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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 462 of 714.

The Mystery of The Barranca
Herman Whitaker
Two young American engineers battle rugged terrain, native hostility, and deadly floods in turn-of-the-century Mexico, only to find their greatest trial is a dangerous romance across a deep cultural divide.

The Natural History of Chocolate: Being a Distinct and Particular Account of the Cocoa-Tree, its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and Medicinal Vertues of its Fruit
D. Quélus
An eye-witness account written after fifteen years in the Caribbean dismantles colonial myths to map the true biology, cultivation, and medicinal uses of cacao.

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
Charles Dickens
A private marine recalls a tropical island, a treacherous betrayal, and the desperate defense that bound a group of English castaways together forever.

The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 4 (of 5): Poems of mystery and of myth and romance
Madison Julius Cawein
An ancient ruby pulses like a beating heart upon a lover’s hand, drawing its life from mortal blood before dissolving into mist. Across haunted forests and forgotten ruins, spectral figures and ancient gods whisper the secrets of love, decay, and longing.

The postal power of Congress: A study in constitutional expansion
Lindsay Rogers
The constitutional grant empowering Congress to establish post offices and post roads has quietly grown into a vast mechanism of federal power.

The Princess Pocahontas
Virginia Watson
Before history smoothed her life into a single dramatic moment, Pocahontas was a vibrant, restless girl navigating the dense forests and political fault lines of the Powhatan confederacy.

The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
On the moonlit steps of a Salem municipal building at midnight, two personified sisters exchange final thoughts on the human condition before one vanishes forever into history and the other steps into the mortal world.

The Story of Sitka: The Historic Outpost of the Northwest Coast
Clarence Leroy Andrews
An isolated timber outpost on the North Pacific rim becomes the tense crossroads where imperial Russia, indigenous Thlingit clans, and early American enterprise collide.

The Swan and Her Crew: or The Adventures of Three Young Naturalists and Sportsmen on the Broads and Rivers of Norfolk
G. Christopher (George Christopher) Davies
Three English schoolboys design and construct a double-hulled wooden craft to explore the interconnected waterways of Norfolk, transforming a summer of outdoor adventure into a lifelong education in natural history.

The Tree of Life
C. L. (Catherine Lucile) Moore
A rogue steps into an ancient Martian shadow and slips into a twilit realm where a beautiful siren serves a unthinkable predator.

The Trial
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A young man stands trial for an uncle’s murder he did not commit, forcing two interconnected families to confront their pride, examine their faith, and rebuild their shattered lives.

The True Citizen: How to Become One
William Fisher Markwick
A structured approach to moral growth helps young people transform personal integrity into active, responsible participation in public life.

The Unclassed
George Gissing
A dark, fierce study of late-Victorian urban life, this novel turns an unsparing eye on the lower-middle class and the outcast, asking how far intellectual independence can survive poverty and moral compromise.

The Visions of England: Lyrics on leading men and events in English History
Francis Turner Palgrave
A sweeping sequence of historical portraits captures the soul of an island nation, tracking its long journey from prehistoric coastal shores to modern imperial power.

The Visions of Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo
A satirical journey through hell, exposing the vices and follies of humanity with wit and moral insight.

The Warfare of Science
Andrew Dickson White
Across centuries of intellectual struggle, human progress has hinged on a persistent contest between open scientific inquiry and rigid theological dogma.

The Words of Jesus
John R. (John Ross) Macduff
A quiet voice reaches through the darkness to remind a weary soul that every trial is measured by a loving hand.

The Young Captives: A Story of Judah and Babylon
Erasmus W. Jones
Two exiled Judean brothers, their sister, and their cousin Daniel navigate moral corruption, courtly intrigue, and spiritual trial in Babylon while preserving their sacred ancestral faith.

Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and Barclay
Benjamin Rhodes
Driven by the conviction that God communicates directly to every human soul, three seventeenth-century leaders built a revolutionary religious movement that defied priests, judges, and kings, ultimately transforming the spiritual and political landscape of their world.

Told in the Coffee House: Turkish Tales
Cyrus Adler
A collection of Turkish tales, offering a glimpse into the culture, humor, and philosophy of Ottoman society through stories told in coffee houses.

Woman in the golden ages
Amelia Gere Mason
For centuries, male historians ignored the inner lives of women or reduced them to footnotes, yet women repeatedly shaped the intellectual and moral heights of human civilization.

Wych Hazel
Susan Warner
A vibrant, headstrong heiress and her enigmatic suitor navigate the social whirlpool of nineteenth-century high society, testing the limits of independence, duty, and mutual devotion under the watchful eyes of protective guardians.

Zone therapy
Wm. H. (William Henry Hope) Fitzgerald
A simple squeeze of the fingers or a press of an aluminum comb against the skin can supposedly halt severe pain, cure obstinate ailments, and unlock the body's hidden electrical network.

