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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 239 of 714.

Cover of Folk Tales Every Child Should Know

Folk Tales Every Child Should Know

Unknown

A peasant trades a cow for a pig, a pig for a goose, and walks home believing himself the luckiest man alive, while half a world away a French veteran swears Napoleon drank pestilence and commanded spirits.

Children & Young Adult Reading6 min read
Cover of Game Birds and Game Fishes of the Pacific Coast

Game Birds and Game Fishes of the Pacific Coast

Harry Thom Payne

A practical 1913 field guide maps the rich fauna of the West Coast, translating formal natural history into a handbook for outdoorsmen.

Nature/Gardening/Animals6 min read
Cover of Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Edward Gibbon

Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Navigating the vast architecture of a civilization's collapse requires a structured map of historical memory, administrative records, and thematic shifts across centuries.

Encyclopedias/Dictionaries/Reference6 min read
Cover of Little Masterpieces of Science: Invention and Discovery

Little Masterpieces of Science: Invention and Discovery

Unknown

Before the modern world was built, a small circle of investigators had to discover how force, light, and electricity actually behave. This volume captures their own accounts of how those foundational breakthroughs were made.

Engineering & Technology6 min read
Cover of Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century

Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of

Behind decades of tactical command lies a governing philosophy rooted in cold realism, administrative order, and an unwavering commitment to public duty above personal sentiment.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857

Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857

Charles L. (Charles Larcom) Graves

A fierce satirical eye captures the growing pains of Victorian England through the sharp wit, outraged morality, and crusading journalism of its premiere humor magazine.

History - British5 min read
Cover of Osceola the Seminole

Osceola the Seminole

Mayne Reid

A young officer caught between his military duty and his personal loyalty must choose sides in the Florida Everglades.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume 1

Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume 1

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A solitary observer wanders through the coastal towns, mountain valleys, and bustling wharves of nineteenth-century New England, quietly collecting the raw fragments of reality that will later feed his imagination.

American Literature5 min read
Cover of Royalty in All Ages: The Amusements, Eccentricities, Accomplishments, Superstitions and Frolics of the Kings and Queens of Europe

Royalty in All Ages: The Amusements, Eccentricities, Accomplishments, Superstitions and Frolics of the Kings and Queens of Europe

T. F. (Thomas Firminger) Thiselton-Dyer

Behind the gilded doors of European palaces lies a bizarre landscape of private eccentricities, reckless pastimes, and intense personal obsessions. Strip away the official state portraits, and royal history reveals itself as a human chronicle of strange amusements and human frailties.

History - European6 min read
Cover of St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, No. 07, May 1878: Scribner's Illustrated

St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, No. 07, May 1878: Scribner's Illustrated

Various

A varied late-nineteenth-century tapestry of stories, instructional pieces, and reader correspondence captures the lively, instructive, and whimsical world of traditional American children's publishing.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3: I. Agorè: Polities of the Homeric Age. II. Ilios: Trojans and Greeks Compared. III. Thalassa: The Outer Geography. IV. Aoidos: Some Points of the Poetry of Homer

Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3: I. Agorè: Polities of the Homeric Age. II. Ilios: Trojans and Greeks Compared. III. Thalassa: The Outer Geography. IV. Aoidos: Some Points of the Poetry of Homer

W. E. (William Ewart) Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone examines the political structures, geography, and poetic artistry of the Homeric epics to demonstrate that Homer's world is an independent, historically coherent, and self-contained field of study.

Classics of Literature10 min read
Cover of The Blue Flower

The Blue Flower

Henry Van Dyke

An elusive blue blossom symbolizes the eternal human desire for something divine, beautiful, and forever just beyond reach.

American Literature7 min read
Cover of The Dance (by An Antiquary): Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D

The Dance (by An Antiquary): Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D

Anonymous

Tracing human movement through five thousand years of visual art, this volume surveys how posture, gesture, and rhythm reflect the spirit of every era.

Art6 min read
Cover of The folk-lore of China

The folk-lore of China

N. B. (Nicholas Belfield) Dennys

This compendium offers an observant, comparative look at the supernatural beliefs and social customs that governed daily life in 19th-century China, revealing a deep, human connection between East and West. It acts as a bridge between two worlds, showing how the desire to navigate the unknown is a universal instinct.

Archaeology & Anthropology6 min read
Cover of The Invention of Lithography

The Invention of Lithography

Alois Senefelder

A penniless German playwright stumbles upon a revolutionary printing method by writing a laundry bill on a piece of limestone with grease and acid.

