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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 468 of 714.

Cambridge Neighbors (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)
William Dean Howells
In the twilight of nineteenth-century New England, a young editor steps into an intellectual sanctuary where scholars dig among roses and conversation is treated as a high art.

Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol 1, No. 11, August, 1920: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy
Various
A pocket-sized artifact of Jazz Age irreverence, this 1920 periodical captures the raw, unfiltered appetite of post-war America for snappy humor, Hollywood scandal, combat veteran nostalgia, and unpretentious rural wit.

Children and their books
James Hosmer Penniman
Early childhood presents a brief, urgent window where a child's imagination and character are shaped through the literature they encounter.

Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History
F. C. Grable
A vast, untamed wilderness undergoes centuries of Spanish exploration, indigenous defense, military surveying, and pioneer ambition to emerge as a vibrant American state.

Corporal Sam and Other Stories
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Cruelty and unexpected mercy cross paths along bleak roads, inside torn uniforms, and beneath the quiet roofs of old English towns.

Crack of doom
Stephen Marlowe
An ordinary suburban morning turns surreal as an average man discovers the human race has been quietly replaced by something vastly superior—and utterly heartless.

Cupid in Africa
Percival Christopher Wren
Unprepared for military life, an artistic young Englishman leaves for the East African theater of World War I, where hardship and romance transform him into a hardened soldier.

Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
John Ruskin
This personal series of direct epistles blends sharp social criticism, classical mythology, and aesthetic theory into an urgent call for moral and economic reform.

Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man: (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A dying romantic faces the tragic irrelevance of a life spent avoiding real human bonds.

From London to Land's End: and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman"
Daniel Defoe
This account traces the physical landscape and civic character of southern England, capturing a society defined by industrial resourcefulness, maritime trade, and local customs.

Funny stories told by the soldiers
Carleton B. (Carleton Britton) Case
Military absurdity, absurd miscommunications, and quick-witted insubordination fill a relief-seeking collection gathered right as the First World War drew to a close.

Geoffrey the Lollard
Frances Eastwood
Two Lollard brothers flee persecution into hiding, bearing the heavy cost of faith and exile as their family breaks under the relentless hand of the medieval English Church.

Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life
Thomas Henry Huxley
A scientific discipline must occasionally audit its intellectual inventory to ensure its paper currency is backed by the solid gold of truth.

George Washington
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
From early wilderness expeditions across rugged mountain passes to the desperate winter crossing of the ice-choked Delaware River, this nineteenth-century biography charts the forging of a general and the birth of a republic.

Gullible's Travels, Etc
Ring Lardner
A middle-class Chicago couple spends every spare dime chasing high society, only to find that every velvet rope leads to an even more expensive room.

Her Infinite Variety
Brand Whitlock
A young Illinois state senator impulsively champions woman suffrage to impress a brilliant female lawyer, only to ignite a war with his formidable future mother-in-law.

How Paper Boxes Are Made: A practical and instructive book telling how the beginner may manufacture all kinds of paper boxes, with special chapters on the printing department for paper box plants, embossing, gold-leafing, label work, etc
Robert F. Salade
A sturdy paper box requires far more than mere cardboard and glue; it demands precise geometry, careful chemistry, and the mechanical choreography of an entire factory floor.

In a Green Shade: A Country Commentary
Maurice Hewlett
A retired man of letters sits in his Wiltshire garden, reflecting on the altered world after the First World War.

Jerry's Reward
Evelyn Snead Barnett
When a group of city children cruelly mock a hunchbacked ash-collector, they have no idea that the lonely man and his bedridden wife hold the key to saving their homes from a midnight tragedy.

Juvenile Delinquent
Edward W. Ludwig
A young boy's illegal love for the written word threatens to tear his hyper-conformist family apart.

Kings in Exile
Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir
A collection of short narratives, this volume chronicles the lives of wild creatures forced into captivity. It offers an unflinching look at the collision between the untamed instincts of the wilderness and the rigid constraints of human confinement.

Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex
R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore
A quiet Middlesex market garden becomes the arena for a young grower’s devoted pursuit of his true love, as simple rustic honesty faces down urban deceit, malice, and a cold-hearted conspiracy to tear a couple apart.

Life of Luther: with several introductory and concluding chapters from general church history
Gustav A. Just
Faith is forged in the crucible of persecution, refined by trial, and secured only through a relentless defense of the plain truth.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880
Various
Wandering through nineteenth-century wildernesses, European high society, and urban tenements, a broad cultural tapestry captures the restless ambition and quiet transformations of a changing era.

