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British Literature — page 76
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 76 of 133.
At the Relton Arms
Evelyn Sharp
This narrative explores the restless friction between artistic temperament and domestic obligation, centering on a musician who finds himself perpetually caught between his own impulsive nature and the women who anchor his life.
Ben o' Bill's, the Luddite: A Yorkshire Tale
D. F. E. Sykes
This Yorkshire tale offers a grounded, human look at the Luddite uprisings, capturing the desperation of the Colne Valley weavers as they faced an uncertain industrial future. It is a story of conflict, not just between men and machines, but between the quietude of daily life and the sudden, violent demands of…
Daireen. Complete
Frank Frankfort Moore
A desperate act of devotion sets a young woman on a perilous ocean voyage, where the wreckage of the past collides with the fragile possibilities of a new life.
English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VII
Unknown
This collection preserves the rugged, visceral pulse of centuries of conflict, capturing the shifting loyalties and brutal directness of the borderlands. It serves as a vital archive for anyone seeking the raw, unvarnished spirit of an age where historical memory was forged in song and steel.
King Cole
John Masefield
The life of an artist is a wandering one, paved with hardship and the constant threat of failure. Yet, even in the deepest rain and coldest despair, the spirit can be lifted by a song.
King Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
As the English empire in France begins to crumble, internal rivalries and dynastic ambitions threaten to dismantle the kingdom from within.
Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883)
Edward FitzGerald
Letters of this caliber offer a rare window into the quiet, ruminative life of a nineteenth-century intellectual. They capture a decade-long exchange between two old friends, finding beauty in the routine of reading, gardening, and long-standing affection.
Mr. Punch in the Hunting Field
Unknown
The hunting field is a treacherous stage where the ambitious, the incompetent, and the perpetually bruised collide in pursuit of a fox that is rarely, if ever, actually caught.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914
Various
The world of the early twentieth century is captured here in a brisk, kaleidoscopic series of satirical sketches, news snippets, and lighthearted commentary. This collection offers a vibrant snapshot of the cultural and political preoccupations of April 1914.
The Clockwork Man
E. V. (Edwin Vincent) Odle
A bizarre, mechanical stranger crashes into a quiet English cricket match, embodying a future where humanity has sacrificed its natural soul for the cold, efficient convenience of machine-augmented existence.
The Golden Bowl
Henry James
A wealthy American widower and his daughter marry into Italian nobility, only to discover that their intertwined lives are being quietly dismantled by an affair between their respective spouses.
The Loudwater Mystery
Edgar Jepson
An arrogant nobleman meets a violent end, casting a shadow of suspicion over those he spent his life tormenting. In a web of secrets, the investigator must untangle cold-blooded malice from the messy affairs of the heart.
The Mysterious Three
William Le Queux
A brush with a nameless stranger sets off a cascade of secrets, dragging an ordinary gentleman into a dark web of forgery, hidden mummies, and high-stakes peril.
The Owls' House
Crosbie Garstin
A wild, sweeping tale of a Cornish farm boy’s transformation from a local smuggler into a Barbary general, driven by an insatiable hunger for life and a haunting connection to his ancestral home.
The Story of Charles Strange: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
A young man’s quiet life in the law is upended when he finds himself ensnared in the volatile, dark secrets of an aristocratic household. This is a story of how quickly the past catches up to the present.
To-morrow and to-morrow ... a novel
Stephen McKenna
HOOK The shadow of the Great War looms over a generation of survivors who return home to a fractured England, only to find that peace has brought its own bitter, unrecognizable consequences.
Told After Supper
Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Ghosts are never more tiresome than when they insist on rehearsing their clichés, but this collection of tales suggests that the living are often much more ridiculous than the spectres they fear.
Waverley
Walter Scott
A young soldier’s romantic illusions of glory collide with the harsh, divided reality of 1745 Scotland. This foundational work of historical fiction captures the passing of an era through the eyes of a man caught between two worlds.
Workhouse Characters, and other sketches of the life of the poor
Margaret Wynne Nevinson
The workhouse, for many, is a final, cold destination where the architecture of state bureaucracy often crushes the individual spirit. These accounts illuminate the humanity trapped within that system, revealing the dignity and heartbreak of those forced to navigate a society built on rigid class divisions.
A Ring of Rubies
L. T. Meade
Nineteen-year-old Rosamund Lindley finds her life of domestic poverty transformed when a reclusive, eccentric cousin bequeaths her a mysterious ruby ring, setting her on a path of independent discovery and unexpected family responsibility.
Agincourt: A Romance: The Works of G. P. R. James, Volume XX
G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
The path of duty often winds through shadows, but for a true knight, the light of honor—and the love of a devoted heart—serves as an unerring guide toward victory and peace.
All But Lost: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
The tensions of Victorian life collide in this sprawling social drama, where the domestic struggles of a working-class family intertwine with the romantic and financial schemes of the landed gentry.
