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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 278 of 714.
Alexander Pope
Leslie Stephen
A delicate, physically frail man uses razor-sharp wits and endless literary scheming to rule eighteenth-century English poetry from his suburban retreat, turning personal grudges and physical pain into timeless, brilliant verse.
An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments
Unknown
Eloquence tamed primitive humanity into social order, yet the public sphere remains a chaotic arena of literary feuds, economic anxiety, and intellectual pretension.
Beauty and the beast
Unknown
A gentle maiden’s selfless love breaks a terrible enchantment, proving that true beauty lies within the soul and that kindness holds the ultimate power to redeem.
Christopher and Columbus
Elizabeth Von Arnim
Fleeing anti-German sentiment during World War I, two seventeen-year-old orphaned Anglo-German twins voyage to America under the care of a well-meaning bachelor, only to face social suspicion, eccentric chaperones, and the misadventures of starting an English tea-house.
Convict Life at the Minnesota State Prison, Stillwater, Minnesota
William Casper Heilbron
An insider's tour of a turn-of-the-century penitentiary reveals how modern administrative discipline, industrialized labor, and institutional reform transformed the grim reality of criminal punishment.
Corinne
Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine) Staël
When a grieving Scottish nobleman meets Rome’s most celebrated artist and improvisational poet, their passionate connection forces a choice between duty, cultural expectation, and the demands of artistic genius.
Crooked Trails
Frederic Remington
When the frontier was fading into history, a famous artist set down the rough reality of its survivors, soldiers, and scouts. The result is a vivid, unvarnished portrait of an America forged in dust, snow, and blood.
De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery
David Lavender
Driven by eight centuries of crusading zeal and rumors of unimaginable wealth, Spanish conquistadores pushed far beyond their Central American strongholds to map the vast, unpredictable northern wilderness of the sixteenth-century American continent.
Early American Plays, 1714-1830: A Compilation of the Titles of Plays and Dramatic Poems Written by Authors Born in or Residing in North America Previous to 1830
Oscar Wegelin
A meticulously organized record of early North American drama reveals how a fledgling nation sought its voice through patriotic pageantry, satirical farces, and European adaptations.
Eric
F. W. (Frederic William) Farrar
A vibrant, warm-hearted schoolboy enters a strict boarding school, only to find his integrity slowly chipped away by the quiet temptations of bad company and compromise.
George Washington
William Roscoe Thayer
Behind the myth of the nation’s founding father lies a flesh-and-blood Virginian whose extraordinary self-command, physical stamina, and quiet determination shaped a fledgling republic through sheer strength of character.
German Culture Past and Present
Ernest Belfort Bax
The social order of medieval Europe unravels as new financial systems, peasant revolts, and religious schisms reshape the daily life and cultural trajectory of the German nation.
Heroines of the Crusades
C. A. (Celestia Angenette) Bloss
In their devotion and their daring, six royal women shape the fate of Europe and the Holy Land across two turbulent centuries of holy war.
Historical Parallels, vol. 1 (of 3)
Arthur Thomas Malkin
History repeats itself, providing a mirror in which the triumphs and failures of the past illuminate the struggles of our own time. By placing ancient narratives alongside medieval and modern accounts, these pages reveal the enduring patterns of human behavior.
Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. 2 of 6, slice 12 of 12: England, 1377-1399, Richard II
Raphael Holinshed
A young king's fragile reign falls apart under the weight of peasant rebellion, aristocratic feud, and his own flawed judgment, culminating in his quiet surrender of the crown to his ambitious cousin.
Home as Found: Sequel to "Homeward Bound"
James Fenimore Cooper
A returned family discovers that their beloved homeland has traded its high ideals for democratic vulgarity, wild speculation, and petty provincial tyranny.
Korean Buddhism: History—Condition—Art
Frederick Starr
Centuries of exile in mountain sanctuaries have not extinguished Korean Buddhism; it is quietly reawakening to shape its nation's cultural and spiritual future.
Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A young Dutch woman’s fateful encounter with a ruthless Spanish officer binds her family’s destiny to the bloody struggle for religious and political freedom in the sixteenth-century Netherlands.
Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study
Dwight Lyman Moody
To unlock the scriptures, one must move past casual reading and approach the text with intentional, active engagement. Transforming the Bible from a dusty volume into a lifelong source of vigor requires structured methods, persistent curiosity, and personal application.
Pottery, for Artists, Craftsmen & Teachers
George James Cox
To shape raw earth into enduring beauty, one must learn where the artist's intuition meets the rigid truths of chemistry and fire.
Prehistoric Men
Robert J. (Robert John) Braidwood
A accessible study tracing humanity's rise from early toolmakers to settled farmers, grounding deep history in material evidence rather than speculative myth.
Recollections of a Military Life
Adye, John, Sir
A professional gunner charts the evolution of Victorian imperial warfare across forty years, recording the transition from Crimean mud and Indian insurgencies to administrative reform and desert engagements.
