Free summaries
How To ... — page 10
563 public-domain how to ... books, summarised. Page 10 of 12.
Evening Round-Up: More Good Stuff Like Pep
William Crosbie Hunter
To wake with courage and sleep with a clear mind, one must learn to quiet unnecessary fears, value home over status, and build daily habits of good cheer.
Harper's indoor book for boys
Joseph H. (Joseph Henry) Adams
Leisure hours indoors need not be idle when a well-ordered workbench, simple tools, and a spirit of useful craft turn winter evenings into occasions for quiet, practical achievement.
Practical Boat-Sailing: A Concise and Simple Treatise
Douglas Frazar
A practical, plain-spoken guide to handling small craft, this classic treatise converts ocean-going experience into clear instructions for navigating unpredictable waters with calm confidence.
Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece
George Greenwood
A clear-headed cavalry officer dismantle the myths of Victorian horsemanship, replacing rigid military dogma with a gentle, two-handed approach to riding grounded in plain physics and animal psychology.
The technic of the baton
Albert Stoessel
A precise manual for the orchestra pit, this practical guide transforms the invisible art of musical leadership into a physical, learnable craft.
Water Wizardry: A collection of tricks in which water is the chief agent
Arthur Ainslie
A turn-of-the-century parlor guide transforms household glassware and tap water into a stage for astonishing optical illusions and theatrical misdirection.
Making Your Camera Pay
Frederick C. Davis
A ordinary pocket camera can be transformed into a steady source of income if its owner learns to see every everyday scene through an editor’s eyes.
How Paper Boxes Are Made: A practical and instructive book telling how the beginner may manufacture all kinds of paper boxes, with special chapters on the printing department for paper box plants, embossing, gold-leafing, label work, etc
Robert F. Salade
A sturdy paper box requires far more than mere cardboard and glue; it demands precise geometry, careful chemistry, and the mechanical choreography of an entire factory floor.
The Art of Lecturing: Revised Edition
Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
A guide for the aspiring public speaker, this manual offers a practical, no-nonsense look at the craft of lecturing, from the mechanics of voice training to the strategic art of the debate.
The Art of Soul-Winning
J. W. (John Wilmot) Mahood
Uncertainty, awkwardness, and the fear of intrusive meddling often paralyze believers who wish to share their faith directly with others.
The Ladies' Knitting and Netting Book
Miss Watts
Precise instructions and exact counting yield a seamless, hands-on workshop in early Victorian needlecraft.
Underground Treasures: How and Where to Find Them: A Key for the Ready Determination of All the Useful Minerals Within the United States
James Orton
A practical field guide for the 19th-century amateur, this work offers systematic methods for identifying minerals and prospecting for precious ores across the American landscape.
Bookbinding for beginners
Florence O. (Florence Ordway) Bean
This guide provides a foundational, systematic approach to the craft of bookbinding, designed to transform simple materials into functional, hand-crafted objects while fostering patience and precision in the student. It serves as a bridge between basic manual training and the technical artistry of professional binding.
The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United States
Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel) Fuller
This definitive 1896 manual serves as a practical blueprint for transforming American homesteads into productive landscapes through the systematic cultivation of nut-bearing trees.
The Renaissance of the Vocal Art: A Practical Study of Vitality, Vitalized Energy, of the Physical, Mental and Emotional Powers of the Singer, through Flexible, Elastic Bodily Movements
Edmund J. (Edmund John) Myer
This practical guide argues that the singing voice is not a machine to be manipulated by muscles, but a living instrument that blossoms through flexible, elastic bodily movement and vitalized energy.
What Every Singer Should Know
Millie Ryan
This earnest guide demystifies the path to professional singing, offering practical wisdom for students navigating the physical, technical, and emotional demands of a musical career.
War-Chess, or the Game of Battle
Richardson, Charles, of New York
This guide outlines a strategic board game designed to simulate the tactical maneuvers, logistical burdens, and combined-arms complexities of 19th-century warfare on a tabletop battlefield. It serves as both a rulebook and a conceptual model for military engagement.
Wild Birds in City Parks: Being hints on identifying 145 birds, prepared primarily for the spring migration in Lincoln Park, Chicago
Herbert Eugene Walter
Urban birding offers a secret, high-stakes drama for those who know where to look. This guide transforms the frantic spring migration within Chicago’s Lincoln Park into a manageable, exhilarating puzzle for the observant city dweller.
Expressive Voice Culture, Including the Emerson System
Jessie Eldridge Southwick
The voice serves as a bridge between the inner landscape of the soul and the outer world, acting as a natural, living instrument that reflects the speaker's true character.
Mushroom Culture: Its Extension and Improvement
W. (William) Robinson
Cultivating mushrooms is a simple, thrifty, and rewarding practice that requires little more than stable manure, proper darkness, and a bit of patience. This guide offers a comprehensive look at how to produce an abundant supply of food in any garden or cellar.
Principles and practice of agricultural analysis. Volume 2 (of 3), Fertilizers
Harvey Washington Wiley
To measure the hidden vitality of the earth, one must master the exacting chemistry of its restoration. This volume serves as the definitive nineteenth-century technical manual for those tasked with verifying the composition and efficacy of agricultural fertilizers.
The Writing of News: A Handbook with Chapters on Newspaper Correspondence and Copy Reading
Charles G. (Charles Griffith) Ross
This handbook acts as a foundational guide for aspiring reporters, stripping away the pretenses of "fine writing" to reveal the functional, muscular prose required to report the day's events with clarity and efficiency.
