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34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 76 of 714.

The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The only complete, surviving examples of Roman tragedy, these intense plays offer a direct, visceral link to the ancient world. They represent a bridge from the Greeks to the Elizabethans, blending philosophical inquiry with the macabre.

The Door in the Wall, and Other Stories
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
These narratives explore the thin, permeable veil between the mundane world and the terrifying or transcendent sublime. They map the quiet desperation of individuals haunted by glimpses of a reality they can never fully reclaim.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843
Various
This August 1843 issue offers a panoramic window into the Victorian mind, blending scholarly literary criticism, biting political commentary, and serialized fiction into a singular, sprawling mosaic of the era’s intellectual life.

Tudor and Stuart Love Songs
Unknown
This collection captures the golden age of English lyric verse, gathering the voices of poets who turned the experience of desire into refined, musical art. It serves as a bridge to a time when wit and longing were inseparable.

Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited?: An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin
W. P. (William Platt) Ball
Does the exercise of a muscle or the practice of a craft during a lifetime leave a permanent mark on the bloodline? This rigorous examination challenges the long-held assumption that acquired habits and physical modifications are passed to the next generation.

The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus;: With His Account of Germany, and Life of Agricola
Cornelius Tacitus
A haunting study of power’s corruption, this collection captures the steady erosion of Roman liberty under the shadow of its first emperors and the resilience of those living in its wake.

Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
To navigate the complexities of human existence, one must look inward, embracing the contradictions of the self and the inevitability of death with a cheerful, skeptical, and profoundly honest spirit.

The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles
Jean-Henri Fabre
A patient observer finds that the most profound mysteries of existence are often hidden within the humble labor of insects inhabiting a neglected field.

The Officer's Manual: Napoleon's Maxims of War
Emperor of the French Napoleon I
Command is a heavy burden, and victory is rarely a matter of luck. These collected insights into the art of war provide a foundational guide for those who seek to master the deliberate, cold-blooded science of command.

The Honourable Mr. Tawnish
Jeffery Farnol
A dandy of delicate manners masks a resolute spirit to win the woman he loves, confounding the hardened, brawling squires who dismiss him as a mere fop.

The Magna Carta
Anonymous
Born from the friction between an embattled monarch and his defiant nobility, this foundational document outlines the essential rights and legal constraints that would eventually shape the course of modern governance.

Unwise Child
Randall Garrett
This taut, clever piece of mid-century science fiction follows an unconventional engineer drafted into a high-stakes mission to secure an unstable, world-altering artificial intelligence. It is a brisk, dialogue-driven mystery that explores the collision of human fallibility and machine logic.

Lives of the Engineers: The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson
Samuel Smiles
This is a portrait of the pioneers who shrank the globe, turning the industrial grit of the nineteenth century into the iron arteries of modern travel.

A History of French Literature: Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II
Edward Dowden
The soul of a nation’s letters is not found in a mere catalog of titles, but in the unfolding drama of its changing thought. This volume traces that evolution from medieval courtly verses to the modern democratic spirit.

The Ambassadors
Henry James
A middle-aged man travels to Europe to retrieve a young friend from a decadent life, only to find that his own rigid worldview is the thing truly in need of rescue.

Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth
Henry Lovejoy Ambler
This technical manual serves as an essential guide for the nineteenth-century practitioner, arguing that tin foil remains a superior, life-saving material for dental restorations. It offers a practical defense of a humble, often overlooked metal.

A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania
Unknown
This is a meticulous, state-wide catalog of the Commonwealth’s physical legacy, serving as a time capsule of early 20th-century civic pride. It functions as both a traveler’s companion and a scholarly record of Pennsylvania’s architectural and historical milestones.

Poems on various subjects, religious and moral
Phillis Wheatley
HOOK This collection of verse captures a singular voice in eighteenth-century literature, blending classical refinement with a profound, urgent focus on spiritual transcendence and the nature of human grief.

A History of Greek Economic Thought
Albert Augustus Trever
A scholarly exploration of ancient economic theory, this work traces how the Greeks wrestled with the ethics of wealth, the nature of labor, and the foundations of a just society.

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
Unknown
This anthology serves as a vital record of a vanishing oral tradition, capturing the supernatural landscape of Ireland through the voices, superstitions, and imaginations of its rural people.

France in the Nineteenth Century
Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer
This historical survey documents the rapid-fire political volatility of France from 1830 to 1890, capturing a century defined by the constant, clashing ambitions of monarchs, presidents, and revolutionaries.

A Defence of Poesie and Poems
Philip Sidney
An impassioned argument for the power of the creative imagination, this seminal work contends that literature does more than merely reflect the world; it transforms it into something golden.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
John Henry Newman
A profound exploration of how religious truths evolve over centuries, this work argues that the development of Christian dogma is a natural, logical, and vital process of historical maturation.

Little Folks (December 1884): A Magazine for the Young
Various
A Victorian miscellany weaves together serial dramas of stolen children and lost inheritances with practical craft guides, historical sketches, and natural history lessons for young readers.

