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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 55 of 714.

The Range Boss
Charles Alden Seltzer
The range boss is a man of quiet competence and hidden depths, while the new owner of the Flying W is a woman of spirit. Together, they navigate a raw, untamed land that tests their mettle and their hearts.

McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition
William Holmes McGuffey
Children learn to read by matching simple sounds to letters, gradually building confidence through repetition, observation of nature, and the practice of kindness toward animals and elders.

Stavrogin's Confession and The Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner: With Introductory and Explanatory Notes
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This volume offers a rare, intimate look at the engine of a literary master, presenting the raw, haunting fragments of a vision that never reached full completion. It is a profound meditation on the dark corners of the human conscience.

Father Goriot
Honoré de Balzac
In the boarding houses and ballrooms of 1819 Paris, the pursuit of social standing exacts a devastating price. This relentless study of ambition and parental ruin captures the collision between hollow prestige and the raw, sacrificial heart.

Some Principles of Maritime Strategy
Julian Stafford Corbett
This foundational text explores the complex relationship between political objectives and naval operations. It systematically defines how maritime power is secured, disputed, and exercised in the service of national interest.

The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview
Edward Stratemeyer
Young oarsmen navigate the choppy waters of adolescence, testing their mettle in competitive racing and thwarting the schemes of local bullies. Through steady grit and honest effort, they secure their own futures and uncover long-hidden family secrets.

Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks
Lillian Elizabeth Roy
HOOK A group of spirited Girl Scouts embarks on an Adirondack adventure, balancing the practical demands of wilderness survival with the discovery of their own courage during a life-altering summer.

Piccadilly Jim
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
A young man of leisure finds himself entangled in a chaotic, farcical scheme to win his father’s social standing and his own heart in this high-spirited tale of transatlantic mischief.

Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
True happiness remains a persistent inquiry into the nature of the soul, seeking to resolve whether human existence is merely a fragment of a larger, harmonious, and divinely ordered cosmic drama.

Stories from Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
These tales capture the quiet ache of human longing, exploring the profound connections between parents, children, and the strangers we encounter in the fleeting moments of everyday life.

The Japanese Empire
Harry Alverson Franck
This geographical reader provides an intimate, on-the-ground survey of the Japanese Empire during the 1920s. It serves as an accessible, observation-heavy travelogue, capturing the social customs, geography, and industrial modernization of a nation in transition.

Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post
Thomas Rainey
The mid-19th century was a period of intense maritime competition where steamship technology determined which nations would rule the waves and dictate the flow of global commerce. This technical and political treatise argues that government-subsidized mail lines are essential for national sovereignty, economic…

A Prisoner of Morro
Upton Sinclair
Clifford Faraday, a spirited young naval cadet, finds himself in the thick of the Spanish-American War, where courage and quick thinking become his only allies against a web of enemy traps.

A Woman's Will
Anne Warner
HOOK A headstrong American widow travels solo through Europe, only to find her fiercely guarded independence challenged by an intense, enigmatic musician who believes he can tame her spirit.

The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
Mark Twain
The Austrian village of Eseldorf, isolated by forest and time, serves as the stage for a profound encounter between the innocent, superstitious villagers and a visitor who claims to be an angel. What begins as a curiosity of youthful wonder quickly devolves into a dark, philosophical inquiry into the nature of…

The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
When a lethal plague ravages the land, a prince attempts to cheat fate by walling himself and his court within a secure, opulent abbey, only to discover that no fortification can withstand the inevitability of death.

The tale of Nimble Deer
Arthur Scott Bailey
A young deer learns the ways of the forest, braves the threats of the farm, and discovers his place among the animal community.

Space Platform
Murray Leinster
Humanity stands on the precipice of the final frontier, yet the greatest threat to its ascent lies not in the stars, but in the shadows of the very men building the way. This is a story of grit, engineering, and the desperate struggle to protect a fragile hope from those who would see it destroyed.

The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle
Edward Stratemeyer
The Rover brothers embark on an ambitious sea voyage to locate a hidden fortune, pitting their ingenuity against deceptive rivals and the unpredictable forces of nature. This classic installment of a long-running series captures the spirit of early twentieth-century juvenile adventure.

Sun Tzŭ on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World
active 6th century B.C. Sunzi
True victory is not won on the battlefield, but by creating conditions where the enemy is already defeated before the first strike occurs.

The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt
Oliver E. Remey
A bullet destined for the heart of a former president strikes a manuscript and a spectacle case instead, sparking an extraordinary collision between political fervor and individual delusion in the heart of Milwaukee.

Winning His Way
Charles Carleton Coffin
Duty and devotion define a young man's journey from a humble village childhood through the harrowing crucible of the American Civil War to an eventual, hard-won homecoming.

A Boswell of Baghdad
E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas
This collection of essays offers a window into the rich, forgotten lives of ancient Baghdad’s scholars and poets, alongside a series of charming, observant meditations on early twentieth-century life.

Fred Fenton on the Track
Allen Chapman
This story follows a dedicated school athlete whose commitment to fair play and physical fitness guides him through a series of local mysteries and high-stakes competitions. It is an earnest portrait of turn-of-the-century American youth culture.

