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British Literature — page 38
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 38 of 133.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 09 of 10
John Fletcher
These plays capture the volatile spirit of Jacobean drama, blending sharp wit, desperate survival, and high-stakes romance across five distinct, character-driven narratives.
From a Cornish Window: A New Edition
Arthur Quiller-Couch
A life of active inquiry requires both the discipline to challenge bad ideas and the grace to find wonder in the quiet corners of the world.
Max Carrados
Ernest Bramah
A gentleman of leisure solves intricate crimes by noticing what everyone else overlooks, all while navigating a world he cannot see.
The Fixed Period
Anthony Trollope
A zealous colonial leader faces the collapse of his utopian plan to end old age through mandated, state-sanctioned retirement.
The Rosary
Florence L. (Florence Louisa) Barclay
A grand, emotionally heightened romance set in the Edwardian era, this narrative explores the profound bond between a gifted artist and a steadfast woman as they navigate the devastating challenges of sudden blindness and long-held secrets.
Aesop Dress'd
Bernard Mandeville
A collection of fables rendered into verse, this work adapts the timeless observations of human folly from classic sources into the sharp, colloquial English of the early eighteenth century.
Brothers: The True History of a Fight Against Odds
Horace Annesley Vachell
The bond between two siblings is tested by the crushing weight of expectation and the secret sacrifice of individual identity. This chronicle follows the divergence of two paths: one of public glory and one of private truth.
Denry the Audacious
Arnold Bennett
An extraordinary, irrepressible young man from the industrial heart of England rises from clerk to local legend through audacity, humor, and a series of increasingly elaborate schemes that defy conventional social expectations.
Griselda: a society novel in rhymed verse
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
The story of a woman trapped between a stifling marriage and a reckless impulse, this verse novel explores the friction between social duty and personal longing. It is a cautionary tale of a soul seeking meaning in the rigid, unfeeling landscape of high society.
Liberalism and the Social Problem
Winston Churchill
This collection of speeches captures a pivotal transition in British governance, as a young, ambitious legislator articulates the case for a modern state that balances industrial growth with the fundamental well-being of its citizens.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-28
Various
A collection of period wit and commentary, these pages capture the idiosyncratic voice of a nation navigating the immediate aftermath of the Great War through satire, sketches, and sharp-eyed social observation.
The Book-Bills of Narcissus: An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne
Richard Le Gallienne
The story follows the internal and external growth of an idealistic young man whose life is charted not by diaries, but by the receipts of his bibliomania. Through the eyes of a devoted friend, we witness the quiet, intense odyssey of a soul seeking beauty and truth in a world that often demands a more conventional…
The Squaw Man: A Novel
Edwin Milton Royle
A man’s sacrifice to protect his family’s honor leads him into the harsh, untamed American West, where he must reconcile the life he left behind with the one he has built in the wilderness.
The Tree of Heaven
May Sinclair
This is a sprawling, deeply felt portrait of an English family whose domestic rhythms are irrevocably shattered by the Great War. It captures the transition from a sheltered Victorian upbringing to the harsh, fractured reality of the early twentieth century.
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
John Dryden
Poetry and polemics define the intellectual landscape of this collection, capturing a master writer at the height of his influence during the turbulent reign of the later Stuarts. It serves as a formidable record of a shifting age.
A Bed of Roses
Walter Lionel George
Victoria Fulton is a woman who, having been cast into the grinding machinery of London’s labor market, chooses to sell her beauty rather than her servitude. This narrative follows her ascent from destitution to a position of calculating, independent comfort.
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
The world of high-stakes power and the intimate wreckage of a consuming romance collide in this portrait of a legendary collapse. It is a study of how grand figures, when stripped of their empires, face the finality of their own choices.
Delia Blanchflower
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A young heiress struggles to reconcile her fierce commitment to the women’s suffrage movement with the unwanted, protective guardianship of a man who ultimately wins her heart.
In the Mountains
Elizabeth Von Arnim
Seeking solitude on a Swiss mountainside, a grieving woman discovers that healing is not found in isolation, but in the chaotic, often vexing presence of others.
The Dawn of a To-morrow
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A man standing on the precipice of suicide finds his path diverted by a street-urchin, leading him to discover a radical, life-altering faith hidden within the city’s most desperate slums.
A Young Man's Year
Anthony Hope
A young barrister navigates the hollow expectations of his profession and the turbulent complexities of the heart, ultimately learning that life is less a steady climb than a series of unpredictable, formative collisions.
In a steamer chair, and other shipboard stories
Robert Barr
A collection of vignettes capturing the peculiar, transient intimacy of life on the high seas, where strangers become confidants and the vast ocean acts as a crucible for human emotion.
In the Days of the Guild
Louise Lamprey
The past is a living workshop where the clatter of the loom and the ring of the hammer reveal the true heartbeat of history. These tales bridge the distance between the distant Middle Ages and the hands that built its enduring legacy.
Paul Faber, Surgeon
George MacDonald
This story of a skeptical surgeon and the people of a small town explores whether a life lived for others can lead to a deeper understanding of God.
