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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 30 of 670.
The Aesop for Children: With pictures by Milo Winter
Aesop
Timeless tales of cunning, folly, and wisdom unfold through animals’ voices, revealing human nature’s truths in simple, sharp fables that have echoed across centuries.
The Two Great Retreats of History
George Grote
Two famous retreats become one long lesson in endurance: a Greek army fights for a road home through mountains and betrayal, while Napoleon’s grand army unravels in fire, frost, and panic.
Two little travellers
Frances Browne Arthur
HOOK Two young siblings, orphaned and alone, embark on a perilous journey through the English countryside, seeking safety, belonging, and a place to call home.
The Art of Stage Dancing: The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession
Ned Wayburn
HOOK: A stage dance manual can read like a showman’s autobiography, a health guide, and a backstage ledger all at once. Here, the glitter of performance is always tied to discipline, labor, and exacting craft.
Anne of the Island
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
A young woman’s journey from the familiar shores of Prince Edward Island to the wider world of college life and self-discovery unfolds with warmth, humor, and the bittersweet trials of growing up.
The Long Portage
Harold Bindloss
A rugged expedition into the wilds of British Columbia unearths more than just untamed landscapes—it reveals the tangled human struggles of ambition, loyalty, and the clash between old-world gentility and new-world grit.
The Coast of Bohemia
William Dean Howells
A young woman from a small Pennsylvania town journeys to New York to pursue art, confronting the harsh realities of ambition, love, and self-discovery in a world both inspiring and unforgiving.
Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold
Charles A. Eastman
Ancient voices gather around the fire, weaving tales where animals speak, heroes journey, and the spirit of the Sioux people lives in every whispered legend.
The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour
George A. Warren
A troop sets out for a wilderness hike and keeps finding trouble already waiting ahead of them. What begins as camp craft and banter turns into a chase through a mountain country where thieves, storm, and bad luck keep changing the ground under their feet.
Shoe-Bar Stratton
Joseph Bushnell Ames
HOOK A man returns to a troubled ranch haunted by secrets, rustlers, and a mysterious foreman, where loyalty and justice clash under the vast, unforgiving Western sky.
Indian Poetry: Containing "The Indian Song of Songs," from the Sanskrit of the Gîta Govinda of Jayadeva, Two books from "The Iliad Of India" (Mahábhárata), "Proverbial Wisdom" from the Shlokas of the Hitopadesa, and other Oriental Poems
Arnold, Edwin, Sir
A journey through the heart of ancient Indian literature unfolds, revealing love, war, wisdom, and divine longing in vivid poetic voices that bridge cultures and centuries.
Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay
Immanuel Kant
A profound inquiry into the conditions and principles that could bring about lasting peace among nations, challenging centuries of war and political power with reasoned moral philosophy.
The Forbidden Trail
Honoré Morrow
A young inventor’s relentless dream to harness solar power leads him deep into the unforgiving American desert, where ambition, hardship, and unexpected alliances shape a vision of transformation and survival.
A Mating in the Wilds
Ottwell Binns
A man and a woman are thrown together in the northern wilderness, where every mile of river, snow, and forest tests trust, courage, and desire. Around them, old injuries and fresh lies move as dangerously as the current.
Ride Proud, Rebel!
Andre Norton
A boy runs toward glory and a man tries to stop him; both are carried instead into a war that grinds away certainty, pride, and youth.
Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Oscar Wilde
HOOK A profound journey through beauty, despair, and justice, these poems traverse lush landscapes and harsh prisons alike, revealing the depths of human passion and suffering with haunting lyricism.
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1800
George Saintsbury
A history of fiction becomes a map of delight, rivalry, and experiment, where old stories keep changing shape and new ones learn to sound like life.
The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 3, 1836-1870
Charles Dickens
A vast, intimate window into the life and mind of one of the 19th century’s greatest novelists, revealing his thoughts, friendships, struggles, and the world he inhabited through his own letters.
Jim Spurling, Fisherman: or Making Good
Albert Walter Tolman
HOOK In the rugged Maine coast’s relentless sea, four young men confront nature’s harsh demands, learning that true strength is earned through grit, honesty, and hard, unglamorous labor.
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Émile Durkheim
Religion is not just a matter of faith but a social phenomenon rooted in the collective life of human communities, shaping thought, ritual, and identity from the simplest to the most complex forms.
How We Think
John Dewey
HOOK Thought is not a mere act of the mind but a disciplined process shaped by curiosity, doubt, and inquiry—one that transforms confusion into clarity through reflective investigation.
The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men
Francis Rolt-Wheeler
HOOK A young boy’s adventures with the U.S. Weather Bureau reveal the fierce power of nature and the science that battles it, blending thrilling rescues with the wonder of meteorology.
The Kingdom Round the Corner: A Novel
Coningsby Dawson
A postwar London brims with fractured loyalties, lost ideals, and fragile relationships as veterans and civilians alike struggle to reclaim their lives amid the shadows of a devastating conflict.