Manalive
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A man who has traveled the world arrives at a quiet boarding house, only to be accused of a series of bizarre crimes that he treats as cosmic jokes. This story explores whether life is a tragedy to be endured or a divine adventure to be reclaimed.

The Years Between
Rudyard Kipling
The weight of a world at war presses through every line, offering a somber, unflinching look at the cost of duty and the fragility of peace. This collection of verse captures the sharp, bitter transition of an era defined by sacrifice.

Poems
Mary Baker Eddy
Poetry is the language of a soul reaching for the divine, reflecting a life of profound spiritual search and quiet, persistent hope. These verses capture the turning points of a century, mapping a journey from personal grief toward an unwavering trust in a higher, healing power.

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
This collection of essays and commentary captures the intellectual and political fever of the American Civil War, offering a window into the preoccupations of a nation in the midst of a transformative, violent crisis.

A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772: New Edition with Introduction, Notes, and Illustrations
Samuel Hearne
A relentless trek across the unforgiving Canadian North, this record tracks an explorer’s struggle to bridge the gap between indigenous knowledge and the ambitions of a colonial trading company.

Blazed trail stories, and Stories of the wild life
Stewart Edward White
The harsh beauty and relentless morality of the American frontier find a voice in these sharp, unvarnished snapshots of life in the logging camps and mining outposts of the West.

On The Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
David Ricardo
Wealth is generated by labor and divided among three distinct classes: the landlord, the capitalist, and the laborer. This foundational inquiry reveals how the laws governing rent, profit, and wages dictate the stability and progress of nations.

Style in Singing
W. E. Haslam
Singing is not merely the production of beautiful sound; it is the sophisticated fusion of music and poetry, requiring an artist to master both technical precision and the nuance of human expression.

Fruit-Gathering
Rabindranath Tagore
The harvest of a life is gathered not in the abundance of one’s store, but in the willingness to offer oneself entirely to the light. This collection of poems maps the interior geography of a soul learning to discard the heavy burden of worldly pride in favor of a profound, humble union with the divine.

Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov
Maksim Gorky
A portrait of a quiet, singular genius, this collection gathers the intimate observations of those who stood closest to the man who redefined the possibilities of the short story.

Plain Facts for Old and Young
John Harvey Kellogg
This guide offers a clinical, moralistic, and physiological examination of sexual health, aiming to curb what the author deems the widespread, dangerous consequences of sexual excess and ignorance in late nineteenth-century American society.

Sesame and Lilies
John Ruskin
To read these lectures is to invite a demanding, eloquent mentor into your library to challenge your reading habits, your social conscience, and your understanding of duty.

The Georgics
Virgil
The earth yields its bounty only to the hand that is willing to shape it, offering a partnership between the soil, the seasons, and the soul.

Character
Samuel Smiles
True greatness is not found in genius or in rank, but in the quiet, consistent cultivation of the individual spirit. This work serves as an enduring manual on how to build a life of purpose, integrity, and self-mastery.

A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848
George T. (George Tobias) Flom
The westward movement of early Norwegian pioneers transformed the American landscape, turning isolated wilderness into flourishing rural communities. These accounts chronicle the courageous journey of those who left their ancestral homes to build anew in the nineteenth-century Northwest.

Apologia pro vita sua
John Henry Newman
A man of profound intellect defends the integrity of his life and conscience after a public accusation of dishonesty threatens to dismantle his reputation.

Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales
Charles Godfrey Leland
An exhaustive exploration of Romani occult traditions, this work bridges the gap between ancient Shamanic roots and the pragmatic, often deceptive, arts of fortune-telling. It serves as an essential, if idiosyncratic, historical record of European folk-magic.

The Craft of Fiction
Percy Lubbock
A novel is not merely a story told; it is a structure built. This guide examines how the greatest masters of fiction have engineered their worlds to hold the reader’s attention.

Parmenides
Plato
The abstract nature of reality is often hidden in plain sight, waiting for the mind to untangle the knotted threads of unity and difference. This dialogue serves as a rigorous, if dizzying, exercise in testing the absolute limits of logic.

Poems of Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
This collection gathers the essence of a singular voice, capturing the movement from restless, shadowy melancholy to a hard-won, meditative peace. It offers a glimpse into a soul that learns to trade the turbulence of youth for the quietude of grace.

Jane Austen and her works
Sarah Tytler
A literary guide that bridges the gap between a classic novelist and a modern reader, offering a thoughtful, condensed pathway into the heart of English domestic fiction.

Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting: Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922
Unknown
Nut trees are not merely ornaments but vital, untapped sources of protein and fat, waiting for a more widespread adoption in the American agricultural landscape.

The Mark of Cain
Andrew Lang
A man of noble birth, desperate to protect a dark secret, finds himself ensnared in a web of his own lethal deception. This Victorian mystery tracks the tragic intersection of a scholar’s philanthropy and a criminal’s cold calculation.

The Uncommercial Traveller
Charles Dickens
An observant wanderer traverses the hidden corners of Victorian England, documenting the dignity, absurdity, and quiet suffering of those overlooked by a rapidly industrializing society.