Philistia
Grant Allen
This story of youthful idealism colliding with the rigid social machinery of Victorian England captures the profound tension between a person’s inner moral compass and the unforgiving demands of the world. It is a quiet, thoughtful study of integrity, poverty, and the quiet sacrifices required to survive.
Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution
Maurice Hewlett
A woman’s quest for autonomy unfolds against the shifting landscapes of high-society London and a solitary, wild Wiltshire valley. This journey tests the strength of independent spirit against the rigid expectations of family and status.
Tales of Mean Streets
Arthur Morrison
The streets of London’s East End are not paved with gold, but with the grit of survival. These stark, unsparing sketches pull back the curtain on a world where poverty is a cage and dignity is a luxury.
The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
Arthur Machen
A single short story, spun from imagination, transforms into a national myth that stubbornly refuses to die despite the author’s persistent protests that it is pure, unvarnished fiction.
The Children of the New Forest
Frederick Marryat
A story of survival and honor in the shadow of the English Civil War, this tale follows four orphaned siblings who find refuge in the rugged wilds of the New Forest.
The Fatal Dowry
Philip Massinger
A tragic collision of honor and obsession, this play charts the ruin of a young man caught between his duty to a benefactor and the betrayal of his marriage. It is a work of dark, forensic intensity, where the courtroom serves as both stage and final judgment.
The Lady of Lynn
Walter Besant
A young woman of immense, hidden fortune becomes the target of a nobleman’s cold-blooded conspiracy in this atmospheric tale of 18th-century deception. The narrative unfolds through the eyes of a faithful sailor, Jack Pentecrosse, who watches as his childhood friend, the resilient "Lady of Lynn," is courted and…
The Paradise Mystery
J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
The serene, ancient beauty of a cathedral town masks a dark web of secrets, where the discovery of a stranger’s body ignites a desperate scramble for hidden truths.
Dog Stories from the "Spectator": Being anecdotes of the intelligence, reasoning power, affection and sympathy of dogs, selected from the correspondence columns of "The Spectator"
Unknown
This collection of Victorian correspondence reveals the surprising ingenuity of dogs, proving they are far more than simple companions through documented accounts of their reasoning, humor, and complex emotional lives.
Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 3 of 3)
William Black
A remote Highland estate becomes the stage for a tense struggle between ancestral loyalties and modern reform, centering on a proud, mysterious local leader and the spirited woman who inherits his corner of the world.
Essays
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
A sharp wit and a melancholic grace define these sketches, capturing the fleeting manners of a gentleman’s world. They offer a window into the mind of a brilliant, restless writer whose observations remain as biting and polished as ever.
Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse
Unknown
This collection gathers the voices of a transformative era, capturing the collision of medieval devotion, social unrest, and the dawning light of the printed word in fifteenth-century England.
Penshurst Castle in the Time of Sir Philip Sidney
Emma Marshall
This historical portrait captures the fleeting brilliance of the Elizabethan era through the eyes of those orbiting the life and tragic early death of a legendary statesman and poet.
Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes. Volume I
Walter De la Mare
The human heart is a haunted vessel, echoing with the ghosts of childhood, the silence of the woods, and the encroaching shadow of an inevitable end. Poetry here serves not as a decoration, but as a bridge across the darkening threshold of mortality.
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.
In Convent Walls: The Story of the Despensers
Emily Sarah Holt
A chronicle of the fall of Queen Isabelle and her allies, this narrative observes the heavy price of ambition through the eyes of those trapped within the convent walls of a tumultuous England.
Shakespeare Jest-Books: Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed to Have Been Used by Shakespeare
Unknown
This collection of early jest-books preserves the sharp, often biting humor that echoed through English markets and taverns long before the modern age. It invites readers to look over the shoulder of the past to see what made a sixteenth-century audience laugh.
The Duke in the Suburbs
Edgar Wallace
A titled nobleman and his American companion navigate the social minefield of a London suburb, proving that true aristocratic poise is often found in the most unlikely of places.
The Test of Scarlet: A Romance of Reality
Coningsby Dawson
War is a sensory assault that strips away the veneer of civilization, leaving only the raw, red necessity of survival. This account captures the brutal transition from the camaraderie of the trench to the finality of the battlefield.
The Testing of Diana Mallory
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A young woman finds her happiness shattered by a long-hidden family secret, forcing her to choose between the man she loves and the integrity of her own conscience.
Tom and Some Other Girls: A Public School Story
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
Leaving the sheltered comfort of a wealthy upbringing, a young girl discovers that character, not pedigree, is the true currency of the schoolroom. This turn-of-the-century tale traces the humbling and transformative journey of a headstrong newcomer as she navigates the complex social hierarchies of a boarding school.
Villa Rubein, and Other Stories
John Galsworthy
These vignettes capture the quiet, often devastating friction between individual desire and the rigid expectations of family and social class.
King Henry VIII
William Shakespeare
A king’s fickle favor drives the rise and fall of powerful ministers and queens in the shadow of a shifting throne. This historical drama captures the volatile pulse of a court where ambition is the deadliest currency.
Life and Death of Mr. Badman
John Bunyan
A grim, unvarnished portrait of a man whose life is defined by moral decay, this work serves as a sobering meditation on the consequences of unchecked vice and the deceptive nature of a quiet, unrepentant death.