when a bloodstained thumb-print inside a locked safe seems to seal his fate, leaving a pioneering medico-legal expert to prove the physical evidence has been forged.
The room in the tower, and other stories
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
A nocturnal knocking at the door, an inexplicable cloud of road-dust, or an uncanny presence on the stairs can shatter the calmest evening. E. F. Benson’s tales suggest that the invisible world is always waiting just beyond the shadow.
The unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Dorothy L. (Dorothy Leigh) Sayers
An elderly general dies in his armchair at a London club, leaving a massive fortune that depends entirely on the exact minute he drew his last breath.
The Princess and Curdie
George MacDonald
A young miner embarks on a magical quest to save a kingdom, aided by a mysterious princess and a peculiar animal companion.
The Shakespeare-Expositor: An Aid to the Perfect Understanding of Shakespeare's Plays
Thomas Keightley
A quiet, meticulous scholar sits with the original printings of William Shakespeare, intent on rescuing every lost beat of meter and fixing every error left behind by early printers.
The Yellow Claw
Sax Rohmer
Under the glowing streetlamps and dark alleys of Edwardian London, an invisible mastermind pulls the strings of a deadly, addictive underworld.
Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 6 of 6
Unknown
High energy, unfiltered wit, and the rhythmic beat of street performance pulse through this definitive collection of popular Restoration-era songs and tavern ballads.
David Blaize
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
Schoolboy freedom is a fragile kingdom, easily shattered by a master's footstep or a poorly aimed cricket ball, yet lived with fierce, absolute devotion.
King Horn, Floriz and Blauncheflur, The Assumption of Our Lady
Unknown
A young prince exiled across the sea, a devoted lover sneaking into a tower of flowers, and the Virgin Mary carried into heaven by angels.
Tales and Novels
Maria Edgeworth
Correcting youth requires clear examples, not heavy demands. Self-discovery, practical virtue, and disciplined thinking shape a mind far better than rigid instruction or empty social vanity.
The Wonderful Visit
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
A celestial visitor falls into a Victorian English village, where human custom, social malice, and physical suffering slowly drag its heavenly nature down to earth.