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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 73 of 670.
The Inimitable Jeeves
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
An idle, well-meaning young aristocrat relies on his preternaturally clever valet to disentangle him from a series of social disasters and romantic predicaments.
The Red Gods
Jean d' Esme
HOOK Deep in the Indochinese jungle, a French administrator and a missionary track a legend of "red gods"—a lost tribe of prehistoric humans. Their obsession leads them into a primal world of stone-age terror.
Harvard Classics Volume 28: Essays English and American
Unknown
This collection of nineteenth-century essays serves as a rigorous intellectual map of the Victorian and American mind, exploring the intersection of culture, governance, and individual duty. It challenges the modern reader to define what it means to be educated, to govern, and to live with purpose.
The Works of Horace
Horace
The pursuit of a quiet mind is the central tension of these verses, where the poet measures the frenetic ambition of Rome against the calm of a simple, rural life. To read these works is to encounter a voice that balances on the razor’s edge between worldly involvement and the desire for intellectual solitude.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel": Volume 12, Slice 5
Various
This volume serves as a comprehensive, alphabetically arranged compendium of human knowledge, blending rigorous historical scholarship with technical descriptions of the natural world. It stands as a monumental snapshot of early 20th-century intellectual inquiry, documenting everything from the intricate procedures…
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, August 1847
Various
This volume captures the intellectual, geographical, and social preoccupations of mid-nineteenth-century Britain through a diverse collection of essays, narratives, and critical reviews. It serves as a window into an era that balanced rigorous philosophical inquiry with a burgeoning appetite for travel, historical…
Stories in Verse
Henry Abbey
This collection of narrative poems explores the intersections of romantic obsession, social injustice, and the thin, haunting line between reality and the supernatural. Each piece functions as a self-contained story, moving from the gritty poverty of city streets to the high-stakes political intrigue of distant courts.
Society and solitude: Twelve chapters
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The tension between the public square and the private mind defines the human experience. These meditations explore how to balance the necessity of social connection with the essential, solitary pursuit of truth and character.
The Making Of A Novelist: An Experiment In Autobiography
David Christie Murray
The past is a vast, often unforgiving country, and this memoir serves as a traveler’s journal for a man who navigated it by way of the pen, the barracks, and the stage.
The Orbis Pictus
Johann Amos Comenius
The world is a vast, interconnected laboratory, and the key to understanding it lies in a clear, sensory connection between the objects we see and the language we use to describe them.
The Writings of Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Hook A radical call for the primacy of individual reason over institutional dogma, written from the shadow of the guillotine and the depths of a revolutionary prison.
Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. Second Series
H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen
These stories offer a window into a world where everyday objects possess secret lives and the boundaries between the human and natural realms are perpetually porous. They reveal the profound moral weight hidden within the smallest of things.
Jo's Boys
Louisa May Alcott
A bustling household of ambitious young adults navigates the transition from childhood dreams to the complexities of the professional world. This concluding chapter of a beloved saga balances lighthearted domesticity with the weight of growing up.
The Second Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling
This collection of stories explores the tension between civilization and the wild, following a young man’s final departure from the only home he has ever known. It is a work of mythic scope that measures the cost of belonging to two worlds.
Pistis Sophia
G. (George) Horner
The soul’s journey through the celestial spheres is a perilous ascent, requiring hidden knowledge to transcend the material traps of the cosmos. This intricate map of enlightenment offers a rare, primary view of ancient mystical thought.
Killykinick
Mary T. (Mary Theresa) Waggaman
The summer holiday at an old shipwreck-turned-home brings together a disparate band of boys, each grappling with the weight of his own future and the hidden scars of the past.
Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
Emile Coué
This practical manual outlines a method for achieving health and self-improvement by consciously directing the imagination, arguing that our unconscious thoughts serve as the primary drivers of our physical and moral well-being.
Emily of New Moon
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
HOOK An orphan with a vivid imagination and a stubborn spirit arrives at a strict, tradition-bound household, where she must fight to preserve her identity while discovering her voice as a writer.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827
Edgar Allan Poe
An impulsive stowaway’s obsession with the sea leads to a harrowing descent into mutiny, cannibalism, and the discovery of terrifying, inexplicable secrets hidden at the very edge of the world.
A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
Ainsworth Rand Spofford
This guide provides a comprehensive roadmap for the stewardship, organization, and appreciation of literature, serving as both a practical manual and a thoughtful meditation on the essential role of books in a civilized society.
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
Oscar Wilde
A young aristocrat attempts to commit a murder to fulfill a palm-reader’s prophecy, setting off a sequence of darkly comedic misfortunes in this collection of quintessential tales.
Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving
John Ruskin
The artisan’s hand serves as the bridge between divine inspiration and human craft. By examining the furrow of the engraver’s tool, one discovers how the soul of an artist is carved into history.
The Case of Wagner: Complete Works, Volume 8
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
A brilliant, vitriolic dismantling of a cultural icon, this work redefines the act of criticism as a surgical strike against the decadence and artistic deception of the late nineteenth century.
