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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 451 of 714.

Lochinvar: A Novel
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A man of action finds his purpose in a perilous quest to reclaim his stolen love, crossing continents and seas to defy the powerful enemies who seek to keep them apart.

Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie
Barney Stone
The trenches of the Great War feel miles away in these frantic, funny dispatches, where a soldier’s true battles are fought against ill-fitting uniforms, missing ham and eggs, and the relentless antics of his comrade-in-arms.

Masterpieces of Adventure—Oriental Stories
Unknown
This collection assembles diverse tales of peril, honor, and sudden transformation, tracing the boundaries of human endurance across far-flung landscapes. It offers a window into early twentieth-century storytelling, where the exotic and the adventurous collide with the heavy weight of fate.

Memoirs of Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
HOOK This memoir invites readers into the sun-drenched landscapes and vanishing traditions of nineteenth-century Provence, as seen through the eyes of its most celebrated poet.

Mr. Rabbit at Home: A sequel to Little Mr. Thimblefinger and his Queer Country
Joel Chandler Harris
This whimsical journey into a hidden, subterranean world blends the familiar structure of bedtime stories with the surreal, unpredictable logic of a dream. It offers a portal where animals possess the gift of speech and geography is defined by magic rather than maps.

Non-technical chats on iron and steel, and their application to modern industry
La Verne W. (La Verne Ward) Spring
The iron and steel industry is the backbone of modern civilization, yet most of us remain oblivious to the immense, fiery processes that transform raw ore into the very structures supporting our daily lives. This book serves as a clear, authoritative guide to the metallurgical wonders hidden within the smoke and…

Philaster
John Fletcher
A deposed prince and a princess navigate a web of royal intrigue, secret identities, and shifting loyalties in a kingdom on the brink of revolt. This foundational tragicomedy blends courtly romance with populist fury, capturing the volatile intersection of personal desire and state power.

Pillars of Society
Henrik Ibsen
A town’s most respected leader builds his reputation on a foundation of silence, unaware that his carefully curated life is about to be dismantled by the ghosts of his own past.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916
Various
A vivid snapshot of the British home front during the Great War, this collection captures the absurdity, anxiety, and stoic humor of a society grappling with upheaval.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890
Various
HOOK A sharp-eyed, satirical survey of Victorian life, capturing the era’s political maneuvering, aesthetic pretensions, and social absurdities through a blend of biting prose and classic wit.

Ran Away to Sea
Mayne Reid
The call of the horizon often masks the cruelty of the world, and a young man’s romantic dream of the sea quickly curdles into a nightmare of human trafficking and maritime peril.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883
Various
This periodical serves as a wide-ranging historical archive of late-Victorian industrial ambition and scientific inquiry. It captures the frantic pace of global innovation during a moment of immense technological transition.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887
Various
This collection of technical reports captures the Victorian era’s relentless pursuit of industrial mastery, offering a vivid window into the engineering and scientific preoccupations of late 1887. It serves as a fascinating record of a world transitioning into modern electrical and chemical standardization.

Ships at Work
Mary Elting
Ships are complex, living entities that connect our world, maintained by the specialized labor of crews who navigate both the ancient traditions of the sea and the demands of modern technology.

Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958-1964
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
This technical survey documents the early years of American space biology, outlining the scientific foundations necessary to sustain human life beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It serves as a vital historical record of the foundational research that transitioned space flight from experimental rocketry to a sustained…

Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road
Katharine Lee Bates
A golden collie lives a life of exuberant motion, his joy and loyalty serving as the bright thread that ties together a household of scholars, birds, and fellow travelers on the road of life.

Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period
Robert Grant Watson
This historical chronicle maps the rise, collision, and transformation of colonial powers in South America. It serves as a meticulous, expansive record of how European ambition carved the continent’s modern foundations.

Star-Dust: A Story of an American Girl
Fannie Hurst
A young woman trades the suffocating narrowness of her provincial upbringing for the relentless, glittering promise of New York City, only to discover that the price of independence is a lifetime of hard-won, lonely ambition.

State of the Union Addresses
Jimmy Carter
The state of the union is a reflection of the nation’s soul, a document that charts a course through the turbulence of history toward a future defined by both strength and human rights.

Studies in the Wagnerian Drama
Henry Edward Krehbiel
These essays offer an intimate, rigorous guide to the architecture of the Wagnerian music-drama, decoding how the composer fused myth, ethics, and leitmotif into a singular, transformative experience.

The Adventures of Kathlyn
Harold MacGrath
A courageous young woman braves the perils of an exotic, treacherous land to rescue her father, only to find herself trapped in a web of political intrigue and life-or-death challenges.

The Art of Building a Home: A collection of lectures and illustrations
Barry Parker
A home should be a straightforward vessel for life, crafted with honesty and a rejection of the superficial conventions that dictate how we occupy our living spaces.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This collection captures the intellectual pulse of mid-nineteenth-century America, blending rigorous social commentary, literary criticism, and natural observation into a singular, cohesive monthly chronicle.

The Blunders of a Bashful Man
Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
A bashful man finds that his extreme diffidence is not merely a social burden, but a magnet for perpetual, escalating catastrophe. He moves through life bracing for the next inevitable social blunder.

