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British Literature — page 44
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 44 of 133.
Timon of Athens
William Shakespeare
A wealthy Athenian learns the bitter cost of unconditional generosity when his friends abandon him in poverty. He retreats into misanthropy, trading his gold for a lonely, vengeful end.
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
A shipwrecked twin, a lovelorn duke, and a mischievous household collide in a coastal city where disguises mask hearts and truth is found only through confusion.
Two Penniless Princesses
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
Two young Scottish princesses journey across a volatile, medieval Europe to find their place, proving that resilience and character define royalty far more than a crown ever could.
White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3)
William Black
HOOK A young Highland gamekeeper, torn between the wild beauty of his home and the allure of city ambition, must navigate a path that tests his integrity and threatens the loyalties he holds most dear.
Bright Ideas: A Record of Invention and Misinvention
Herbert Strang
HOOK Two young men return from the Great War to find their inventive spirits undimmed by the mundane constraints of civilian life. Their misadventures in a quiet English village turn local order into a series of chaotic, comedic triumphs.
Farquharson of Glune
May Bateman
HOOK A political drama set against the fading influence of the British Empire, where a man of integrity battles both personal betrayal and national decline.
In Spite of All: A Novel
Edna Lyall
This historical novel traces the fractured lives of two childhood sweethearts torn apart by the brutal ideological divide of the English Civil War. It captures the personal cost of political conviction during a time when faith and loyalty were matters of life and death.
The Farmer's Boy: A Rural Poem
Robert Bloomfield
The pastoral world awakens through the eyes of a laborer, where the changing seasons reflect both the quiet grace of nature and the wearying toll of honest toil. This work captures the rhythm of country life with the steady, observant heart of one who lived it.
The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II)
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
A hidden fratricide, a noble heir’s struggle with his own identity, and a mysterious Romani leader collide in this atmospheric tale of honor, duty, and the long-reaching shadows of the past.
The Prince and Betty
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
A young woman’s plan to enjoy a summer holiday is upended by a bizarre, high-stakes scheme to install a penniless stranger on a foreign throne.
The soul of Lilith
Marie Corelli
The pursuit of divine knowledge through forbidden experiments brings a brilliant man to the precipice of madness. This haunting tale examines the thin line between scientific ambition and the sanctity of the human soul.
The Vicar of Bullhampton
Anthony Trollope
A village vicar finds his moral authority and private life upended by the arrival of a local scandal and the intrusion of an unwanted chapel.
The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement
Richard Marsh
A man finds himself caught in a web of murder, mystery, and unwanted matrimony. This droll, twisty Victorian tale explores the absurdity of courtship and the fragility of a reputation.
Jim Mortimer
R. S. Warren (Robert Stanley Warren) Bell
Stripped of his inheritance after a reckless night, a headstrong young London doctor must trade his grand prospects for a grueling impoverished practice, where violence, love, and redemption test his character.
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard
Eleanor Farjeon
A minstrel arrives at an orchard to rescue a girl imprisoned for love by telling six tales to six skeptical milkmaids. This lyrical narrative blends folklore with the emotional complexity of romance, creating a world where stories function as medicine for the pining heart. It remains a classic for its lush,…
My Friend Smith: A Story of School and City Life
Talbot Baines Reed
True friendship is the anchor that holds a young man steady against the cold, indifferent currents of city life. This story of loyalty and moral growth explores the transition from the sheltered, strict confines of a boarding school to the harsh, competitive realities of a London clerkship.
The Golden Calf
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A proud young woman trades her integrity for the illusion of wealth, marrying a man who only shares the name of the rich heir she actually desired.
The Man in Ratcatcher, and Other Stories
H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
A veteran of the hunting field mounts a scruffy steed to save a rider heading for a cliff, setting the tone for tales where courage and quick thinking cut through social posturing.
The Talk of the Town, Volume 2 (of 2)
James Payn
A young man’s desperate bid for his father's affection spirals into a legendary literary deception. This historical drama explores the high stakes of vanity, the fragility of truth, and the ruinous cost of a lie.
White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume I
William Black
A group of friends trade the clamor of the mainland for the rhythmic, salt-sprayed isolation of the Hebrides, finding in the quiet of the sea a vessel for both lighthearted romance and profound, unspoken shifts in the heart.
A Little Mother to the Others
L. T. Meade
The burden of a dying mother’s final request rests heavily upon a young girl, who strives to guide her siblings through the rigid discipline of a stern aunt and the perils of the wider world.
Bred in the Bone
James Payn
This is a portrait of generational inheritance, where the volatile impulses of a landed squire ripple through the lives of the unsuspecting, eventually pulling a family into a web of ruin, revenge, and mystery.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
A comprehensive roadmap through classical satirical fiction, comic romance, and moral philosophy reveals the full landscape of mid-eighteenth-century English narrative art.
