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British Literature — page 68
4,542 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 68 of 95.
A Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope
Colley Cibber
A aging actor-manager finally decides that silence is no longer a virtue, launching a sharp, witty, and deeply personal defense against a literary giant who has spent decades using him as a punchline.
Four Max Carrados Detective Stories
Ernest Bramah
A man of refined tastes and immense wealth turns to detective work, proving that the keenest eyes are those that see nothing at all.
Joanna Godden
Sheila Kaye-Smith
A woman of independent spirit and formidable will navigates the shifting landscapes of her own heart and the rigid social codes of early twentieth-century rural England.
Miscellaneous Papers
Charles Dickens
These writings reveal the keen, restless mind of a Victorian observer navigating the social crises, artistic debates, and personal losses of a rapidly changing century. They offer a rare glimpse into the private convictions that fueled the public crusades of a literary giant.
Pearl-Fishing
Charles Dickens
This collection gathers selected short fiction and moralizing sketches originally published in the influential Victorian journal Household Words. It offers a window into the varied concerns, social anxieties, and imaginative flights that occupied mid-nineteenth-century readers.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914
Various
This collection captures the frantic, biting, and quintessentially British wit of the Edwardian era, preserving a fleeting snapshot of a society standing on the precipice of change. It serves as a time capsule of 1914, blending sharp political satire with the absurdities of daily life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, April 11, 1891
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, kaleidoscopic snapshot of late-Victorian British life, capturing the era’s preoccupations through a lens of biting, rhythmic, and often weary wit. It is a curated miscellany—a bustling theater of politics, social anxiety, and literary parody that demands its reader be as…
Sir Harry: A Love Story
Archibald Marshall
A young man of aristocratic upbringing discovers the profound reality of love and the necessity of sacrifice, finding his place in a changing world that eventually demands his life.
Soldier Stories
Rudyard Kipling
The life of a soldier in British India is defined by grueling marches, harsh terrain, and the heavy, unspoken weight of duty, camaraderie, and the occasional, haunting loss of one’s own soul.
The Disturbing Charm
Berta Ruck
A mysterious parcel arrives for a professor, containing a "Disturbing Charm" that claims to solve the world’s most persistent problem: people falling in love with the wrong partners.
The Everlasting Mercy
John Masefield
A man born to the devil finds his soul transformed through a sudden, overwhelming encounter with grace. This raw, rhythmic narrative chronicles a life reclaimed from the depths of dissipation.
The Lady from Nowhere: A Detective Story
Fergus Hume
A mysterious murder in a quiet London suburb unravels a tangled history of past crimes and hidden identities. This detective story follows the trail of a woman known only as "The Lady from Nowhere.
The Red Room
William Le Queux
A quiet motor-mechanic is pulled into a web of international espionage and murder when his mysterious neighbor invites him to view a corpse. This thriller unfolds as a high-stakes puzzle where nothing—not even the identity of the dead man—is quite what it seems.
The sunny side
A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne
A collection of lighthearted essays and whimsical short stories, this volume offers a charming, witty, and deeply human look at the minor absurdities of early 20th-century life. It remains a classic for its warmth and timeless, conversational humor.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 15
Robert Louis Stevenson
This collection brings together four dramatic works that explore the shadows of human character and the fragile mask of social respectability. These plays delve into the "double life," where the upright citizen and the desperate rogue often occupy the same soul.
Voices in the Night
Flora Annie Webster Steel
The city of Nushapore breathes with a restless, smoke-choked anxiety as the British administration and its Indian subjects drift toward a collision. A web of misunderstandings, religious tensions, and buried colonial history creates an atmosphere where an uprising feels, to many, like an inevitable, looming storm.
A call
Ford Madox Ford
A secret phone call, a mysterious silence, and the quiet tearing apart of upper-class London lives.
A Girl in Spring-Time
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
HOOK A headstrong schoolgirl finds her summer plans upended, only to discover that her greatest trial becomes the unexpected anchor of her life.
Father Stafford
Anthony Hope
The struggle between personal desire and rigid duty unfolds with quiet intensity in a country house, where the rigid vows of a clergyman collide with the vibrant, messy reality of romantic love.
George Meredith: A Study
Hannah Lynch
This critical study examines the evolving reputation and complex artistry of George Meredith, an English novelist whose challenging, brilliant prose long defied popular classification but ultimately secured his place as a master of psychological fiction.
Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains
Juliana Horatia Ewing
A foundling raised in a country windmill rises above his humble beginnings through a natural, transcendent gift for art. This quiet tale explores the grace of memory and the enduring bonds of childhood affection.
Mr. Marx's Secret
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
** A young man discovers his life is a web of hidden parentage and dangerous associations. He must navigate a world of aristocratic secrets to claim his own identity.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, August 7, 1841
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, biting time capsule of Victorian London, where the sharp edge of political satire meets the absurdity of daily life in 1841.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920
Various
This weekly digest captures the spirit of post-war England through sharp satire, observational humor, and a lingering, reflective solemnity. It remains a quintessential document of a society navigating the transition from global trauma to a changing modern world.
