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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 209 of 714.
History of American Socialisms
John Humphrey Noyes
The American landscape of the nineteenth century served as a vast, experimental laboratory for collective living, where waves of idealists sought to engineer a perfect society through shared labor and property. This history chronicles those bold, often short-lived attempts to realize communal harmony, revealing why…
Joe the Hotel Boy
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A young boy leaves behind a life of rural obscurity to face the challenges of the city, discovering that honesty and persistence are the most reliable currency for navigating a world of swindlers.
Nonsense Novels
Stephen Leacock
This collection of parodies lampoons the tropes of early twentieth-century popular fiction, dismantling the earnest clichés of detectives, explorers, and romance writers with sharp, absurd wit. It is a brilliant display of literary mockery.
Off to the Wilds: Being the Adventures of Two Brothers
George Manville Fenn
Survival in the untamed wilderness requires more than a steady hand; it demands the wisdom to respect the land and the endurance to face its unrelenting dangers. Through the eyes of two young brothers, the vast, challenging landscape of 19th-century South Africa becomes a classroom of grit, discovery, and peril.
Opus 21: Descriptive Music for the Lower Kinsey Epoch of the Atomic Age, a Concerto for a One-man Band, Six Arias for Soap Operas, Fugues, Anthems & Barrelhouse
Philip Wylie
A bracing, sardonic tour of the human condition, this narrative navigates the anxieties of the early Atomic Age through the lens of a man confronting his own mortality.
Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail
Ezra Meeker
This is a memoir of the American West as seen through the eyes of a man who lived its defining migrations twice—first as a young pioneer in 1852, and again as an elderly advocate for the preservation of its history.
Practical Guide to English Versification: With a Compendious Dictionary of Rhymes, an Examination
Tom Hood
This manual demystifies the mechanics of English verse, offering a rigorous, no-nonsense toolkit for those who wish to build poems with the precision of a craftsman rather than the intuition of a poet.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
Alexander Berkman
HOOK This is the raw, unflinching account of a fourteen-year struggle to preserve one’s humanity against the systematic brutality of the American prison industrial complex.
Si Klegg, Book 5: The Deacon's Adventures at Chattanooga in Caring for the Boys
John McElroy
The war is not just a matter of grand maneuvers and distant generals; it is a series of gritty, often absurd encounters defined by hunger, exhaustion, and the stubborn loyalty of men bound together by fire.
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Galatians
George G. (George Gillanders) Findlay
The apostle Paul’s fierce, foundational defense of spiritual freedom against religious legalism remains a transformative document of the ancient world. This exposition maps the theological landscape of a letter that redefined the boundaries of early Christianity.
Tics and Their Treatment
Henry Meige
A clinical study of the human will in conflict with the body reveals how trivial habits calcify into debilitating neuroses, offering both a rigorous diagnostic boundary and a compassionate blueprint for psychological re-education.
An Essay on the Shaking Palsy
James Parkinson
A seminal medical observation, this inquiry provides the first formal clinical description of the condition now known as Parkinson’s disease. It transforms a scattered set of "afflictive" symptoms into a distinct, recognizable medical entity.
Assassin
Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone
A lone observer watches a world succumb to the gentle, hypnotic influence of benevolent visitors from the stars. He understands what no one else dares to consider: the price of a perfect peace is the end of human freedom.
Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers
Unknown
This collection gathers influential essays by renowned thinkers who turn their gaze toward the world’s most celebrated paintings. It serves as a bridge between the gallery wall and the literary mind, exploring how art resonates through time.
Life of George Washington, volume 1 of 5
Washington Irving
A sweeping portrait of a young surveyor’s rise to prominence, this narrative traces the evolution of a reserved colonial gentleman into the resolute commander of a revolution.
Mother Goose: The Original Volland Edition
Unknown
This collection gathers the foundational nonsense verses and rhymes that have shaped the nursery for generations, preserving the rhythm and wit of the original classic melodies.
Poems of Passion
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
This collection of verse captures the turbulence of the human heart, speaking with a candor that once scandalized polite society. It offers a raw, unvarnished look at the intensity of desire and the inevitable ache of living.
Poster advertising
George Henry Edward Hawkins
A masterclass in the art of the outdoor advertisement, this guide transforms the ephemeral nature of the billboard into a calculated science of commerce and visual impact. It serves as both a strategic manual and an early-twentieth-century ledger of the industry’s reach.
The Cathedrals of Northern Spain: Their History and Their Architecture
Charles Rudy
This guide explores the architectural evolution and turbulent histories of Spain’s northern cathedrals, framing them as enduring monuments to a complex national identity. It serves as both a scholarly record and a romantic tribute to the Iberian spirit.
The Man Who Couldn't Sleep
Arthur Stringer
The sleepless protagonist wanders the dark, mysterious streets of New York, uncovering a hidden world of crime, stolen codes, and elaborate deceptions.
The Seven Wives of Bluebeard: 1920
Anatole France
The legend of a murderous nobleman is merely a mirror reflecting the malice of those who profit from his ruin. This retelling strips away the fairy-tale grime to reveal a man more sinned against than sinning.
Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e: Written during Her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in Different Parts of Europe
Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady
A sharp-witted diplomat’s wife documents her travels across Europe and into the Ottoman Empire, dismantling Western misconceptions with a skeptical eye and a formidable intellect. These dispatches remain a definitive, subversive portrait of eighteenth-century life.
The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes
Joseph Conrad
A young man is drawn into the orbit of a mysterious woman and the high-stakes world of political intrigue, finding his life irrevocably altered by a fleeting, intense obsession.
The Marriage Contract
Honoré de Balzac
A cautionary study of the intersection between romantic idealism and the cold mechanics of wealth, this narrative observes how the legal structures of marriage can dismantle a man’s life before he even reaches the altar.