Damon and Delia: A Tale
William Godwin
The graceful Delia and her devoted Damon struggle against arranged marriages and social artifice to find their way to each other’s side. Their journey is a lesson in the turbulence of youth and the quiet triumph of reason.
Masters of the English Novel: A Study of Principles and Personalities
Richard Burton
The study of the novel is an act of historical appreciation, where the critic’s task is to measure the enduring legacy of the great figures who shaped the English literary tradition.
Mucedorus
Unknown
This early English stage play blends high-stakes royal romance with the rough-and-tumble antics of a court clown, all framed by a symbolic tug-of-war between two personified forces: Comedy and Envy.
Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour
W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham
This collection of early dramas presents the sharp, unsentimental wit of a writer observing the fragile intersections of social duty, personal desire, and the stifling weight of convention.
Rogues and vagabonds
Compton MacKenzie
The lives of two generations of entertainers collide with the rigid, joyless expectations of Victorian society in this sweeping portrait of familial struggle and personal liberation.
The Half-Brothers
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
A child of privilege, sheltered by his father’s wealth and his aunt’s devotion, remains blind to the quiet, selfless love of his older half-brother until a freezing mountain storm forces a final, tragic reckoning.
The Keeper of the Door
Ethel M. (Ethel May) Dell
A young woman’s desperate act of mercy to shield a suffering friend from despair sets in motion a lifelong burden of secrecy and self-reproach.
The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 3 of 3)
Richard Dowling
This narrative explores the precarious intersection of artistic ambition, psychological obsession, and the haunting weight of past regrets. It follows the tumultuous lives of two friends whose bond is tested by professional rivalry, personal tragedy, and a dark, lingering secret.
The Pier-Glass
Robert Graves
A collection of verse caught between the haunted stillness of the past and the sharp, bright arrival of a new, unsettling clarity. It navigates the thin partition between the living and the spectral.
The Rhymer
Allan McAulay
The life of a poet is a tempest, and those pulled into his orbit often find their own quiet paths shattered by the force of his genius and the wreckage of his desires.
The Two Marys
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
HOOK A daughter discovers her late father led a secret life, unraveling a complex web of hidden identities, lost inheritances, and the enduring power of family secrets.
The World Before Them: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)
Susanna Moodie
This nineteenth-century domestic drama follows a resilient young woman navigating the complexities of social class, unrequited love, and the mystery of her own origins. It is a story of personal transformation set against the backdrop of a changing English countryside.
Three Bright Girls: A Story of Chance and Mischance
Annie E. Armstrong
When a family’s fortune vanishes overnight, three sisters must trade their life of luxury for the quiet, challenging dignity of making their own way in the world.
A Ladder of Swords: A Tale of Love, Laughter and Tears
Gilbert Parker
The life of a refugee is a path of jagged edges and perilous climb. This tale traces a desperate flight from religious persecution into the orbit of a queen, where love must survive the whims of power.
A Life for a Life, Volume 2 (of 3)
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
A man haunted by a dark secret from his past finds himself drawn to a young woman whose family holds the key to his deepest regret. This narrative explores the heavy burden of remorse and the possibility of redemption through love.
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
A young woman disguises herself to navigate a treacherous forest and a tangled romance, discovering that true love is often found in the most unlikely of masks.
Betty's Battles: An Everyday Story
S. L. M.
A young woman discovers that the most challenging battles for peace are not fought on distant fields, but in the cluttered, everyday corners of her own home.
Gone to Earth
Mary Webb
A young woman, inseparable from her pet fox, struggles to navigate the crushing expectations of a rigid society and the conflicting demands of two men who represent wildly different versions of her own future.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
A humble family’s journey from rural contentment to the depths of misfortune reveals how resilience and kindness can transcend even the harshest of life’s trials.
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The boundaries between the living and the dead are thin in these tales, where the mundane anxieties of debt, drink, and duty invite visitations from a spectral, unforgiving afterlife.
Linda Tressel
Anthony Trollope
A young woman finds herself trapped between a rigid, loveless domestic life and the dangerous allure of a man her society deems unworthy. This is a story of stifled desire and the tragic cost of misplaced religious zeal.
Mary Broome: A Comedy, in Four Acts
Allan Monkhouse
A young woman’s unplanned pregnancy forces an intersection of two worlds, exposing the brittle artifice of a middle-class family and the devastating costs of their rigid morality.
Mugby Junction
Charles Dickens
A man seeking to escape his own history finds a strange crossroads where the lives of others reveal the path back to his own heart.
Poems
Alice Meynell
The poet’s heart is a garden where thoughts flit like birds, and her solitude is a bridge between the quiet, internal life and the vast, shifting beauty of the natural world.
Russian essays and stories
Maurice Baring
Encountering a foreign land with equal parts ironical distance and deep curiosity, a perceptive visitor captures the living pulse of a society on the brink of dramatic upheaval.
The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
A collection of tales that peer into the quiet, often darker corners of English life, where blackmail, supernatural obsession, and the thin line between reality and invention collide.