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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 410 of 714.

Bessie's Fortune: A Novel
Mary Jane Holmes
A young woman’s journey from poverty to unexpected prosperity reveals the long-buried secrets of her ancestors, testing her resilience and the strength of the love she shares with a man of noble character.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848
Various
This collection captures the anxious pulse of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, where traditional defenses feel increasingly fragile against the rapid, unpredictable tides of modern economic and political change. It serves as a vivid, polemical window into the Victorian establishment’s deepest fears.

British birds
W. H. (William Henry) Hudson
This comprehensive guide to British birdlife captures the behavior, appearance, and habitat of various species with the observant, sympathetic eye of a dedicated field naturalist. It transforms technical observation into a living record of the English countryside.

By the deep sea
Edward Step
The tide retreats to reveal a hidden, living kingdom, inviting the patient observer to look closely at the wonders left behind on the rocky shore.

Canada in Flanders, Volume II
Beaverbrook, Max Aitken, Baron
The Canadian Corps’ ascent from a colonial contingent to a disciplined, hardened fighting force is captured here through the immediate, visceral lens of the First World War’s bloodiest sectors.

Capturing a Locomotive: A History of Secret Service in the Late War
William Pittenger
The daring 1862 mission to seize a Confederate locomotive and disrupt the Western & Atlantic Railroad remains one of the Civil War’s most harrowing tales of espionage and sacrifice.

Christmas Comes but Once a Year: Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, During That Festive Season
John Leighton
A suburban social climber finds his festive season upended by the arrival of a charismatic, penniless family of impostors. This satirical observation exposes the hollow rituals and desperate pretenses of mid-19th-century middle-class life.

Confessions of a Young Man
George Moore
The life of a young man is defined by his appetites, his insatiable curiosity, and his relentless search for an artistic identity in the fading light of the Victorian era.

Dante: Six Sermons
Philip H. (Philip Henry) Wicksteed
This volume offers a series of sermons delivered from the pulpit, providing a thoughtful, accessible gateway into the life and moral vision of the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Early voyages and travels in the Levant
John Covel
A master organ-maker encounters the splendors and perils of the Ottoman Empire, documenting a vanishing world through the eyes of a curious, seventeenth-century traveler.

Elsie's children
Martha Finley
A mother’s steady hand guides her family through life’s inevitable storms, proving that kindness and faith are the surest anchors in an unpredictable world.

Evidently not
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The dusty, high-stakes comedy of two drifters mistaken for traveling preachers offers a sharp, spirited look at the absurdities of frontier justice.

Fort Laramie National Monument, Wyoming
David L. Hieb
Standing at the junction of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, this site served as the essential crossroads for fur traders, gold seekers, and the pioneers of the American West.

Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D
John Gerardus Fagg
A dedicated missionary leaves behind a comfortable life in America to plant the seeds of a self-governing church in nineteenth-century China. This account traces a life of rigorous faith, cultural negotiation, and quiet, persistent administrative reform.

Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales
William Henry Giles Kingston
This collection of tales captures the Victorian spirit of adventure, blending moral instruction with the thrilling, often supernatural, experiences of young men navigating a vast and unpredictable world.

Frances Waldeaux: A Novel
Rebecca Harding Davis
A doting mother’s secret life as a satirical writer funds her son’s lofty, pampered existence, only for her illusions to shatter when he marries into a dark, foreign past.

Friends on the Shelf
Bradford Torrey
A quiet, contemplative invitation to explore the lives and legacies of literary figures, this volume celebrates the profound and sustaining friendship found between a reader and the books upon their shelves.

Gallantry: Dizain des Fetes Galantes
James Branch Cabell
These ten interconnected vignettes capture the fragile, performative elegance of a bygone aristocratic world. They present life as a grand, often reckless masquerade where the only cardinal sin is the lack of a graceful gesture.

George Silverman's Explanation
Charles Dickens
A lonely man recounts his life of quiet sacrifice and the devastating irony of being branded a mercenary for the very acts of self-denial he undertook to avoid worldliness.

Glass Manufacture
Walter Rosenhain
Glass is as much a product of precise chemical manipulation as it is of fire and artistic craft. This study demystifies the transformation of humble raw materials into the transparent, durable, and highly specialized substances defining modern life.

Gloria and Treeless Street
Annie Hamilton Donnell
A sheltered young heiress discovers a decrepit tenement street and resolves to fix it, only to learn that her own inherited wealth is the source of the misery she seeks to cure.

Great Epochs in American History, Volume 1.: Voyages of Discovery and Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682
Unknown
The first centuries of American exploration reveal a continent of mythic proportion, where the desperate ambitions of European crowns collided with the vast, uncharted realities of a New World.
Historical Record of the Fifth Regiment of Foot, or Northumberland Fusiliers: Containing an Account of the Formation of the Regiment in 1674, and of Its Subsequent Services to 1837
Richard Cannon
Formed in the crucible of seventeenth-century European conflict, this regiment’s legacy is defined by centuries of service across global battlefields and its eventual evolution into a storied Fusilier unit.

History of the United States, Volume 1
Elisha Benjamin Andrews
The tapestry of the American past is woven from threads of exploration, survival, and a quiet, persistent growth toward self-governance.

Huts in Hell
Daniel A. (Daniel Alfred) Poling
The American soldier serves as the central subject of this immersive, firsthand account of the Great War. Written by an influential religious official with full access to the front, the narrative captures the spirit, morale, and daily hardships of the men who fought in France.