A calendar of dinners, with 615 recipes
Marion Harris Neil
Every day of the year receives its own distinct menu, building a complete guide to home dining that turns a manufactured vegetable fat into the foundation of American domestic economy.

A Journey to America in 1834
Robert Heywood
A quiet, methodical record of early nineteenth-century travel, this journal observes a rapidly expanding young republic through the exact, unhurried eyes of an English visitor.

A Lively Bit of the Front: A Tale of the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
A young sheep-farmer leaves New Zealand for the trenches of the Western Front, navigating high-seas sabotage, underground dug-outs, and enemy captivity.

A Modern Aladdin
Howard Pyle
A humble peasant boy is swept into a dark world of alchemical secrets, mental mastery, and high-society deception in pre-revolutionary France.

A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
Separated from his home in Africa and forced into Atlantic slavery, an prince navigates shifting fortunes, hard labor, and spiritual trials across the globe before finding faith and refuge in England.

A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824: And the journal of a residence of two years on the Mulgrave
William Lay
A brutal mutiny off a Pacific whaling ship dissolves into a fight for survival when the teenage survivors are left stranded among the isolated coral atolls of the Marshall Islands.

A Reading of Life, with Other Poems
George Meredith
Homage to the wild speed of Artemis or surrender to Aphrodite’s warmth splits the human soul, leaving it to perish unless both forces are held within one breast.

A Reversion To Type
Josephine Daskam Bacon
A quiet academic life begins to unravel when an unmarried instructor of thirty realizes that seven years of teaching have left her hollow, prompting a sudden, reckless attempt to reclaim the love she abandoned in Germany.

A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2: Described in a Series of Letters by a Lady
Augusta Macgregor Holmes
Crossing steep Alpine ledges and flooded Italian riverbeds on horseback, an intrepid 19th-century Englishwoman transforms a challenging Continental trek into a rich, detailed study of European landscapes, local cultures, and mountain travel.

Air Service Boys in the Big Battle
Charles Amory Beach
Two young American aviators navigate the hazards of World War I aerial combat, determined to locate a missing comrade while proving themselves in the newly formed American air force.

Akra the Slave
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Freedom, captivity, and the transcendent nature of love converge in this poetic drama set against the ancient backdrop of Mesopotamia.

An English Girl's First Impressions of Burmah
Beth Ellis
Stepping ashore in a land of shimmering pagodas and impenetrable jungle, an observant young traveller brings a keen eye, sharp wit, and irrepressible humor to the unexpected realities of colonial life.

Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D.: Edited by His Daughter
Orville Dewey
A country boy rises through self-education and severe illness to become a central pulpit orator, reflecting deeply on human struggle, faith, and the nature of God across a long life.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846
Various
A broad, combative panorama of mid-nineteenth-century British intellectual life, where Tory politics, dramatic history, legal biography, and military adventures collide across a single issue.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847
Various
A mid-nineteenth-century British miscellany offers a sweeping panoramic view of an empire wrestling with global expansion, literary ownership, and social hardship.

Bread and cake baking
Frederick D. Hauptmann
A practical 1877 manual for commercial and domestic bakers, offering real-world formulas, technique guidance, and workplace advocacy from an experienced craftsman.

Children of the Market Place
Edgar Lee Masters
A young Englishman arrives in nineteenth-century Illinois and witnesses the raw expansion of America through the life and political rise of Stephen A. Douglas.

Christ, Christianity and the Bible
Isaac Massey Haldeman
A fiery early-twentieth-century fundamentalist treatise mounts an uncompromising defense of orthodox Christian doctrine, declaring that Jesus Christ must be recognized as literal God or dismissed as a fraud, and that the Bible is the direct, unassailable word of the Creator.

Cobb's Bill-of-Fare
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
A humorist's battle against cold-storage turkeys, impenetrable opera, and modern art proves that simple, old-fashioned pleasures beat pretension every single time.

Companionable Books
Henry Van Dyke
Reading is more than passive leisure; at its best, it becomes a living dialogue where the author’s spirit speaks directly to your own.

Courts, Criminals and the Camorra
Arthur Cheney Train
A hard-headed New York prosecutor pulls back the curtain on early twentieth-century American justice, showing how police routine, press sensationalism, and imported Italian secret societies turn the noble ideal of legal fairness into an unpredictable theater.

Deep Moat Grange
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A missing carrier's cart triggers a descent into a labyrinth of hidden passages, stolen inheritances, and violent insanity on the English border.

Dialstone Lane, Part 2
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
Conspiring for a buried treasure on a distant island, three improbable adventurers map out a desperate voyage from their quiet English seaport.

Dick Hamilton's Steam Yacht
Howard Roger Garis
When young millionaire Dick Hamilton buys a steam yacht for a carefree cruise, he unwittingly steers straight into a whirlpool of kidnappers, stolen vessels, and marooned tropical adventures.

Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune: A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan
A. D. (Augustine David) Crake
Brother turns against brother and a young king wages war on the Church in an tenth-century England torn between duty, dark revenge, and sacred vow.