Lives of Famous London Beggars: With Forty Portraits of the Most Remarkable
John Thomas Smith
Driven by an antiquarian’s sharp eye and an artist’s sketchpad, this chronicle walks the cobblestones of Regency London to document the vanishing subculture of street mendicants before parish workhouses and Parliamentary crackdowns sweep them away forever.

Mediæval London
William Benham
The grand, crowded evolution of a capital emerges through its stone fortresses, bustling trade markets, and solemn cathedral precincts.

Melmoth Reconciled
Honoré de Balzac
A desperate man buys absolute power only to realize that complete gratification dries up the human soul. Balzac transforms a gothic legend into a biting satire of Parisian high finance.

Mentally Defective Children
Alfred Binet
Schooling fails children when it treats every mind as identical. A rigorous scientific framework can identify vulnerable learners and build special educational pathways to protect them from institutional neglect.

Misread Passages of Scriptures
James Baldwin Brown
Divine grace does not override human reason or flatten life into rigid dogmas; it meets suffering, labor, and conscience in the rough grain of reality.

Modern American Prose Selections
Unknown
A nation is held together not by blood or ancient borders, but by the quiet choices of its people as they adapt to a changing world. Through speeches, essays, and personal narratives, this collection maps the living soul of American democracy.

Mother West Wind "Where" Stories
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess
Curiosity drives a rabbit across fields to ask how creatures gained their defining traits.

Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
An unusual network of curious minds across Britain exchanges insights on rare manuscripts, obscure local folklore, linguistic roots, and disputed biographical facts.

Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer: With Cases Illustrative of a Peculiar Mode of Treatment
John Kent
A nineteenth-century medical tract combines stern diagnoses with rustic remedies, promising relief from deep-seated bodily afflictions through botanical treatments and plain sense.

Oliver Cromwell
Samuel Rawson Gardiner
A titan of English history is weighed not by myth, but by the practical limits of power.

On the Method of Zadig: Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
Thomas Henry Huxley
A quiet observation of footprints in the sand leads to a profound revelation about how human beings unlock the deepest secrets of nature's lost past.

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8)
John Henry Newman
The pursuit of holiness is a difficult, narrow path, requiring the constant denial of worldly ambitions and a steadfast devotion to the unseen realities of the Christian faith.

Penelope's Postscripts
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
An observant American artist frames her European travels through vivid vignettes of humor, quiet sentiment, and sharp domestic insight.

Poems of Pleasure
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Love is a fiery, cosmic force that transforms human souls, elevating the faithful to angelic heights while threatening to drag the careless into despair.

Polly of Lady Gay Cottage
Emma C. Dowd
Polly is a selfless, spirited girl whose deep devotion to her adoptive parents and friends is tested by the sudden arrival of long-lost biological relatives. She navigates the complex demands of loyalty, sacrifice, and belonging with unwavering integrity.

Post-Prandial Philosophy
Grant Allen
Civilisation relies entirely on the practical arts, yet society's rules are routinely set by men who merely hunt and fight.

Quill's Window
George Barr McCutcheon
A smooth-talking stranger comes to an Indiana farming community under false pretenses, manipulating its people and charming its wealthiest heiress while hiding a history of deceit that eventually catches up to him.

Raising P. V. Squabs for Profit
John S. Trecartin
Properly housed and scientifically fed, the utility pigeon offers steady, dignified profits to anyone willing to replace amateur guesswork with rigorous, businesslike method.

Reminiscences of Travel in Australia, America, and Egypt
Tangye, Richard, Sir
A Victorian industrialist finds his antidote to travel fatigue in the discipline of the pen, transforming long-distance steamship voyages and overland treks into a sharp-eyed chronicle of a changing nineteenth-century world.

Riley Love-Lyrics
James Whitcomb Riley
A heart looks back through the haze of lost summers, finding that true devotion outlasts both youthful rapture and time itself.

Robert Browning: How to Know Him
William Lyon Phelps
A master key to one of England’s most challenging poets, this guide unlocks the human heart behind the complex verse. It turns difficult art into an accessible, lifelong friend.

Salem Chapel, v. 1/2
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
An ambitious young Nonconformist minister arrives in a quiet provincial town, where the petty demands of his narrow congregation quickly collide with high-society romance and a devastating family scandal.

Satellite Communications Physics
Unknown
A handful of basic high school physics principles, when applied by persistent laboratory scientists, can reach into the darkness of space to orbit a working global communications network.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 17-56
John Wesley Powell
The struggle to explain the natural world is a universal human impulse, driving the evolution of thought from the mythic personifications of ancient cultures to the structured inquiries of modern science.