A-B-C of Vegetable Gardening
Eben E. (Eben Eugene) Rexford
Gardening is not a mysterious talent reserved for the expert, but a straightforward, rewarding pursuit open to anyone with a bit of ground and the inclination to put it to work.
What you can do with your will power
Russell H. Conwell
Success is not a secret hidden from the masses, but a result of the singular application of human will. Anyone possessing health and intelligence can achieve their potential by deciding to act with unwavering determination.
Manual of Taxidermy: A Complete Guide in Collecting and Preserving Birds and Mammals
C. J. (Charles Johnson) Maynard
This manual serves as a meticulous, hands-on guide for the nineteenth-century collector, detailing the precise techniques required to turn wild birds and mammals into preserved scientific specimens or decorative mounts.
More Conjuring: Simple Tricks for Social Gatherings
Hercat
This guide offers a collection of accessible illusions designed to enliven quiet evenings with friends and family. It focuses on performance without the need for specialized equipment or complex sleight-of-hand.
Ducks and Geese: Standard Breeds and Management
George E. (George Ellsworth) Howard
HOOK This guide captures the late-nineteenth-century precision of American poultry farming, detailing the specific traits and management techniques required to raise ducks and geese for market.
The Bath Tatting Book
Anonymous
A manual of Victorian needlework, this volume serves as a technical bridge for the aspiring lacemaker, translating the intricate, rhythmic tension of the shuttle into precise, geometric patterns for ornamental adornment.
Woodcraft
George Washington Sears
A call to trade the exhaustion of modern industry for the restorative simplicity of the wilderness, this practical guide offers a timeless blueprint for finding peace in the woods.
Peerless prestidigitation
Herbert De Caston
The secret to a successful deception lies not in supernatural power, but in the precise, practiced synchronization of hand and eye. This guide demystifies the art of the stage illusion for the aspiring performer.
The Labour-saving House
Peel, C. S., Mrs.
The greatest labour-saving apparatus in the home is not a machine, but the human brain; once that is applied to domestic management, the drudgery of the Edwardian household becomes a relic of the past.
The Mayflower, January, 1905
Various
The arrival of a new year brought with it the promise of bloom, as gardeners across the country turned to this monthly chronicle for guidance in preparing their soil and selecting their seeds.
All About Your Canary
George Jackson French
A practical guide for the mid-century home, this manual serves as both an instructional handbook for canary care and a catalog of the era’s most prized avian varieties. It blends straightforward husbandry advice with the gentle encouragement of a hobbyist.
Greek in a Nutshell
James Strong
This compact manual provides a foundational pathway into New Testament Greek, structured for systematic, self-guided study through grammatical analysis and direct engagement with biblical texts.
If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime
United States. Children's Bureau
Navigating packed trains, scarce food, and unpredictable delays with an infant requires rigorous preparation, steady nerves, and practical strategies to keep civilian life moving safely behind the home front.
The Dyer's Guide: Being a compendium of the art of dyeing linen, cotton, silk, wool, muslin, dresses, furniture, &c. &c
Thomas Packer
Transforming raw plant extracts, metallic salts, and pungent vats into brilliant, lasting hues requires equal measures of empirical rigor and manual dexterity.
Maxims and Hints on Angling, Chess, Shooting, and Other Matters: Also, Miseries of Fishing
Richard Penn
Gentlemanly self-deprecation and dry wit turn field sports and parlor games into a wry exploration of human vanity, awkwardness, and social pretense.
Small gardens, and how to make the most of them
Violet Purton Biddle
Proper planning turns a tiny, hemmed-in plot of ground into a flourishing oasis.
Essentials of woodworking
Ira Samuel Griffith
Clear, methodological guidance turns raw timber into enduring craft through disciplined tool work, structural joinery, and patient surface finishing.
The Art of English Poetry (1708)
Bysshe, Edward, active 1702-1712
This technical guide sets out to discipline English poetry by establishing rigid structural rules, metric precision, and systematic standards for syllable counts and rhyme schemes.
Elements of woodwork
Charles A. (Charles Albert) King
From forest floor to workbench, timber transforms through disciplined human effort. This manual bridges natural forestry and practical craftsmanship, showing how raw trees become fine, enduring structures.
Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making
Annie S. Swan
A practical Victorian guidebook maps the path to domestic harmony, offering grounded advice on choosing a partner, managing a household, and navigating the social pressures of late nineteenth-century family life.
Hippodrome Skating Book: Practical Illustrated Lessons in the Art of Figure Skating
Charlotte Oelschlager
This manual serves as a rigorous, practical guide to the discipline of figure skating, demystifying the elegant movements of the sport for those seeking to move beyond simple recreation. It remains a testament to a time when skating was viewed as a foundational athletic art form, blending technical precision with…
How To Ski and How Not To
Vivian Caulfeild
A balance on two boards transforms the winter mountain from a wall of ice into a open highway.
Advanced Bridge
J. B. (Joseph Bowne) Elwell
To master the game is not merely to hold the cards, but to read the intentions of the table and act with absolute precision. This is a technical guide to the strategic landscape of Bridge at the turn of the twentieth century.
Breaking into the movies
John Emerson
The movies are a business, a dream factory, and a rigorous craft. This guide reveals how the screen turns ambition into celluloid, proving that success requires equal parts technical grit and pure, unadulterated luck.
Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework: Business principles applied to housework
C. Hélène Barker
Reforming household labor requires treating domestic work like any other modern industry rather than an unstructured, lifetime obligation.
A Greek Primer: For Beginners in New Testament Greek
Wallace N. (Wallace Nelson) Stearns
A concise, pragmatic bridge for those wishing to revisit the language of the New Testament through a structured, essentialist lens.