The White Chief: A Legend of Northern Mexico
Mayne Reid
This is a rugged tale of frontier survival and romantic defiance, set in the unforgiving landscape of 1840s Northern Mexico. It captures the tension between a bold, independent hero and the corrupt officials who seek his destruction.
Wessex Poems and Other Verses
Thomas Hardy
The weight of human history rests on the quiet, often overlooked corners of the heart. These poems hold the fragile intersection where personal longing meets the indifferent machinery of time.
American Masters of Sculpture: Being Brief Appreciations of Some American Sculptors and of Some Phases of Sculpture in America
Charles H. (Charles Henry) Caffin
An evolving artistic identity finds its voice through the bronze and marble of the nation’s pioneers.
Bel Ami (A Ladies' Man): The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 6
Guy de Maupassant
A penniless, ambitious drifter climbs the heights of Parisian society by manipulating the women who cross his path. This is a cold-eyed portrait of the price of power.
Craven's Part in the Great War
John T. Clayton
The Great War was a crucible that forged the identity of a generation; this record preserves the names, sacrifices, and local history of the men who marched from the Craven district to meet it.
Lectures and Essays
Thomas Henry Huxley
To understand the natural world is to recognize that we are part of it, governed by the same immutable laws that shape the humblest creature and the furthest fossil.
Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them: A Selection of Thirty Native Food Varieties Easily Recognizable by their Marked Individualities, with Simple Rules for the Identification of Poisonous Species
W. Hamilton (William Hamilton) Gibson
HOOK This guide transforms the woods into a bountiful pantry, teaching you to distinguish the earth’s most delicious, overlooked delicacies from their potentially lethal lookalikes.
Remember the Alamo!
T. R. Fehrenbach
A time traveler arrives in 1836 expecting to witness a heroic stand, only to find himself trapped in a nightmare of alternate history where the Alamo is abandoned without a shot.
The Story of John G. Paton
John Gibson Paton
The story of a dedicated missionary’s life, this memoir chronicles decades of survival and spiritual labor among the indigenous people of the New Hebrides. It is a testament to the endurance of faith in the face of isolation, violence, and profound cultural collision.
The Substance of Faith Allied with Science (6th Ed.): A Catechism for Parents and Teachers
Lodge, Oliver, Sir
Science and faith need not be enemies, but rather two sides of a singular, harmonious truth. This guide offers a framework for understanding existence that reconciles the rigorous demands of modern inquiry with the enduring requirements of the soul.
The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis: A History with Documents
Karl Nordlund
A detailed examination of the 1905 dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian Union, chronicling the diplomatic breakdown and the constitutional arguments that pushed two sovereign nations toward separation.
A Manual of the Operations of Surgery: For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners
Joseph Bell
This work serves as a clinical bridge between the lecture hall and the operating theater, offering a direct, no-nonsense guide to the procedural mechanics of nineteenth-century surgical intervention. It functions as a technical atlas for those tasked with the physical realities of the scalpel.
Cast Upon the Breakers
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Cast out from his school and stripped of his inheritance, a young man must navigate a world of city streets, dishonest guardians, and rugged frontier landscapes to forge his own destiny.
Cynthia's Revels
Ben Jonson
This satirical comedy exposes the vapid vanity of court life, where posturing courtiers obsess over trivial fashions and empty status while blinded by their own self-love.
Little Eyolf
Henrik Ibsen
The tragedy of a family unravels when a child’s death forces his parents to confront the hollow, selfish reality of their marriage. It is a haunting, intimate look at the wreckage left behind by neglect and the difficult labor of redemption.
The Little Duke: Richard the Fearless
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
This is a tale of a young boy born to a throne of swords, caught between the brutal vengeance of his Norse ancestors and the fragile ideals of a Christian king. It captures the lonely, perilous coming-of-age of a child who must navigate the treacherous waters of medieval power while striving to remain honorable.
The Spinners' Book of Fiction
Spinners' Club
A collection of short stories written by California authors, this volume captures a period of literary transition at the dawn of the twentieth century. Through diverse tales ranging from historical drama to psychological realism, it reveals the rugged and romantic landscapes of the American West.
The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes
Beatrix Potter
Prudent squirrels and a misplaced nut hoard lead to a series of woodland misunderstandings, culminating in a forced stay inside a hollow tree.
Diana of the Crossways
George Meredith
The brilliant, impulsive Diana Merion navigates the treacherous currents of London high society, seeking both intellectual independence and the elusive security of a true heart. Caught between societal scandal and her own fierce aspirations, she learns that the most difficult battles are those waged against oneself.
Doña Perfecta
Benito Pérez Galdós
A young engineer arrives in a provincial Spanish town expecting a quiet family reunion, only to find himself trapped in a web of lethal, tradition-bound malice.
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
This mid-Victorian periodical offers a wide-ranging window into the intellectual, scientific, and cultural preoccupations of 1885. It captures the global discourse of an era grappling with rapid modernization and the preservation of tradition.
Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism
F. V. N. (Franklin Verzelius Newton) Painter
This guide serves as a foundational manual for students, transforming the vague experience of reading into a structured, analytical practice. It offers a systematic framework for evaluating literature through the lenses of form, content, and spirit.
Happy Days for Boys and Girls
Various
A vibrant, turn-of-the-century collection of stories and verse, this anthology serves as a gentle moral compass for young readers, celebrating the virtues of kindness, industry, and wonder in the natural world.
King Arthur and His Knights
Maude Radford Warren
A young king rises from obscurity to unite a fractured land, seeking to build a kingdom where justice and honor define the life of every subject. This retelling follows the legendary monarch from his humble beginnings to the final, haunting departure from his realm.