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British Literature — page 72
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 72 of 133.
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William Hale White
This collection of essays, sketches, and ruminations offers a quiet, unadorned window into the late Victorian mind, exploring the intersection of daily duty, private sorrow, and the search for meaning in a changing world.
Munster Village
Hamilton, Mary, Lady
The story follows the moral and social development of a noble family navigating the treacherous expectations of their class, contrasting the hollow ambitions of the aristocracy with the quiet, transformative power of virtuous independence.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 109, October 5th 1895
Various
A quintessential snapshot of late-Victorian culture, this periodical captures the humor, anxieties, and social rigidities of 1895 through a collection of sharp-witted sketches, satirical poetry, and cynical commentary on the changing times.
The Autobiography of a Slander
Edna Lyall
This cautionary tale chronicles the devastating power of a lie as it moves from a casual tea-table remark to a lethal weapon. It serves as a stark, timeless meditation on the moral weight of our idle speech.
The Helpmate
May Sinclair
A marriage begins to unravel when a wife discovers her husband’s secret past, forcing both partners to confront the agonizing chasm between their ideals and the flawed reality of human love.
The House of Egremont
Molly Elliot Seawell
A defiant English gentleman loses his ancestral home to a usurper and finds his destiny among the French-exiled court of the Stuart kings.
The lady of the basement flat
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
A young woman sheds her identity to live as an elderly recluse, only to discover that the most profound transformations occur when she stops acting and starts living.
The Second Fiddle
Phyllis Bottome
A quiet, unassuming secretary finds herself caught in the emotional orbit of a proud, wounded veteran, navigating the fragile space between pride and true connection. This is a story of how the hardest battles are often fought within the walls of a room, rather than on the fields of war.
The Town Traveller
George Gissing
A commercial traveler stumbles into a web of bigamy and high-society secrets, leading him on a frantic, comedic quest through the bustling, soot-stained streets of late-Victorian London.
The Widow Barnaby. Vol. 2 (of 3)
Frances Milton Trollope
Social climbing and romantic misunderstanding collide when a widow’s relentless pursuit of status clashes with her niece’s quiet, unrequited love. In this middle act, the comedy of manners turns toward the inevitable exposure of vanity.
"To let"
B. M. (Bithia Mary) Croker
This collection of tales captures the eerie, often unsettling atmosphere of British colonial life in India, where the boundaries between the living and the dead frequently blur. It is a haunting exploration of isolation, greed, and the strange legacies left behind in a foreign land.
To Let
John Galsworthy
A man of property watches his world turn toward an uncertain, modern future, unable to possess the only things he truly desires: his daughter’s happiness and his own lost past.
Verses
Hilaire Belloc
This collection of poetry captures the spirit of a man deeply rooted in the English countryside, yet perpetually restless, defined by his Catholic faith, his time at Oxford, and a sharp, often combative wit. It is a portrait of a poet who refuses to be pigeonholed, shifting effortlessly from tender observations of…
Back to Life
Philip Gibbs
The Great War ends, but for those who survived, the silence of the trenches brings a different kind of violence: the struggle to rejoin a world that has fundamentally changed.
Coriolanus
William Shakespeare
A warrior’s unmatched prowess on the battlefield cannot shield him from his own rigid nature, leading to a tragic collision between personal pride and the survival of the state.
Discipline
Mary Brunton
A sheltered girl’s dream of high-society brilliance collapses into ruin, forcing her to trade the hollow flatteries of the world for the hard-won humility of a quiet, purposeful life.
English and Scottish Ballads, Volume III
Unknown
The past breathes in these pages, where ancient songs of betrayal, tragic longing, and sudden violence endure as stark, unvarnished monuments to the human condition.
Jessica's First Prayer
Hesba Stretton
A lonely coffee-stall keeper finds his rigid, money-obsessed life transformed when a ragged, inquisitive street child asks him to teach her about God.
Kathleen's Diamonds
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.
A beautiful young heiress faces a gauntlet of betrayal, attempted murder, and false death in this dramatic tale of stolen inheritance and star-crossed love.
Mrs Albert Grundy—Observations in Philistia
Harold Frederic
The social theater of Victorian London serves as a stage for this sharp, witty exploration of class, manners, and the performative nature of the "respectable" middle-class life. It is an observant, often biting, look at the unspoken rules governing a society obsessed with appearances and social climbing.
On Something
Hilaire Belloc
This collection of essays offers a wandering, lyrical exploration of human experience, shifting effortlessly between the mundane details of daily life and the weight of eternal questions. It captures the rhythm of a curious mind at rest.
The Constant Couple
George Farquhar
A rakish traveler and a scorned woman collide in a London landscape of tangled plots, feigned identities, and exposed hypocrisies. This Restoration comedy turns the art of the scandal into a high-stakes game of wit and retribution.
The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home"
Unknown
Vanity leads to a quest for fame that spans the countryside. A bird of great plumage and his chatterbox companion fly across England, determined to uncover the identity of a mysterious, brilliant poet.
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 21
Unknown
This anthology serves as a final, kaleidoscopic window into the nineteenth-century Scottish imagination, capturing the folklore, morality, and gritty urban textures of a nation in transition.
Young Lives
Richard Le Gallienne
This is a tender portrait of youth’s rebellion against the stifling expectations of middle-class respectability. It tracks the passage from the restlessness of the adolescent bedroom to the hard-won independence of early adulthood.