Lolly Willowes
Sylvia Townsend Warner
A quietly radical tale of a quiet woman, Laura Willowes, who abandons her respectable London family for the Buckinghamshire countryside—only to discover that true self-possession lies in striking a pact with the Devil.
Ten Girls from Dickens
Kate Dickinson Sweetser
These ten portraits of girlhood celebrate the endurance and grace of young characters navigating a world often indifferent or cruel to their needs.
The Cell of Self-Knowledge
Unknown
To seek the divine is to look inward, stripping away the noise of the world to find a quiet, singular truth within the soul.
The Dead Alive
Wilkie Collins
A weary London barrister seeks rest in the American countryside, only to find himself entangled in a dark, suspicious disappearance that threatens the lives of two brothers.
Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare
The Trojan War serves as a bitter backdrop for a story where heroes are debunked and lovers are unmade. It is a cynical, sprawling exploration of how quickly ideals collapse under the weight of human appetite and time.
Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
A wild, atmospheric tale where hot-headed pride and deep-seated vengeance clash against the unforgiving landscape of seventeenth-century Dartmoor.
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
Bernard Shaw
A vengeful pirate's lifelong obsession with punishing his corrupt judge uncle dissolves when a remarkably serene Englishwoman treats them both like unruly schoolboys.
Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green
Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Human nature rarely changes, though every generation invents new excuses for its vanity, absurdity, and quiet acts of grace.
The Belton Estate
Anthony Trollope
A woman trapped between the cold calculations of an aristocratic engagement and the unvarnished devotion of her cousin must choose how to inherit her own life.
The dream: A novel
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
In a radiant future, a rested scientist slumbers and re-imagines an entire, squalid existence in the muddled industrial dark of twentieth-century England.
The Getting of Wisdom
Henry Handel Richardson
A young girl’s journey through a rigid boarding school reveals that true wisdom comes not from books, but from the messy, often painful process of learning who one really is.
The small bachelor
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
A quiet, terrible painter falls instantly in love with an uptown society girl, setting off a chaotic sequence of mistaken identities, stolen jewels, and hilarious social maneuverings across Prohibition-era New York.
Charles Dickens' Children Stories
Charles Dickens
Childhood holds the ultimate measure of mercy, where small, vulnerable hands routinely carry the heavy weight of an unfeeling adult world.
Dream Days
Kenneth Grahame
The boundaries of childhood are guarded by rules and adult authority, yet every corner of an overgrown garden or forgotten outhouse holds the raw materials for a glorious, self-governed empire.
Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army
Herbert Strang
A reluctant volunteer and his factory-worker comrades enlist in Kitchener's New Army, mastering trench warfare while untangling a dangerous network of German spies in wartime France.
Lovers' Saint Ruth's, and Three Other Tales
Louise Imogen Guiney
Four distinct studies of love, fate, and quiet human sacrifice reveal how nobility and sorrow intertwine across centuries of hidden struggle.
My friend the murderer
Arthur Conan Doyle
Driven by a sense of deep injustice for his exile, an unrepentant killer recount his futile quest to escape the relentless consequences of turning Queen's evidence.
Poemata
John Milton
Before achieving immortality through English blank verse, a young poet tests his wings in Latin, Greek, and Italian, weaving classical myth, personal grief, and quiet ambition into brilliant early verse.
The Disentanglers
Andrew Lang
Two young London gentlemen down on their luck hatch an unconventional business venture: an agency dedicated to discreetly breaking off unsuitable romantic engagements for wealthy clients through carefully staged social counter-attractions.
The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy
Arnold Bennett
A young doctor stumbles into the dazzling, treacherous world of grand opera, where a legendary soprano is haunted by an implacable spirit that wrecks trains, sinks ships, and drives her suitors to terrifying demises.
The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the Conqueror
M. M. (Matilda Maria) Blake
In the shadow of the Norman Conquest, a newly wedded countess takes up arms to defend her husband’s fortress against the full, ruthless might of King William.
The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
R. C. (Rudolf Chambers) Lehmann
Domestic tenderness, quiet nostalgia, and the dark shadow of the First World War meet in this evocative volume of verse.
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 02
John Dryden
A young empire crumbles under foreign conquest while courtiers scheme in shadowed halls and lovers trade vows in secret. Out of Restoration London’s theatrical fire comes a collection where passion, betrayal, and political ambition clash on every page.
The Young O'Briens: Being an Account of Their Sojourn in London
Margaret Westrup
A family of spirited young Irish siblings is transplanted to a damp, grey London residence, where their irrepressible warmth and humorous resilience transform every dreary obstacle into an adventurous triumph of heart.
Three More John Silence Stories
Algernon Blackwood
A solitary traveler steps off the path into a landscape where the solid world thins, and the human psyche gives form to ancient, forgotten terrors.