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British Literature — page 71
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 71 of 133.
Lady Athlyne
Bram Stoker
The cold, gray isolation of a New York winter gives way to a sweeping, romantic journey across oceans and borders, where passion and misunderstanding collide in the Scottish Highlands. This is a story of impulsive love, the weight of reputation, and the struggle to harmonize individual desire with the rigid demands…
Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 1
Various
The pages of this volume are a dark, vibrant mosaic of nineteenth-century storytelling, moving from the satirical frenzy of financial ruin to the claustrophobic terror of a closing stone tomb. It is a collection that prizes the atmospheric over the subtle, offering a window into the varied imaginative life of a…
The Author of Beltraffio
Henry James
The beauty of a child and the dangerous influence of art collide within a quiet English country house, pulling a husband and wife into a silent, devastating war over the soul of their son.
The Eye of Osiris
R. Austin (Richard Austin) Freeman
A missing man and a bizarre, conditional will trigger an investigation that blurs the line between modern crime and ancient history. A brilliant medical jurist must solve a puzzle where the primary evidence is as much a matter of science as it is of deception.
The Five Jars
M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
A solitary wanderer discovers five ancient jars that grant him the ability to perceive the hidden, magical inhabitants of the English countryside and join their secret, storied lives.
The Gateless Barrier
Lucas Malet
The veil between the living and the dead proves porous for a young man who discovers an ancestral secret, finding that love is the only bridge capable of spanning the chasm of time.
The great Roxhythe
Georgette Heyer
A brilliant courtier maneuvers through the shadows of the Restoration, trading his soul and his country’s secrets for the favor of a king who demands everything.
The Middle of the Road: A Novel
Philip Gibbs
This story follows a young veteran searching for a way to live with integrity in a fractured, post-war world. It is a quiet, deeply felt meditation on the personal cost of history and the possibility of reconciliation.
The murders in Praed Street
John Rhode
The murders in Praed Street are not the work of a phantom, but of a methodical mind seeking to settle an old score. This mystery pits a quiet, observant herbalist against the finest analytical brains in London.
The Roadmender
Michael Fairless
The quiet, rhythmic labor of an English roadmender unfolds into a profound meditation on the beauty of nature, the dignity of human service, and the inevitable, gentle arrival of death.
The Winter's Tale
William Shakespeare
A king’s senseless jealousy shatters his family, setting in motion a decades-long journey of loss, exile, and the improbable hope that the past might be undone.
This Man's Wife
George Manville Fenn
A virtuous woman remains tethered to a disgraced husband, testing the patience of those who love her and the limits of her own devotion. Her journey from English comfort to the harsh reality of a penal colony reveals the heavy price of loyalty.
A Lame Dog's Diary
S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
A man finds his world constrained to the confines of a sofa, only to discover that the quiet observation of his neighbors reveals more of the heart than he ever saw while walking.
A Sovereign Remedy
Flora Annie Webster Steel
The search for fulfillment between two men—a wealthy lord and his clerk—becomes a quiet, atmospheric exploration of duty, emotional repression, and the illusions of class.
Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden
George Manville Fenn
The path to manhood is rarely a straight line, but for a boy lost in the wild beauty of an English garden, it is paved with lessons in labor, loyalty, and the quiet dignity of a well-tilled row.
Guy Mannering
Walter Scott
A traveler’s casual horoscope sets in motion a decades-long mystery of a kidnapped heir, a stolen estate, and the enduring power of ancient grudges in the rugged landscape of Scotland.
Moth and Rust
Mary Cholmondeley
This collection of narratives explores the hidden fractures in lives defined by social artifice, examining how secret burdens and the corrosive nature of material greed quietly dismantle the human heart.
Our Little English Cousin
Blanche McManus
This travelogue for young readers offers a guided tour of Edwardian England, seen through the eyes of a privileged, inquisitive child named Edith. It captures a vanished world of polite manners, traditional rituals, and historical pageantry.
Our People: From the Collection of "Mr. Punch"
Charles Keene
The keen-eyed sketches of Victorian life gathered here reveal the absurdities of a society obsessed with status, class, and the stiff upper lip. These vignettes capture the humor hidden in the mundane frictions of everyday existence.
Penelope
William Pitt Scargill
A young woman finds herself caught in the webs of aristocratic entitlement when a nobleman decides he is entitled to her affections, regardless of her own heart or her existing engagement.
Points of Humour, Part 2 (of 2)
Unknown
This second collection of literary and historical anecdotes serves as a spirited, sometimes dark, meditation on the folly of human ambition, pride, and the inevitable triumph of the ridiculous over the grave.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916
Various
The war effort is a serious business, but the British spirit—and this publication—refuses to let gravity extinguish the flicker of a well-timed, satirical jab.
The Billiard Room Mystery
Brian Flynn
HOOK A tranquil country house weekend turns lethal when a guest is found dead in the billiard room, triggering a hunt for a killer among friends.
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, March 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This monthly publication offers a window into the intellectual rigor and social aspirations of the late nineteenth-century Chautauqua movement, blending educational coursework with moral philosophy and domestic guidance. It serves as a curated syllabus for those seeking self-improvement through systematic study.
The Missioner
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
A charismatic social reformer and a disillusioned aristocrat collide in this atmospheric tale of secret histories and moral transformation. Their unlikely bond challenges the rigid boundaries of Edwardian society and forces each to confront the shadows of their own past.