Selected English Letters (XV-XIX Centuries)
Unknown
A small, quiet window opens into five centuries of private lives, showing how the art of writing to one another changed from a grave necessity to a joyful, intimate pastime.
Tales from Gorky
Maksim Gorky
Across desolate steppes, subterranean bakeries, and wind-scoured harbors, wandering outcasts, broken laborers, and petty thieves barter their bodies and souls for a mouthful of bread, discovering that freedom and cruelty share the very same road.
The Evolution Theory, Vol. 2 of 2
August Weismann
A landmark work of evolutionary biology, this second volume presents a bold defense of selectionism through a vast survey of animal life, cellular mechanics, and inherited variation.
The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales
Gatty, Alfred, Mrs.
Childhood mischief and quiet grace meet in this collection of Victorian fables that explore how ordinary human efforts shape the soul.
The Homosexual Neurosis
Wilhelm Stekel
Early psychoanalytic practice meets the clinical study of sexual variance in this ambitious work, which attempts to map the human psyche through detailed case histories of compulsion, family conflict, and repressed desires.
The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509. Volume 4 (of 6): New Complete Library Edition
Unknown
A family of ambitious gentry fights to defend its newly acquired estates across decades of civil strife, betrayal, and relentless courtroom warfare.
The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland
Unknown
A forgotten county's verse reveals how ordinary rural lives, small-town griefs, and quiet local pride find unexpected immortality through communal song.
The Sacred Beetle, and Others
Jean-Henri Fabre
A tiny engineer labors in the dust, rolling a sphere of dung much larger than itself. This patient, observant natural history examines the intricate domestic lives and instinctive intelligence of earth’s humblest creatures.
The Wonders of Pompeii
Marc Monnier
Buried beneath volcanic ash for eighteen centuries, a forgotten Roman city reemerges to reveal the intimate, everyday rhythms of ancient life.
The works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 04 (of 32)
John Wesley
Belief without practical action is an empty shell, and a life devoted to God demands strict stewardship of one's money, speech, time, and relationships in an indifferent world.
Valere aude (dare to be healthy)
Louis Dechmann
Humanity's suffering from bodily ailments can be cured not through drugs or germ-hunting, but by restoring proper mineral balance to the blood and soil through a precise system of cell-food therapy and natural hygiene.
Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 2, April, 1906
Various
A fiercely opinionated artifact of American Populism captures the raw economic anxiety and political rebellion of the early twentieth century.
Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements
Frank B. Lord
An idealist scholar enters the American presidency to reform national finance, only to be forced onto the global stage by world war and a tragic struggle for international peace.
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 4
George Müller
A life of radical, deliberate financial vulnerability reveals what happens when a person resolves never to ask for a penny. This ledger of answered prayers tracks every farthing that sustains hundreds of parentless children.
A Roman Singer
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
An impoverished Italian scholar narrates how his peasant foster son rises to international operatic fame while braving dark rivalries, imprisonment, and duels to rescue the noble German woman he loves.
A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699
William Dampier
A three-year voyage to chart uncharted southern waters turns into a masterclass in patient observation, tracking everything from Brazilian timber to tail-less Australian lizards.
Arabic Authors: A Manual of Arabian History and Literature
F. F. Arbuthnot
A vast, untamed landscape of poetry, philosophy, and history lies waiting for those brave enough to look past the Western canon.
Aunt Friendly's Picture Book.: Containing Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim
Unknown
A quiet charm runs through this Victorian compendium, where familiar nursery rhymes and timeless fables sit alongside vibrant color illustrations to introduce young readers to the joy of printed stories.
Dio's Rome, Volume 4: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form
Cassius Dio Cocceianus
A senate debates whether to abandon absolute power, unaware that the Republic is already dead and the Principate is born.
Finn the wolfhound
A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
An Irish Wolfhound bred in Sussex faces theft, betrayal, and the harsh Australian wilderness before finding his way home.
Hamlet: The First ('Bad') Quarto
William Shakespeare
A grief-stricken prince unravels a web of betrayal at court after learning his uncle murdered his father, feigning madness to execute a desperate scheme of revenge.
Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition: For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and Galvanizing
William Norman Brown
Mastering durable industrial finishes requires a balance of chemical understanding, meticulous surface preparation, and heat regulation across wood, leather, and metal.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852
Various
A vast, sprawling canvas of mid-nineteenth-century thought and story captures a rapidly changing world through biographical sketches, serial fiction, natural history, political reportage, and satirical social commentary.
History of Scotland
Margaret MacArthur
A harsh northern landscape yields centuries of unrelenting political friction, transforming tribal feuds and foreign over-lordship into a distinct national identity forged in the crucible of war.
History of the United States, Volume 5
Elisha Benjamin Andrews
At the turn of the twentieth century, an expanding United States grapples with its rapid industrial transformation, newly acquired overseas territories, and the turbulent political shifts that redefine modern American identity.
Is Life Worth Living?
W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock
When modern science strips the universe of sacred meaning, can human life retain any genuine, objective worth?