Pan-Islam
G. Wyman (George Wyman) Bury
The colonial administrator and observer offers an unvarnished, firsthand look at the tensions between Islamic identity and Western influence in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. This bracingly direct account dissects the mechanics of power, propaganda, and faith in the Middle East.

Boy Life: Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
The world of childhood is a distinct country, governed by its own laws, secret signs, and intense, fleeting allegiances. This collection captures the lived reality of growing up, where the thrill of a circus visit outweighs the weight of the adult world.

The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole
A fourteenth-century hermit offers a timeless, radical invitation to strip away the distractions of the world and find the transformative, burning joy of divine love.

The lavender dragon
Eden Phillpotts
A naive knight sets out to slay a legendary beast, only to find that the creature is a philosopher-king who has built a utopian society in the wilderness.

Kim
Rudyard Kipling
The orphan of an Irish soldier, Kim survives the teeming streets of colonial India by playing the "Friend of all the World," only to find his identity fractured between two clashing lives.

Cape Cod
Henry Crocker Kittredge
The sandy arm of Massachusetts holds a history as turbulent as the Atlantic gales that have shaped its coastline for centuries. This account traces the evolution of a region built on grit, faith, and a relentless maritime spirit.

Mediaeval Tales
Unknown
The past does not merely offer us stories; it preserves the echoes of how our ancestors understood power, peril, and the thin veil between the earthly and the eternal. These pages hold the remnants of a world where faith and folklore collide in the imagination.

A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry
Francis J. (Francis James) Lippitt
HOOK This manual distills the fundamental mechanics of 19th-century warfare, explaining how infantry, artillery, and cavalry must coordinate to survive and succeed on the battlefield.

The Four Million
O. Henry
New York is a city of four million people, yet each soul navigates a private, often lonely, labyrinth of aspiration and small-scale tragedy. These stories capture the fleeting, bittersweet intersections of those lives.

Last and first men
Olaf Stapledon
A cosmic chronicle of humanity, this narrative traces the species from its present-day origins through billions of years of biological and cultural evolution toward an eventual, inevitable extinction.

The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes
J. Q. (James Quay) Howard
This profile of a nineteenth-century statesman traces the evolution of a man defined by his rigorous service in the Civil War and his subsequent commitment to public duty and civil service reform.

The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
On the vast, brooding landscape of Egdon Heath, human lives are shaped and shattered by the collision of ancient local traditions and the restless, modern desires of those who yearn to escape them.

Songs of the cattle trail and cow camp
Unknown
The West is a landscape of myth and hard labor, captured here in the songs and stories of the men who lived in the saddle.

How to become mentally superior
Henri Le Chatelier
Ambition is a mechanical process, not a mystical gift. By cultivating four distinct mental habits, anyone can elevate their output and join the ranks of the intellectual elite.

The Basis of Morality
Arthur Schopenhauer
Founding morality is difficult; preaching it is easy. By looking past social convention to the bedrock of human nature, this treatise seeks to uncover the true, singular source of our moral life.

Hindu gods and heroes
Lionel D. (Lionel David) Barnett
The evolution of the divine in India reveals how ancient heroic sagas and nature spirits were transformed by priests and poets into the complex, enduring gods of the Hindu pantheon.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
An ancient sailor accosts a wedding guest, compelling him to hear a harrowing tale of transgression and redemption upon the high seas. This seminal work remains a cornerstone of English literature for its haunting, rhythmic power.

Historical Essays
James Ford Rhodes
This collection of essays serves as a scholarly guide for those who seek to understand the historian’s craft through the lens of nineteenth-century political experience. It bridges the gap between grand historical narrative and the practical, often messy realities of governance and public life.

The hero of the Filipinos
Charles Edward Russell
The life of José Rizal stands as a testament to the power of a single, resolute mind to awaken a nation from the long, enforced slumber of colonial rule. This account traces the journey of a brilliant young Filipino who challenged the absolute authority of the Spanish friars through intellect, art, and an…

Evangeline: with Notes and Plan of Study
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the quiet village of Grand-Pré, a young woman’s life is shattered by exile, setting her on a lifelong, continent-spanning journey to find her lost betrothed.

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain
A single, careless remark labels a man a fool, setting the stage for a dark, tangled drama of stolen identity and racial injustice in a small Missouri river town.

Lewis and Clark: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
William R. (William Rheem) Lighton
The explorers who mapped the vast American wilderness from the Missouri to the Pacific were driven by an unyielding sense of duty, ultimately shaping the identity of a young nation through their quiet, collective heroism.

The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Islands
Roger T. (Roger Thompson) Finlay
Marooned castaways apply ingenuity and colonial confidence to civilize neighboring tribes, uncovering long-lost shipwrecks and buried secrets in the South Seas.

The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters
Charles Henry Lerrigo
HOOK Escaping a restrictive reformatory, a troubled youth seeks freedom in the wilderness, only to find himself entangled in a dangerous criminal conspiracy and a high-stakes search for hidden treasure.