In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year: Showing the Most Successful Treatment for all Plants Cultivated in the Greenhouse, Conservatory, Stove, Pit, Orchid, and Forcing-house
Keane, William, gardener
This guide offers a methodical, week-by-week calendar for maintaining a flourishing indoor garden throughout the year. It provides precise instructions for managing greenhouses, conservatories, and forcing-houses to ensure healthy plant growth in every season.

Intestinal irrigation
Alcinous B. (Alcinous Burton) Jamison
Neglected internal hygiene creates a foundation for systemic illness that only consistent, deliberate irrigation can resolve. This guide advocates for a radical shift in how individuals maintain their physical well-being.

Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910: Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914
Samuel Joseph
The vast migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1910 marks a defining shift in modern history. This analytical survey documents the structural forces that transformed millions of lives.

King Richard III
William Shakespeare
A chilling portrait of absolute ambition, this drama tracks a ruthless nobleman’s bloody climb to the English throne and his inevitable descent into paranoia and ruin.

La cuisine creole
Lafcadio Hearn
Creole cuisine is a vibrant, cosmopolitan tapestry woven from French, Spanish, Italian, West Indian, and Mexican influences, all converging in the unique cultural landscape of nineteenth-century New Orleans.

Latitude 19°: A Romance of the West Indies in the Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Twenty
Crowninshield, Schuyler, Mrs.
A stranded ship’s company faces the perils of the Haitian wilderness and the court of the infamous King Christophe. Survival demands both courage and a quick wit in this journey through a treacherous, tropical landscape.

Legends of Switzerland
H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber
High in the jagged peaks and verdant valleys of the Alps, ancient spirits and heroic patriots dwell in a landscape where nature’s fury meets the human heart. These collected tales capture the enduring soul of a nation shaped by both miracle and mountain storm.

Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2)
Henry Glassford Bell
The life of a sovereign becomes a tragedy of state, where personal virtue struggles against the inexorable machinery of political betrayal and historical revisionism. This account follows the descent of a queen from the heights of a throne to the finality of the scaffold.

Little Tony of Italy
Madeline Brandeis
HOOK A street-smart orphan and a stolen circus dog find redemption in this charming, nostalgic portrait of 1930s Italy. It is a simple tale of transformation, blending moral lessons with a young boy’s wide-eyed discovery of his country.

Little Yellow Wang-lo
M. C. Bell
A young boy’s errand to provide his father with dinner spirals into an unlikely alliance with a family of talking pigs, leading to a fortune that changes his life forever.

Mademoiselle Blanche: A Novel
John D. (John Daniel) Barry
In this sharp-edged portrait of obsession, a young woman’s perilous circus act becomes the stage for a hollow man’s undoing. It is a haunting study of how easily we mistake the spectacle of another person for love.

Mamma's Stories about Birds
Mary Elizabeth Southwell Dudley Leathley
A feathered guide for the young naturalist, this collection of sketches celebrates the variety, intelligence, and peculiar habits of birds through a lens of Victorian wonder and moral instruction.

Manual of the apiary
Albert John Cook
Practical, methodical, and deeply grounded in the natural sciences, this guide transforms the complex biology of the honeybee into a manageable, flourishing pursuit for any dedicated student or gardener.

McClure's Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 5, October 1893
Various
This issue of a prominent late-Victorian periodical offers a wide-ranging survey of the intellectual and social currents defining the 1890s, blending political biography with emerging scientific inquiry and historical storytelling.

Mightier than the Sword
Alphonse Courlander
The young man, scorned by his elders in all the periods of the nineteenth century except those last years of development, found himself suddenly caught up on the high wave that was sweeping away the rubbish and the sentiment and the lumber of the old customs, and borne above them all.

Miss Merivale's Mistake
Clarke, Henry, Mrs.
The secret of a lost inheritance and a hidden family identity unravels within the walls of a quiet country estate, challenging the rigid social pretensions of a young woman’s elite ambitions.

Notes on the Book of Leviticus
Charles Henry Mackintosh
The pages of Leviticus, often regarded as a dense thicket of ancient ritual, are here transformed into a map of spiritual devotion. This work serves as an intensive, verse-by-verse commentary designed to reveal the deeper meaning behind the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. It is a foundational text of…

Old and rare Scottish tartans
Donald William Stewart
This scholarly record illuminates the origins and evolution of Highland textiles, tracing the transition from practical, regional patterns to the codified, symbolic clan tartans recognized today.

Olla Podrida
Frederick Marryat
This collection of essays, narratives, and plays serves as a literary mosaic, capturing the restless, observational spirit of a nineteenth-century naval officer turned writer. It offers a candid look at travel, cultural critique, and the mechanics of storytelling itself.

One Man's Initiation—1917
John Dos Passos
The innocence of a young man meets the machine-like devastation of the First World War in this haunting, impressionistic chronicle of a volunteer ambulance driver. It is a stark, unadorned meditation on how the machinery of global conflict systematically strips away the illusions of a generation.

Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in Preston
Atticus
A journalist wanders through the pews and pulpits of a bustling Victorian town, recording with sharp wit and candid observation the characters of the men who lead the faithful and the buildings they inhabit.

Our Philadelphia
Elizabeth Robins Pennell
A nostalgic yet sharp-eyed portrait of a changing city, this work captures the intersection of colonial tradition and modern progress through the eyes of a writer rediscovering her native home after decades abroad.

Outward Bound Or, Young America Afloat: A Story of Travel and Adventure
Oliver Optic
The voyage of the Young America is a journey of moral navigation, where a shipful of spirited students must learn that true authority is earned through character rather than force.