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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 156 of 714.
The Doctor's Dilemma
Bernard Shaw
A brilliant physician faces a moral catastrophe when he must decide which patient to save, ultimately choosing between a life of artistic genius and a life of quiet, humble merit.
The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
Unknown
This curated collection gathers the essential folklore, moral fables, and wonder tales that form the bedrock of the Western and Eastern literary imagination. It serves as a bridge for young readers to explore the timeless archetypes of heroes, tricksters, and enchantments.
The Story of Seville
Walter M. (Walter Matthew) Gallichan
Seville is a city where the echoes of ancient Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance worlds collide, inviting the traveler to uncover a history etched into its narrow alleys and sacred stone.
A Treatise on the Diseases Produced By Onanism, Masturbation, Self-Pollution, and Other Excesses
L. (Léopold) Deslandes
This sobering medical text from 1838 catalogues the perceived physiological and psychological ravages of self-stimulation, presenting it as a hidden root cause of chronic illness, insanity, and premature death.
Asgard Stories: Tales from Norse Mythology
Mary H. Foster
This collection of Norse myths serves as a foundational bridge to the ancient traditions of the North, offering a clear, accessible entry point into the epic struggles between the gods of Asgard and the giants of Utgard.
Christian Mysticism
William Ralph Inge
A learned exploration of the inner life, this work traces the history of the soul’s direct communion with the Divine, arguing that the mystical experience is the heartbeat of the Christian faith.
Idling in Italy: Studies of literature and of life
Joseph Collins
A guide to early twentieth-century Italian culture, this collection of essays invites travelers and students alike to move beyond the tourist’s superficial glance and engage deeply with the country’s modern literary soul.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 4
United States. Work Projects Administration
HOOK These voices from the twilight of the nineteenth century offer an unfiltered, haunting record of American slavery through the memories of those who survived it.
Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times
John Stewart Milne
To understand the ancient world, one must look at the tools of its healers; this study systematically maps the surgical hardware that defined Greek and Roman medicine. By piecing together archaeological finds and classical texts, it reconstructs a lost medical reality.
The Boy's Playbook of Science: Including the Various Manipulations and Arrangements of Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus Required for the Successful Performance of Scientific Experiments in Illustration of the Elementary Branches of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy
John Henry Pepper
Ignite a spirit of inquiry with this Victorian guide to the natural world, where the wonders of chemistry and physics are revealed through hands-on experimentation and clear, logical demonstration.
The Industrial Arts in Spain
Juan F. (Juan Facundo) Riaño
A meticulous examination of Spain’s decorative legacy, this volume illuminates the exquisite craftsmanship that defined a nation’s material culture through centuries of shifting influence. It serves as both a scholarly record and a guide to the enduring beauty of Spanish design.
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7: The Sassanian or New Persian Empire: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire
George Rawlinson
A sweeping chronicle of the Sassanian Empire, this history traces the rise and eventual dissolution of the last great Persian power before the arrival of Islam.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17
Robert Louis Stevenson
The islands of the Pacific are a crucible of clashing cultures and ancient secrets in this collection, where political turmoil and mythic tales collide with haunting resonance.
Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden
Voltaire
A relentless pursuit of military glory defines the life of a king who, in his singular obsession with conquest, sacrifices his own empire to the pursuit of an unreachable ideal.
Washington's Road (Nemacolin's path) the First Chapter of the Old French War
Archer Butler Hulbert
A young George Washington carves a path through the Appalachian wilderness, inadvertently igniting a global conflict that would determine the fate of the American continent.
A Class Room Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with Special Application to the Science and Art of Teaching
George Hastings McNair
This manual serves as a structured, classroom-oriented primer on the mechanics of formal reasoning, designed to equip students and teachers with the tools necessary to construct valid arguments and detect common fallacies.
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
Amy Lowell
These verses capture the fleeting intersection of human longing and the natural world, turning the internal struggle for meaning into a delicate, luminous art.
Dinners and Diners: Where and How to Dine in London
Lieut.-Col. (Nathaniel) Newnham-Davis
This collection of dispatches from late-Victorian London serves as a sophisticated, culinary map of a city at the height of its imperial confidence. It invites the reader to sit at the elbows of a discerning guide who moves with equal ease through historic chophouses and the burgeoning, gilded temples of French…
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
Elizabeth Von Arnim
This is a quiet, witty, and deeply personal account of a woman finding her own identity within the borders of a German garden. It celebrates the profound peace of solitude and the quiet rebellion of a mind seeking room to grow.
Fruitfulness
Émile Zola
This sweeping, multi-generational saga explores the moral and social imperative of procreation, positing that a large, productive family is the ultimate foundation of a healthy society and a prosperous nation.
Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet
Anonymous
A practical guide born of necessity, this collection offers detailed patterns for hand-knitted and crocheted garments to sustain home crafters during the First World War. It serves as both a technical manual and a historical artifact of wartime domesticity.
Mother Earth: Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699
Walter Stitt Robinson
The promise of free land acted as the primary engine for English colonization in the seventeenth century, drawing settlers to Virginia with the prospect of economic independence and newfound social status. This study examines how those promises were formalized, manipulated, and ultimately transformed.
Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings
Rose Macaulay
Amidst the fragile, high-stakes diplomacy of a fictional League of Nations assembly, a series of baffling disappearances forces a cynical journalist to confront a sprawling, clandestine conspiracy.
Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters: A Selection from His Correspondence with Boccaccio and Other Friends, Designed to Illustrate the Beginnings of the Renaissance
Francesco Petrarca
The legacy of the Renaissance begins not with a movement, but with a singular, restless mind searching for its own reflection in the fragments of the ancient world.
