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British Literature — page 87
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 87 of 133.
The Mean-Wells
Mabel Quiller-Couch
A spirited Cornish doctor’s daughter leads her younger sister through small domestic grudges, an ill-fated seaside adventure, and the surprising rescue of a lonely old man.
The Real Lady Hilda: A Sketch
B. M. (Bithia Mary) Croker
A young woman and her stepmother face poverty and social coldness in a English country town, until a chance encounter and a family secret alter their fortunes.
Vera Nevill
Cameron, H. Lovett, Mrs.
A lingering ache defines the lives of those caught in the orbit of a beauty they cannot possess or a past they cannot escape. It is a story of quiet, devastating choices made in the shadow of social expectation.
Women: an inquiry
Willa Muir
Men and women share a single human nature, yet an invisible current of energy divides their true creative purpose.
Bones in London
Edgar Wallace
An eccentric veteran tackles post-war London high finance with theatrical bluster, bumbling his way through dubious schemes only to routinely triumph by sheer, unpredictable romantic optimism.
Daughters of Belgravia
Fraser, Alexander, Mrs.
A gilded cage in 1880s London frames the fortunes of three high-born sisters forced onto the marital auction block to salvage their family's dwindling estate.
Devlin the Barber
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
A sinister stranger moves into a London lodging house, weaving psychological webs over everyone he meets while helping a desperate uncle solve a murder.
Forge and furnace: A novel
Florence Warden
Heavy smoke hangs over the roaring Sheffield ironworks, where a ambitious, self-made young clerk finds his steadfast devotion tested by a frail, elusive girl and the destructive machinations of her bankrupt father.
Jack Straw: A Farce in Three Acts
W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham
A penniless waiter takes up a dare to impersonate royalty, throwing a family of ambitious social climbers into chaos and finding true love in the process.
Moores Fables for the Female Sex
Edward Moore
Satirical fables and moral verse converge in a sharp eighteenth-century critique of social vanity, courtship, and domestic life.
Mr. Clutterbuck's Election
Hilaire Belloc
A quiet suburban fortune balloons into political ambition, exposing the absurd, money-driven machinery of Edwardian high society.
Ombra
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
In Margaret Oliphant’s Victorian romance, two young cousins—one light-hearted and open, the other dark and secretive—navigate love, familial friction, and social expectations across England and Italy.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, June 25, 1919
Various
A country emerging blinking into the light of post-war peace finds itself caught between solemn democratic ideals and the sheer, chaotic silliness of everyday domestic life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890
Various
HOOK A sharp-eyed, satirical survey of Victorian life, capturing the era’s political maneuvering, aesthetic pretensions, and social absurdities through a blend of biting prose and classic wit.
Shakespeare and His Love: A Play in Four Acts and an Epilogue
Frank Harris
A playwright constructs a portrait of genius undone by desire, casting William Shakespeare not as an untouchable monument, but as a vulnerable, heartbroken man consumed by his passion for the elusive Mary Fitton.
Sydney Lisle, the Heiress of St. Quentin
Dorothea Moore
An eighteen-year-old orphan raised in a warm doctor's family in London is suddenly plucked from her modest life to become the heiress of a grand, troubled estate in the English countryside.
The Daemon of the World
Percy Bysshe Shelley
An ethereal spirit descends to lift a sleeping maiden's soul into the cosmic heavens, revealing the dark errors of humanity's past and a radiant vision of future perfection.
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 998, February 11, 1899
Various
A Victorian periodical offers a vivid window into a world balancing quiet home life, moral guidance, and practical self-improvement.
The Missionary: An Indian Tale
Morgan, Sydney, Lady
An impossible love between a Portuguese missionary and an Indian priestess collides with the unyielding dogmas of colonial religion and traditional caste.
The New Abelard: A Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
Robert Williams Buchanan
A fallen clergyman and the brilliant woman who funded his new sanctuary must confront the catastrophic lie that undermines their radical spiritual movement.
The Plain Man and His Wife
Arnold Bennett
The average person navigates life like an automaton, trapped in a relentless cycle of routine while missing the vitality that makes existence worthwhile. A candid examination of one's own habits can break this trance.
The Wizard's Son, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
A young Scottish lord must break a centuries-old ancestral curse by surrendering his self-absorbed pride to a genuine, selfless love.
Thirty Years Since
Unknown
A family reduced to its final acres finds itself pursued by an old enemy whose hatred outlives the original insult.
Adela Cathcart, Volume 1
George MacDonald
A dark winter depression claims a young woman until a circle of friends gathers around her hearth to cure her through the quiet magic of storytelling.
Captain Macedoine's Daughter
William McFee
This is a story of how an observer becomes entangled in the fabrications of a man whose life is a masterpiece of self-invention. It captures the haunting, often deceptive nature of human connection against the backdrop of an unstable Mediterranean world.