Titus Andronicus
William Shakespeare
A battle-hardened general returns from war, only to find his family ensnared in a cycle of vengeance, mutilation, and brutal retribution that consumes the foundations of Rome itself.
Alice Sit-By-The-Fire
J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie
A mother returns from India to face a family that knows her only through cold letters, setting off a comedy of errors as her imaginative daughter attempts to save her from a scandal that does not exist.
Audrey Craven
May Sinclair
A young woman of shifting loyalties and opaque intentions navigates the intellectual circles of London, leaving a trail of discarded suitors and broken ideals in her wake. This portrait of a social chameleon serves as a sharp, unsentimental dissection of ego and the fragility of human connection.
Disenchantment
C. E. (Charles Edward) Montague
The Great War was a promise that failed, leaving a generation to pick through the wreckage of their own idealism. This chronicle maps the slow, agonizing departure of belief in a world that betrayed its youth.
English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 4: The Later Georges to Victoria
Donald Grant Mitchell
This literary history surveys the vibrant, often turbulent transition of the English mind from the close of the eighteenth century into the long, steady light of the Victorian era. It serves as a guided tour through the lives and works of the poets, novelists, and critics who defined a transformative age.
Fenwick's Career
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A headstrong painter abandons his wife in the English countryside to pursue success in London, only to discover that the wreckage of his past is the true measure of his creative life.
It Was Marlowe: A Story of the Secret of Three Centuries
Wilbur Gleason Zeigler
The world believes a master poet died in a tavern brawl, but the truth is a desperate flight from the gallows into a life of shadows.
Mr. Fortune's Practice
H. C. (Henry Christopher) Bailey
Reggie Fortune, a brilliant, deceptively indolent forensic expert, navigates a series of intricate criminal puzzles where science and human malice collide. He remains the essential, reluctant guide for officialdom when the truth hides behind polite veneers.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920
Various
A satirical chronicle of post-war British life, this collection captures the fractured, weary, yet irrepressibly witty spirit of 1920 through a blend of light verse, sketches, and sharp-eyed political commentary.
Reginald Cruden: A Tale of City Life
Talbot Baines Reed
A young man faces the harsh realities of Victorian city life, discovering that his integrity is his only true currency after his family’s sudden loss of wealth. Through trial and error, he learns to navigate the divide between honest labor and the moral pitfalls of a ruthless urban landscape.
Tales of My Time, Vol. 1 (of 3): Who Is She?
William Pitt Scargill
The mystery of a young woman’s origins haunts a household bound by rigid social conventions and cold ambition. This narrative captures the quiet, often painful, friction between natural feeling and the suffocating expectations of 19th-century English life.
Terry
Rosa M. (Rosa Mulholland) Gilbert
A spirited, irrepressible young girl seeks purpose in a quiet, traditional household, but her boundless energy and craving for adventure repeatedly lead her and her brother into perilous, often humorous, scrapes.
The Author of Beltraffio
Henry James
A brilliant young admirer travels to the English countryside to meet his literary idol, only to discover that the novelist’s home is a battlefield where the sanctity of art clashes with the rigid morality of his wife.
The Widow Barnaby. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Frances Milton Trollope
A social climber with an unshakeable sense of her own charm maneuvers through the rigid hierarchies of nineteenth-century England, dragging her reluctant, orphaned niece into the fray of her desperate, theatrical quest for status.
Touch and Go: A Play in Three Acts
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
A tense drama set against the backdrop of industrial conflict, this play explores the psychological divide between owners and workers and the desperate, often violent, search for a more meaningful life.
Young Earnest: The Romance of a Bad Start in Life
Gilbert Cannan
A restless young man maneuvers through the rigid expectations of early 20th-century English life, searching for a sincerity that his family’s domestic compromises consistently deny him.
A Master of Deception
Richard Marsh
A young man with a talent for deception navigates a trail of stolen coins, forged cheques, and ill-fated romances, leaving a path of ruin in his wake.
Alf's Button
W. A. (William Aubrey) Darlington
A common soldier finds his tunic adorned with a genie’s talisman, only to discover that magic is a poor substitute for common sense in the chaos of the Great War.
Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Vol. 2 (of 3)
R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore
In the shadow of the ancient New Forest, a family’s secrets and a young man’s hard-won growth collide amidst the shifting tides of social station and personal tragedy.
Cursed by a Fortune
George Manville Fenn
The sudden loss of a wealthy father leaves a young woman vulnerable to the designs of unscrupulous men, forcing her into a desperate struggle for autonomy.
Hepplestall's
Harold Brighouse
This is a sweeping, multi-generational study of a Lancashire textile dynasty, tracing the evolution of industrial power from the rise of steam to the complex social shifts following the First World War. It is a story of how a family’s ambition becomes an institution, and how that institution, in turn, shapes the…
Miriam: A Tale of Pole Moor and the Greenfield Hills
D. F. E. Sykes
HOOK Set against the bleak, beautiful backdrop of 19th-century Yorkshire, this story follows a young man’s devotion to a mysterious foundling amid the dangerous tensions between rural villagers and moorland outcasts.
Miss Meredith
Amy Levy
A young English governess finds her quiet life in a crumbling Italian palazzo transformed by a sudden, intense love that tests her principles and her place in a rigid, aristocratic family.