Geographical etymology: a dictionary of place-names giving their derivations
Christina Blackie
Uncovering the hidden history of the landscape, this work reveals how ancient languages are fossilized in the names of our towns, rivers, and mountains. It serves as a guide to the stories beneath our feet.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878
Various
This collection captures the diverse intellectual currents of late nineteenth-century American life, blending regional history, social commentary, and fiction into a singular, wide-ranging mosaic. It functions as a time capsule, preserving the varied curiosities and literary preoccupations of a sophisticated…
Much Darker Days
Andrew Lang
HOOK This spirited, deadpan satire deconstructs the sensational Victorian "shilling shocker" by following a narrator who is convinced he has committed a murder, despite the fact that the victim is remarkably hard to kill.
The Upanishads
Swami Paramananda
The wisdom of the Vedas finds its purest expression in these ancient dialogues, which guide the seeker toward the realization of the eternal Self. They invite a profound shift in perspective from the fleeting world to the absolute.
The New Life (La Vita Nuova)
Dante Alighieri
A young man navigates the overwhelming, transformative power of love, recording his inner life in a sequence of poems that trace his devotion to a woman he deems angelic. This intimate chronicle bridges the gap between youthful infatuation and spiritual awakening.
History of New Brunswick
Peter Fisher
The resilient spirit of a wilderness colony emerges through this foundational account, documenting the displacement and eventual triumph of families who traded their former lives for a chance to thrive in a northern frontier.
Æsop's Fables: A Version for Young Readers
Aesop
These ancient, enduring tales use the traits of animals to hold a mirror to human behavior, offering timeless wisdom on vanity, greed, and common sense.
History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time
Richard Falckenberg
This history of modern thought maps the intellectual evolution of the Western world from the late Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century. It provides a structured, objective account of how humanity’s understanding of existence, reason, and morality has shifted over four hundred years.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Mark Twain
A teenage girl rises from an obscure village to lead a nation’s armies, claiming divine guidance in a brutal struggle for the French crown. This narrative reimagines the life of a national hero through the eyes of her loyal secretary.
Sailing Alone Around the World
Joshua Slocum
The solitary navigator proves that the vast, intimidating oceans are navigable by a single, steady hand. This narrative serves as the definitive blueprint for self-reliance and quiet endurance on the high seas.
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards
The divine majesty, the frailty of the human soul, and the terrifying reality of eternal consequences form the core of these urgent, intellectually rigorous meditations on the nature of God and the necessity of salvation.
The New Machiavelli
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
This searching, sprawling novel follows a brilliant political climber as he dismantles his carefully constructed life to pursue an illicit passion, forcing a confrontation between his grand ambitions for the state and his own unruly humanity.
The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings: With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency
John Trusler
This collection acts as a moral and social mirror to eighteenth-century London, documenting the inevitable trajectories of virtue and vice through the sharp, satirical eye of an artist who captured both the high-minded and the grotesque.
Nine Little Goslings
Susan Coolidge
These nine whimsical tales weave threads of classic nursery rhymes into the lives of children, finding magic and moral growth in the quiet corners of the nineteenth-century home.
Crystallizing Public Opinion
Edward L. Bernays
Modern society functions not through simple consensus, but through the deliberate, strategic management of the collective mind. This foundational text argues that public opinion is not a natural occurrence, but a manufactured landscape shaped by those who understand the mechanics of human instinct.
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Mind is not merely a collection of biological functions, but the active, evolving process by which the universe achieves self-consciousness. This foundational philosophical inquiry charts the journey of human thought from its simplest beginnings to its most complex expressions.
At the Deathbed of Darwinism: A Series of Papers
Eberhard Dennert
This collection of essays documents the perceived decline of Darwinian theory at the turn of the 20th century, capturing a moment when scientific consensus began to question the sufficiency of natural selection.
The Home Medical Library, Volume 1 (of 6)
Unknown
HOOK This guide serves as a bridge between the turn-of-the-century household and the physician, offering pragmatic, life-saving protocols for an age before universal access to hospital care.
The spoon
Thomas Ewbank
The humble spoon, often dismissed as a triviality, serves as the unlikely key to unlocking the history of human civilization and the ingenuity of the common artificer.
The death of a millionaire
G. D. H. (George Douglas Howard) Cole
The mystery of a missing millionaire and a seemingly impossible crime unravels through a labyrinth of international finance, Russian revolution, and the shifting loyalties of those desperate for a fortune.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Karl Marx
A study of political collapse, this work dissects how a republic systematically dismantled its own democracy, clearing the path for an autocrat to seize power through the illusion of stability and popular will.
The reason why
Robert Kemp Philp
This encyclopedic guide decodes the wonders of the natural world through a series of accessible, structured questions and answers. It serves as a bridge between scientific curiosity and the simple observation of everyday phenomena.
Human Traits and their Social Significance
Irwin Edman
The human experience is a complex tapestry woven from primitive, inborn impulses and the sophisticated, reflective activities we use to make sense of our lives. By grounding our nature in biological reality, we can better understand the possibilities and limits of our social world.
Hagar
James Arthur MacKnight
A young woman’s flight from a deceitful suitor leads her into the heart of 1860s Utah, where she must navigate the complex, often predatory dynamics of a society built on polygamy.
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: From the Quarto of 1616
Christopher Marlowe
A brilliant scholar turns to forbidden dark arts, trading his eternal soul for twenty-four years of absolute power and earthly pleasure. This foundational drama explores the harrowing intersection of human ambition, divine grace, and the crushing weight of finality.