Art7 min read
Cover of The Japanese Spirit

The Japanese Spirit

Yoshisaburo Okakura

An insider’s gentle, unvarnished tour through the layered philosophical and cultural forces that shape the Japanese mind, written to dismantle Western misconceptions with quiet historical authority.

Archaeology & Anthropology6 min read
Cover of The Magic Egg, and Other Stories

The Magic Egg, and Other Stories

Frank R. Stockton

A quiet room suddenly seems to double its size, a quiet town receives a flurry of unexpected callers, and the ordinary rules of nineteenth-century life gently bend.

Science-Fiction & Fantasy7 min read
Cover of The Magnetic North

The Magnetic North

Elizabeth Robins

A brutal September gale wrecks a party of prospectors on the lower Yukon, forcing five disparate men to face an unforgiving Arctic winter together.

Adventure8 min read
Cover of The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent

The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent

Emily Edson Briggs

A capital city in the wake of war reveals itself not in state documents, but through the watchful eyes of a woman writing at her desk.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of The Paper Moneys of Europe: Their Moral and Economic Significance

The Paper Moneys of Europe: Their Moral and Economic Significance

Francis W. (Francis Wrigley) Hirst

The modern tragedy of currency debasement reveals how easily the institutions of stability can be transformed into engines of theft.

Economics7 min read
Cover of The Philosophy of Style

The Philosophy of Style

Herbert Spencer

An elegant reduction of literary expression to a single governing principle: the conservation of the reader's mental energy.

Essays, Letters & Speeches6 min read
Cover of The Sauciest Boy in the Service: A Story of Pluck and Perseverance

The Sauciest Boy in the Service: A Story of Pluck and Perseverance

Gordon Stables

Driven by an unquenchable thirst for the sea, a runaway British youth sets out on a high-stakes journey across global oceans, facing mutinies, cannibals, and wartime perils with steady courage.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

Guy de Maupassant

Desire, deceit, and the sharp edge of human disillusionment collide across a landscape of French society, stretching from gilded salons to humble rural roads.

French Literature6 min read
Cover of These Twain

These Twain

Arnold Bennett

A masterwork of Victorian provincial realism that captures the quiet, grinding friction of two lives bound together in marriage.

British Literature7 min read
Cover of Through the Sikh War: A Tale of the Conquest of the Punjaub

Through the Sikh War: A Tale of the Conquest of the Punjaub

G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

An orphaned English boy travels to the turbulent Punjaub, mastering its languages and forging an indelible path through two fierce nineteenth-century imperial wars.

Adventure7 min read
Cover of Tom Wallis: A Tale of the South Seas

Tom Wallis: A Tale of the South Seas

Louis Becke

A brave Australian lad is swept to sea and cast into the adventurous expanse of the nineteenth-century Pacific.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2

Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2

Dawson Turner

A journey through Normandy reveals a realm where ruined abbeys, grand cathedrals, and ancient fortresses bear quiet witness to centuries of shifting French and English power.

Architecture5 min read
Cover of Budd Boyd's Triumph

Budd Boyd's Triumph

William P. (William Pendleton) Chipman

A young lad walking the storm-swept coast of Narragansett Bay carrying only a small bundle must face false accusations, financial ruin, and the harsh Atlantic tides to reclaim his family's honor.

Adventure6 min read
Cover of Bygone London

Bygone London

Frederick Ross

Inside the ancient square mile governed by the Lord Mayor lies a dense sediment of forgotten lives, vanished structures, and shifting loyalties. Beneath the roar of modern traffic, centuries of human ambition, violent political turns, and spiritual zeal lie buried under streets where Roman legionaries, medieval…

History - British6 min read
Cover of Critical Miscellanies, (Vol. 3 of 3), Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill

Critical Miscellanies, (Vol. 3 of 3), Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill

John Morley

An intellectual life is defined not by rigid adherence to dogma, but by the quiet, stubborn courage to continually revise one's own mind in pursuit of truth.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Fanny's First Play

Fanny's First Play

Bernard Shaw

A play-within-a-play about the generational disconnect between the stuffy Victorian past and the rebellious, restless modern future. It is a sharp, witty, and surprisingly modern satire that refuses to take itself too seriously.