The botanist's repository for new and rare plants
Andrews, Henry Cranke, active 1799-1828
This botanical archive serves as a vivid gallery of discovery, cataloging the rare and exotic flora that emerged in eighteenth-century British gardens as global exploration brought new life to northern shores.

The Bushman
Edward Wilson Landor
A sharp-eyed travelogue and political manifesto, this work captures the raw experience of colonial life in Western Australia during the mid-nineteenth century, blending firsthand survival tales with a critique of distant British rule.

The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, April 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This issue of a monthly educational periodical serves as a time capsule for the late Victorian intellectual appetite, offering a structured, earnest guide to self-improvement through history, science, and literature.

The Colored Girl Beautiful
E. Azalia (Emma Azalia) Hackley
To shape a generation of noble, purposeful lives, one must cultivate the mind and spirit as diligently as one attends to the outward appearance.

The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare
A fractured family reunites in a city of strangers, where a single day of bewildering coincidences turns the lives of two sets of identical twins upside down. This classic comedy navigates the fine line between farce and genuine distress, enduring through the centuries as a masterclass in the mechanics of mistaken…

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century periodical serves as a vivid, urgent dispatch from the heart of the American Civil War, blending fierce political advocacy with contemporary literary efforts.

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864
Various
This collection captures the urgent, multifaceted pulse of American intellectual and political life during the height of the Civil War, weaving together scientific inquiry, social criticism, and the search for spiritual grounding.

The Cornish Riviera
Sidney Heath
HOOK This guide captures the rugged, salt-sprayed essence of the Cornish coast, blending historical lore with the natural splendor of a region defined by its isolation and its enduring mystery.

The Days of Mohammed
Anna May Wilson
The quest for spiritual truth drives a seeker through the crucible of a changing world, where ancient traditions fade before the rising tide of a new faith.

The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions
James Runciman
A keen-eyed observer turns his gaze upon the moral fractures of Victorian Britain, challenging his readers to move beyond hollow platitudes and confront the stark realities of poverty, vice, and social apathy.

The Friends
Unknown
A young boy’s integrity is put to the ultimate test when he is falsely accused of theft at his boarding school. His only refuge from the cruelty of his peers is the steadfast loyalty of his best friend.

The Gates of Dawn
Fergus Hume
The gates of dawn reveal more than a sunrise; for a young wanderer, they mark the threshold where a chance encounter with a mysterious girl turns a simple summer holiday into a life-altering quest for truth.

The Girl from Montana
Grace Livingston Hill
A desperate young woman flees a violent predator into the vast, unforgiving Montana wilderness, where she discovers an unexpected protector and a transformative faith.

The Girls of Central High
Gertrude W. Morrison
A bright, resourceful teenager finds herself at the center of school rivalries, mysterious fires, and the pursuit of athletic equality in a turn-of-the-century high school.

The History and Records of the Elephant Club
Q. K. Philander Doesticks
This collection captures the frantic, satirical energy of mid-19th-century New York, chronicling the absurd escapades of a group of men bound by a common, ridiculous pursuit. It serves as a boisterous window into the urban wit and social restlessness of the 1850s.

The Ice Queen
Ernest Ingersoll
HOOK When a harsh winter freezes Lake Erie, four young people attempt a daring, ill-fated ice-sailing expedition that forces them into a desperate struggle for survival against the elements.

The Intrusions of Peggy
Anthony Hope
A young widow’s quest for social standing in London society leads to a precarious game of ambition and ruin. This story of high-stakes maneuvering reveals how the pursuit of status can scorch the soul.

The Joy of Captain Ribot
Armando Palacio Valdés
A sea captain’s accidental encounter with a refined Spanish family leads him into a complex web of unrequited love and moral crisis. This Mediterranean tale balances the light of a coastal paradise against the shadows of human desire and ruin.

The Lady Evelyn: A Story of To-day
Max Pemberton
A young actress discovers that her private life is bound to an ancient, dangerous vendetta involving her father’s hidden past. This suspenseful Edwardian melodrama follows a woman caught between her own aspirations and the dark secrets of a foreign aristocratic feud.

The Marquis D'Argenson: A Study in Criticism: Being the Stanhope Essay: Oxford, 1893
Arthur Ogle
An idealistic statesman attempts to reform France’s crumbling monarchy through civic reason, only to be overwhelmed by court factionalism, foreign wars, and institutional decay.

The Penal Cluster
Randall Garrett
In a future where telepathic "Controllers" are feared as criminals, a deep-cover agent discovers that the lawmen hunting his kind share the very power they claim to eradicate.

The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt: With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb
Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison) Brinton
This work synthesizes the linguistic theories of Wilhelm von Humboldt to demonstrate that American indigenous languages are not primitive, but represent a sophisticated, alternative mode of human thought.

The Pirate Submarine
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
This fast-paced maritime adventure follows the crew of a repurposed submarine as they trade the grim reality of shipbreaking for the perilous, high-stakes life of modern-day piracy. It is a tale of obsession, shifting loyalties, and the enduring code of the sea, set against the backdrop of a world still reeling…

The Quiver 12/1899
Anonymous
This collection captures the fading light of the Victorian era through a diverse mosaic of spiritual reflection, historical portraiture, and domestic fiction.