Disappeared From Her Home: A Novel
Catherine Louisa Pirkis
A seventeen-year-old heiress vanishes without a trace from an English country road, leaving behind a baffled police force, a fractured family, and two devoted suitors determined to solve the mystery.
Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman
Arthur Quiller-Couch
This historical novel traces the tumultuous life of an outcast woman who finds an uneasy, complex redemption through her connection to a powerful man. It is a study of social rigidities, the cruelty of provincial judgment, and the resilience of a spirit forged in hardship.
Legend Land, Vol. 3: Being a Further Collection of Some of the Old Tales Told in Those Western Parts of Britain Served by the Great Western Railway
G. Basil (George Basil) Barham
A travel-guide retelling of British folklore turns regional landscapes into sites of enchantment, spectral revenge, and ancient heroism.
Locrine: A Tragedy
Algernon Charles Swinburne
A royal marriage built on obligation turns into a bloodbath when betrayal, jealousy, and generational hatred tear a ancient British kingdom apart.
Master of Men
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
He climbs out of the mechanic’s pit and onto the national stage, only to discover that the hardest fight is between his fierce ambition and the vows he left behind.
Poems: New and Old
Newbolt, Henry John, Sir
High above the open ocean and deep within the quiet halls of duty, the soul of a nation reveals itself through verse.
The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel
A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason
A high-society masquerade ball in London turns deadly, plunging an idle gentleman and a famed French detective into a tangled web of stolen jewels, nocturnal drug use, and haunting dreams.
The lady's mile
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
High-society marriages of convenience, secret longings, and the crushing machinery of Victorian respectability collide as two very different young women navigate the glittering, mercenary world of London's fashionable elite.
The Prince and the Pauper, Part 8
Mark Twain
A royal heir and a London beggar trade clothes on a whim, setting off a cascading crisis of identity, law, and power. Mark Twain’s classic tale pits the fragility of royal status against the harsh realities of sixteenth-century English justice.
The Three Sisters
May Sinclair
Trapped in a desolate, wind-swept Yorkshire village, three sisters struggle against a stifling father and the crushing weight of their own unfulfilled desires.
The Wellfields: A novel. Vol. 1 of 3
Jessie Fothergill
In a quiet corner of Victorian fiction, financial ruin serves not merely as a plot device, but as a crucible for human integrity.
A Doctor of the Old School
Ian Maclaren
A rugged, selfless country physician spends his life serving a remote Scottish glen, ultimately risking everything to save a mother’s life during a treacherous winter flood.
Arthur's inheritance
Emma Leslie
A penniless boy attempts to save his family’s honor by entering the workforce, only to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit.
Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 3
B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
A night of cold blood in a London lodging house casts a long shadow over a grieving son, a cunning fake widow, and a pair of extraordinarily resourceful servant girls.
Humbug
E. M. Delafield
This is a quiet, piercing study of a young woman’s struggle to find her own voice amidst a lifetime of well-meaning but suffocating deception. It is an honest, unsentimental portrait of the cost of living for others' approval.
In the Guardianship of God
Flora Annie Webster Steel
Under the burning sun of northern India, a vast cast of characters—British soldiers, native servants, local rulers, and humble peasants—navigate the complex, often tragic intersections of duty, devotion, and fate.
Lavinia
Rhoda Broughton
This Edwardian novel examines the friction between rigid duty and the unruly human heart. It is a portrait of a woman who finds herself trapped by a promise while awakening to a love that defies all social expectation.
My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People
Caradoc Evans
A fierce, saturnine portrait of Welsh piety and ambition, where faith and greed march hand in hand through the Welsh countryside and the drapery shops of London.
The barber's chair
Douglas William Jerrold
A razor-sharp satire of Victorian politics, hierarchy, and hypocrisy, told through the everyday gossip of a bustling London barbershop and the rambling letters of a reform-minded cab driver.
The case with nine solutions
J. J. Connington
The truth is often found in the spaces between competing theories, especially when a clever murderer deliberately litters the scene with conflicting clues to baffle the police.
The Grey Monk
T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight
A stormy autumn night, a haughty baronet, and a long-hidden family secret spark a tangled Victorian drama of stolen identity and quiet devotion.
The Jessamy Bride
Frank Frankfort Moore
An affectionate, fictionalized portrait of Oliver Goldsmith’s final years, this Eighteenth-Century period piece captures the vulnerability, humor, and tragic romantic longings of a literary genius who feels entirely out of place among his illustrious peers.
The Master of Aberfeldie, Volume 1 (of 3)
James Grant
A wealthy cousin’s return from military service in India sets off a chain of romantic rivalries, hidden schemes, and clash of wills inside a proud Scottish estate.