The Lady Doc
Caroline Lockhart
HOOK A determined woman doctor carves out her place in a rugged Western town, facing social snobbery, professional challenges, and personal betrayals in a world where money and power shape justice and survival.
On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening,: with Biographical Notices of Them, 2nd edition, with considerable additions
Samuel Felton
Portraits, gardens, and memory all become part of one long argument about how English taste grows, changes, and is preserved.
To My Younger Brethren: Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work
H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn) Moule
HOOK A profound guide for clergy balancing the sacred demands of ministry with the practical realities of daily life, urging a ministry rooted in personal holiness and spiritual vitality.
A Modern Tomboy: A Story for Girls
L. T. Meade
A spirited, rebellious girl meets her match in a courageous classmate who refuses to be intimidated. This Victorian-era story explores the power of strong-willed friendships to transform even the most disruptive spirits.
The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
HOOK A world where spirits shape the winds, monsters lurk beneath lakes, and a half-divine hero brings order, wisdom, and hope to the tribes of the North American wilderness.
The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure
Edward Hooker Dewey
What if the key to health and vitality lies not in what you eat, but in when you choose not to eat at all?
An Undivided Union
Oliver Optic
A teenage major rides through a war that is as much rescue mission as campaign. Around him, raids, prison escapes, stolen horses, and a missing paper keep turning military duty into personal crisis.
History of the English People, Volume V: Puritan England, 1603-1660
John Richard Green
HOOK A turbulent era where monarchy, religion, and emerging political ideas collide, shaping England’s destiny through conflict, conviction, and revolution.
Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome
Apicius
The oldest known cookbook from the Roman Empire invites readers into the elaborate, spice-heavy world of ancient kitchens. It is a practical manual of high-stakes gastronomy, revealing how the Romans cooked, preserved, and seasoned their meals.
Baseball Joe Around the World
Lester Chadwick
HOOK A young baseball star embarks on a thrilling global journey, facing fierce rivals, unexpected dangers, and cultural wonders, all while defending his honor and love.
The Gold Girl
James B. (James Beardsley) Hendryx
A determined young woman stakes her claim in the rugged hills, facing lawlessness, loneliness, and the shadows of her father’s legacy in a fierce race for gold.
A History of Elizabethan Literature
George Saintsbury
HOOK George Saintsbury’s seminal work charts the explosive evolution of English letters, tracing a journey from tentative imitation to the unparalleled creative heights of the Elizabethan and Jacobean masters.
Babylonians and Assyrians
A. H. (Archibald Henry) Sayce
Babylonia and Assyria appear here not as distant names but as busy societies where women trade, children learn, contracts bind, and the dead are carefully provisioned.
Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated
Thomas William Lawson
A relentless exposé of ruthless financial manipulation reveals how vast fortunes are built on deception, greed, and the exploitation of the public’s trust.
Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall
Jean K. (Jean Katherine) Baird
A young girl’s journey from a rough mining town to a strict boarding school reveals the challenges of social class, personal integrity, and the struggle to find one’s place amid conflict and change.
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
Charles Dickens
A young man caught in the turmoil of London’s 1780 Gordon Riots struggles with loyalty, love, and identity amid a city on the brink of chaos.
King Arthur's Knights: The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls
Henry Gilbert
A kingdom built on courage and honor comes apart through pride, rumor, and divided loyalties. Its brightest deeds are splendid, but the ending is a grave march through betrayal, loss, and penance.
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
Various
A vast, meticulously detailed compendium of the English language, tracing words from their ancient origins to their nuanced modern meanings, revealing the living history embedded in every letter and definition.
The Grey Friars in Oxford
A. G. (Andrew George) Little
A detailed chronicle of the Franciscan friars’ presence in Oxford reveals their spiritual, academic, and social struggles amid medieval England’s shifting religious landscape.
The Talking Horse, and Other Tales
F. Anstey
A collection of Victorian short stories, this volume explores the absurd, the sentimental, and the socially awkward through a lens of gentle, character-driven irony.
The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52
Dame Shirley
A sharp, observant woman goes to the California mines and finds not a frontier myth but a crowded, improvised world of danger, satire, hunger, beauty, and endurance. Her letters turn daily survival into a vivid social portrait.
Plotting in Pirate Seas
Francis Rolt-Wheeler
HOOK A young journalist finds himself deep in the web of international intrigue, navigating the dangerous waters of the Caribbean where colonial ghosts and modern conspiracies collide.
Through Finland in Carts
Mrs. (Ethel) Alec-Tweedie
Traversing a northern landscape by springless cart, water-route, and foot, a journey through turn-of-the-century Finland reveals a proud, self-governing culture poised between ancient folk traditions and modern social progress.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
Thomas Jefferson
HOOK A bold assertion of universal rights and a detailed indictment of tyranny, this foundational text marks the birth of a nation determined to claim freedom and self-governance.
Paul the minstrel, and other stories
Arthur Christopher Benson
A collection of short stories set in medieval and Renaissance England, exploring themes of faith, love, and the supernatural.