The Book-Lovers' Anthology
Unknown
A gathered nosegay of strange flowers, this collection serves as a quiet guide to the enduring fellowship of books, binding together the observations of generations of thinkers who found their truest companions on the printed page.
The Brick Moon, and Other Stories
Edward Everett Hale
A pioneering work of early science fiction, this collection balances speculative engineering with earnest, often whimsical meditations on the social and domestic lives of 19th-century Americans. It captures a spirit of boundless Victorian optimism, grounded in the belief that human ingenuity, bolstered by kindness,…
The French Revolution - Volume 1
Hippolyte Taine
The collapse of a nation is not a sudden thunderclap, but a slow, agonizing dissolution of the bonds that hold human society together. This examination traces the disintegration of France from the idealism of 1789 into the anarchy of total social rupture.
The Nabob
Alphonse Daudet
This sweeping, atmospheric chronicle captures the dazzling ascent and inevitable ruin of a self-made millionaire amidst the glittering decadence of late 19th-century Paris. It is a sharp study of human ambition, moral compromise, and the fragility of social standing.
A Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear
A collection of absurd, rhythmic sketches, this work invites readers into a world where logic is merely a suggestion and physical laws are subject to sudden, whimsical revision. By embracing the peculiar and the impossible, it serves as a foundational text for the genre of nonsense literature.
American Fairy Tales
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
These whimsical, subversive tales reimagine the landscape of American childhood, where magic acts as a sudden, often chaotic, intrusion into the mundane lives of ordinary people.
Brief Lives, Vol. 2
John Aubrey
A collection of candid, ink-stained portraits captures the human spirit of the seventeenth century, documenting the eccentric lives, private habits, and unvarnished deaths of poets, scientists, and kings with startling, intimate precision.
Burlesques
William Makepeace Thackeray
A collection of sharp-edged parodies, this volume dismantles the pretension of 19th-century literature and the social climbers who hungrily consumed it. It is a masterclass in literary mimicry, where the high-flown tropes of romance and adventure are brought down to earth by biting wit.
Creative Chemistry: Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries
Edwin E. (Edwin Emery) Slosson
This book serves as a vivid tour through the industrial triumphs of the early twentieth century, explaining how human ingenuity transformed raw materials into the foundations of modern life. It bridges the gap between the laboratory and the living room, showing how chemistry dictates everything from the food we eat…
Hand and Ring
Anna Katharine Green
A cold-blooded murder, a web of circumstantial evidence, and a courtroom trial where the truth is buried beneath layers of obsession and legal maneuvering.
Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
This collection preserves the soul of a nation through the voices of its bards, capturing the epic struggles and enduring spirit of the Serbian people. It serves as both a historical record and a window into a vivid, mythic world.
Lola Montez
Edmund B. (Edmund Basil) D'Auvergne
This biography chronicles the life of one of the 19th century’s most notorious figures, a woman who rose from a military childhood in India to captivate kings and stir revolutions across Europe.
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: a series of very plain talks on very practical politics, delivered by ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany philosopher, from his rostrum—the New York County court house bootblack stand
George Washington Plunkitt
A veteran New York City politician defends his career of "honest graft," arguing that serving the public and lining one’s own pockets are perfectly compatible activities.
The Adventures of Ulysses the Wanderer
Homer
The wanderer returns from a decade of war, only to find his home besieged by shadows and his own identity fractured by the long, cruel passage of time.
The Book of Herbs
Rosalind Northcote
The garden is a repository of living history, where a sprig of rosemary or a handful of basil carries the weight of centuries, folklore, and medicinal lore. Within these pages, the humble herb reveals its enduring role in the human story.
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 10
Unknown
A vast, panoramic survey of Spanish and Portuguese history, this volume chronicles the rise, imperial expansion, and turbulent internal struggles of the Iberian nations from the Visigothic era to the turn of the twentieth century.
The Mind of the Child, Part II: The Development of the Intellect, International Education
William T. Preyer
The development of a child’s mind is not a sudden awakening, but a biological progression of sensory, motor, and intellectual milestones that exist long before the first word is spoken.
The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2
Edward Young
The grave and the great are the twin poles of this collection, where the promise of eternity clashes with the vanity of worldly ambition. These verses navigate the uneasy border between a soul’s final reckoning and a citizen’s duty to the state.
The Story of Brussels
Ernest Gilliat-Smith
Brussels is a city built upon layers of commerce, religious devotion, and the persistent, often violent, friction between the common craftsman and the ruling patrician class. This historical narrative traces the development of the city from a modest ninth-century ducal settlement into a sophisticated center of art…
Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2
Charles Lever
The chaotic, vibrant adventures of an Irish dragoon reveal the relentless energy of a soldier’s life during the Peninsular War and the final, thunderous climax of Waterloo.
Cicero: Letters to Atticus, Vol. 1 of 3
Marcus Tullius Cicero
A window into the private anxieties of Rome’s most eloquent statesman, these personal letters reveal the human frailty behind the public mask of a legend.
Dixie After the War: An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of Richmond
Myrta Lockett Avary
This account captures the turbulent decade following the Civil War, offering a window into the social and political upheaval that reshaped the American South. It documents a landscape defined by loss, resentment, and a difficult, faltering transition.
Eric Brighteyes
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A legendary warrior battles fate, blood-feuds, and the machinations of a vengeful witch in this saga of honor and tragic love.
Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3
Unknown
This volume serves as a scholarly survey of European musical history, profiling the lives, aesthetic struggles, and technical evolutions of composers from the late Renaissance through the late nineteenth century. It frames the development of Western classical music as a cumulative, often competitive, narrative of…