Remarks on Clarissa (1749)
Sarah Fielding
A spirited defense of a literary masterpiece, this work explores the moral complexities, character motivations, and tragic beauty of a foundational novel through a series of imagined critical conversations. It serves as both a contemporary reaction to a monumental text and a testament to the enduring power of deep,…
The Camera Fiend
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A vulnerable schoolboy, burdened by a deep-seated need for heroic validation, inadvertently becomes the pawn in a murderous photographer’s ghoulish pursuit of capturing the exact moment of death on film.
The Delectable Duchy
Arthur Quiller-Couch
The Delectable Duchy captures the rugged, salt-sprayed essence of Cornwall through a collection of vignettes that blur the line between local folklore and the quiet dramas of everyday life. It offers an intimate, atmospheric window into a world where the sea, the soil, and the church define the boundaries of human…
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 983, October 29, 1898
Various
A vibrant, multifaceted window into the Victorian era, this collection gathers fiction, travelogues, and practical advice meant to cultivate the minds and manners of young women at the turn of the century.
The Relentless City
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
A clash of worlds unfolds as American industrial wealth collides with the fading, rigid grace of the British aristocracy in a narrative of social maneuvering, hidden pasts, and the struggle to find authentic connection.
The Tysons (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson)
May Sinclair
A marriage built on fascination and folly struggles against the stifling judgment of a small English village. It is a portrait of a volatile man and the devoted woman who anchors his chaotic existence.
The Young Lord, and Other Tales
Mary Martha Sherwood
True virtue is often invisible to the world, while vanity frequently masquerades as success. This collection of moral tales explores the destructive power of greed, jealousy, and the hollow pursuit of outward status.
Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, In Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657.: With an Introduction, Textual Notes, a List of Editions, an Appendix of Translations, and a Portrait
Thomas Stanley
The seventeenth-century lyric finds its most refined and serene expression in these pages, capturing the delicate interplay of love, wit, and classical grace. This collection offers a complete, authoritative window into the mind of a poet who remained remarkably untouched by the political turbulence of his era.
Wilhelmina in London
Barry Pain
Fresh from the provinces with empty pockets and a high spirit, a young woman steps off the train to conquer London on her own terms.
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 01
Unknown
These tales capture the rugged spirit of the Scottish Borders, where history, hardship, and human kindness collide in the lives of ordinary people. They transform local legend into a timeless record of endurance.
A Girton Girl
Annie Edwards
A young woman’s intellectual ambitions collide with the stifling expectations of her social class, setting off a quiet, poignant struggle between traditional duty and the desire for a life of the mind.
A Legend of Reading Abbey
Charles MacFarlane
An abbey built on royal ambition becomes a sanctuary and a fortress when England fractures under a disputed crown.
Averil
Rosa Nouchette Carey
A delicate orphan girl leaves a cramped attic in France, stepping into a grand London household where Quiet kindness must navigate selfish family demands, hidden double lives, and sudden scandal.
Boscobel
William Harrison Ainsworth
He spent forty days running for his life through a fallen kingdom, protected only by the reckless devotion of a few backwoods loyalists and a sequence of absurd disguises.
Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people
Evelyn Everett-Green
A young idealist arrives in Cornwall determined to champion the working class, only to find that his political theories fracture against local traditions, violent industrial unrest, and the steady faith of a woman who sees human suffering through a deeply spiritual lens.
Heather and Snow
George MacDonald
A proud young Scotsman’s pursuit of earthly ambition gives way to spiritual awakening through the steady, unyielding love of a farmer’s daughter.
Hester: A Story of Contemporary Life, Volume 2 (of 3)
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
In the sleepy provincial town of Redborough, pride, hidden resentments, and reckless ambition silently pull a respectable banking family toward the brink of ruin.
King Henry IV, Part 1
William Shakespeare
A crown won by treason sits uneasily on the head, threatened by the very lords who helped seize it and compromised by an heir who prefers tavern brawls to royal court.
Malcolm Sage, Detective
Herbert George Jenkins
In a quiet room off Whitehall, a man with a bald, conical head, gold-rimmed spectacles, and unusually expressive hands sits staring at his finger-nails, untangling the strange and violent crimes of post-war England.
Modern Street Ballads
Unknown
Anonymous broadsides gave nineteenth-century Britain its daily news, low comedy, and public protests long before music halls took over the streets.
Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914
Various
An anxious world hums on the brink of change, but in this midsummer collection of Edwardian satire, the ordinary absurdities of life take center stage.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, April 9, 1919
Various
A satirical cross-section of British life in the immediate wake of the Armistice, capturing a nation navigating the absurdities of peace with weary humor.
Secresy
E. (Eliza) Fenwick
Isolation and forced compliance turn love into a weapon, destroying the very independence a headstrong young woman attempts to claim.
Six Plays
Darwin, Florence Henrietta Fisher, Lady
A quiet world of English village life comes to light through gentle domestic comedy, lingering romantic longings, and the stubborn realities of rural poverty.