A Dominie Dismissed
Alexander Sutherland Neill
An idealistic Scottish schoolmaster, having lost his post for unorthodox teaching methods, attempts to reconcile his radical philosophy with a quiet life as a rural cattleman.
A Man's Man
Ian Hay
A young man finds his quiet life upended when he is named guardian to a spirited, headstrong girl who refuses to be steered.
A Reconstructed Marriage
Amelia E. Barr
Marriage is often regarded as a private sanctuary, but in the rigid, tradition-bound world of Traquair House, it becomes a public battlefield where personal happiness must struggle against the weight of ancestral expectation and relentless, judgmental family interference.
Babylon, Volume 2
Grant Allen
An aspiring sculptor leaves his humble origins to pursue artistic greatness in Rome, only to find his life irrevocably entangled with the lives of those he left behind and the wealthy strangers who shape his future.
Daireen. Volume 1 of 2
Frank Frankfort Moore
HOOK A young woman embarks on a long, arduous sea voyage to reach her ailing father, only to find herself caught between secret longings and the rigid social expectations of imperial society.
Fishpingle: A Romance of the Countryside
Horace Annesley Vachell
HOOK In the fading twilight of the English landed gentry, a devoted butler holds a secret that links him inextricably to his master, challenging the rigid hierarchies of a fading world.
Note Book of an English Opium-Eater
Thomas De Quincey
This collection offers a rare, intimate view into a restless mind, moving between the macabre fascinations of urban crime and the sharp, erudite analysis of literary history.
The Four Faces: A Mystery
William Le Queux
This mystery follows a gentleman caught in the web of a sophisticated criminal syndicate. It explores how easily the wealthy and unsuspecting can be manipulated by those who hide their true motives behind charming facades.
The Freaks of Mayfair
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
This collection of satirical character sketches provides a sharp, witty dissection of the social climbers, snobs, and self-deluded personalities inhabiting early 20th-century London society. Through a series of biting portraits, it exposes the vanity and emptiness hidden behind the polished facades of the wealthy…
The Heart of Penelope
Marie Belloc Lowndes
This study of Victorian manners and hidden longings explores the quiet, high-stakes collision between tradition and independent choice. It follows a beautiful widow, Penelope, as she navigates the suffocating expectations of her social circle while falling into an intense, unconventional attachment.
The Three Furlongers
Sheila Kaye-Smith
A family of siblings struggles to reclaim their lives in the English countryside after a financial scandal leaves them disgraced and adrift. This stark, lyrical drama maps the messy intersection of youthful idealism and the unforgiving judgment of a small community.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
William Shakespeare
Two best friends, divided by exile and the volatile whims of romantic obsession, navigate the treacherous currents of loyalty and betrayal in a tale where love proves as fickle as the seasons.
Under St Paul's: A Romance
Richard Dowling
HOOK A young man faces a spiritual crisis in the shadow of London’s greatest cathedral, where the challenge of new scientific thought threatens to dissolve his faith and his future marriage.
Banked Fires
E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
Amid the isolated outposts of colonial Bengal, a young bride struggles to navigate the stifling conventions of her marriage and the dangerous allure of a charismatic, misunderstood doctor.
Collected Poems 1897 - 1907, by Henry Newbolt
Newbolt, Henry John, Sir
These verses capture the martial spirit of a vanished Empire, blending the rhythmic pulse of naval legend with the quiet, aching nostalgia of a generation shaped by the rigors of the public school and the battlefield.
Cousin Henry
Anthony Trollope
A fragile conscience and a hidden secret collide in a quiet Welsh estate, where the rightful inheritance of a young woman hangs on the morality of a man who lacks the courage to do either good or evil.
Grey Wethers: A Romantic Novel
V. (Victoria) Sackville-West
A haunting, atmospheric tale of two lovers who vanish into the ancient, uncaring landscape of the English Downs, leaving a mystery that lingers long after their departure.
Hathercourt
Mrs. Molesworth
A quiet English rectory finds its rhythm disrupted by the arrival of mysterious, wealthy neighbors, forcing two observant sisters to navigate the delicate boundaries between social duty and their own hidden, independent desires.
Mirk Abbey, Volume 3 (of 3)
James Payn
This domestic drama follows a mother’s desperate masquerade to shield her family from a past that threatens to destroy their social standing and inheritances. It is a story of long-buried secrets, the crushing weight of class expectations, and the lengths a parent will go to keep her children’s lives intact.
Tales from Many Sources, Vol. V
Various
The world is a collection of fleeting, interconnected lives, where quiet acts of devotion and sudden, strange turns of fortune define the human experience.
The Admirable Bashville
Bernard Shaw
The stage play of a prizefighter’s romance, this work uses the melodious, rhythmic artifice of Elizabethan blank verse to elevate the gritty, often absurd realities of the boxing ring and the drawing room into a high-spirited comedy.
The Betrayal of John Fordham
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
A man confesses to a murder he cannot remember committing, trapped by a web of deceit woven by those closest to him.
The Chequers: Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in
James Runciman
This series of sketches offers an unvarnished, firsthand account of life inside a London public-house, stripping away the romantic myths surrounding the drink trade to reveal the human wreckage left in its wake.