British Literature7 min read
Cover of Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers

Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers

Solon Robinson

This mid-nineteenth-century manual offers American farmers a rigorous, evidence-based guide to using Peruvian guano to restore exhausted agricultural land and maximize crop yields.

How To ...6 min read
Cover of Haifa

Haifa

Laurence Oliphant

A vivid nineteenth-century journey reveals Palestine not as a static relic of antiquity, but as a dynamic landscape of ancient ruins, emerging agricultural colonies, and complex local societies.

Archaeology & Anthropology7 min read
Cover of Herein is Love: A Study of the Biblical Doctrine of Love in Its Bearing on Personality, Parenthood, Teaching, and All Other Human Relationships

Herein is Love: A Study of the Biblical Doctrine of Love in Its Bearing on Personality, Parenthood, Teaching, and All Other Human Relationships

Reuel L. Howe

Genuine love is not a vague feeling or a rigid set of rules, but a dangerous, courageous commitment to meet other human beings in total honesty.

Religion/Spirituality7 min read
Cover of Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico And Arizona in 1879: Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 307-428

Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico And Arizona in 1879: Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 307-428

James Stevenson

An exhaustive 1879 inventory cataloging thousands of Indigenous Southwestern artifacts reveals the material culture, artistic transitions, and daily technologies of Pueblo communities.

Archaeology & Anthropology5 min read
Cover of Love and liberty

Love and liberty

Alexandre Dumas

A carpenter’s apprentice chooses the cause of the people over the old order, placing himself at the center of the revolution that rebuilds France.

French Literature14 min read
Cover of Moonfleet

Moonfleet

John Meade Falkner

When a orphan boy accidentally uncovers a secret smuggling ring in his quiet Dorset village, a lost diamond leads him into a decade-long ordeal of outlawry, exile, and redemption.

Adventure8 min read
Cover of Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam

Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam

John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

This chronicle traces the rise and fall of New Amsterdam, painting a vivid portrait of the final Dutch governor whose fierce, unyielding rule defined the birth of a global city.

Biographies6 min read
Cover of Phases of Irish History

Phases of Irish History

Eoin Mac Neill

A scholarly exploration of Ireland's history from ancient times to the early medieval period, blending archaeology, linguistics, and early chronicles.

History - Other5 min read
Cover of Problems of Genetics

Problems of Genetics

William Bateson

A rigorous investigation into how organic variation actually works reveals that natural selection alone cannot explain the concrete, distinct boundaries between living species.

Science - Biology6 min read
Cover of Rambles in Normandy

Rambles in Normandy

M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

Smooth paved roads, ancient oak forests, and centuries of architectural history await along the scenic routes of northern France.

Travel Writing6 min read
Cover of Rupert, Prince Palatine

Rupert, Prince Palatine

Eva Scott

The life of a prince is often seen through the gilded lens of romance, but the reality of this soldier-scholar was a long, bruising collision between high-minded idealism and the brutal friction of civil war.

Biographies7 min read
Cover of Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools

Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools

Unknown

This collection assembles diverse voices from across the globe and through the ages, offering a curated tour of the human experience through classic prose, personal reflection, and narrative observation.

Children & Young Adult Reading6 min read
Cover of The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad

The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad

Various

A vibrant manifesto for nineteenth-century Highland identity, this inaugural periodical champions Celtic heritage while offering pragmatic, forward-looking strategies for Northern Scotland's economic and cultural survival.

History - Other6 min read
Cover of The Chariot of the Flesh

The Chariot of the Flesh

Hedley Peek

In a quiet English village, a man discovers that he can read minds, project his consciousness, and trace the centuries-long binding of his soul to another.

British Literature6 min read
Cover of The Evolution of Modern Orchestration

The Evolution of Modern Orchestration

Louis Adolphe Coerne

The development of the modern orchestra is a story of shifting tonal colors, moving from the simple reed pipes of antiquity to the vast, complex symphonic landscapes of the nineteenth century.

History - Other6 min read
Cover of The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ezekiel

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ezekiel

John Skinner

A deep, precise reading of Israel's most rigorous exiled prophet, exploring how divine judgment reshapes a broken nation into a holy community.

History - Ancient7 min read
Cover of The Great Impersonation

The Great Impersonation

E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

A desperate, down-at-heel Englishman collapses in the African bush, only to find a wealthy German military officer who looks like his identical twin—and who plans to steal his name to infiltrate London high society.

British Literature6 min read
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