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American Literature — page 12
3,593 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 12 of 75.
The Pioneers
James Fenimore Cooper
Amid the raw stumps and snowy peaks of the Otsego valley, a displaced heir, an old Indian chief, and an aging woodsman stand against the encroaching march of American civilization.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Stephen Crane
A child raised amidst violent brawls and tenement chaos reaches for a touch of elegance, only to find that the city around her rewards neither innocence nor hope.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Herman Melville
Herman Melville
A single comprehensive reference point maps the structural breadth of a master author's legacy. It captures the vast architecture of a literary journey across high seas, deep philosophy, and war.
Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
William J. (William Joseph) Long
A vibrant survey of English and American letters casts off academic dry rot, replacing tedious catalogs of dead dates with a fresh, living appreciation of human stories.
The best short stories of 1918, and the yearbook of the American short story
Unknown
A world at war filters through the quiet corners of daily life, where modest compromises, sudden tragedies, and ideological clashes reveal the raw temperature of American narrative art in 1918.
Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays
Unknown
A canvas for brief, concentrated human drama, where every line carries the weight of a full-length play.
The Beloved Woman
Kathleen Thompson Norris
A spirited young woman, lifted from working-class obscurity into New York’s elite society, must choose between an alluring married lover and the quiet integrity of her true home.
Literature and Life (Complete)
William Dean Howells
An artistic vision emerges when everyday observations of summer resort workers, steamboat deck-hands, and traveling circus performers meet a fierce defense of literary realism. Human experience and creative expression are inextricably bound together.
Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain
Mark Twain
A sharp gaze strips away human pretenses, exposing the absurdity, greed, and surprising tenderness buried beneath our polished masks.
Our National Parks
John Muir
Wild mountain reservations offer depleted city dwellers an immediate sanctuary, provided these grand spaces are saved from short-sighted destruction.
Plays
Susan Glaspell
This pioneer collection captures modern American drama breaking away from standard theatrical formulas to explore the quiet, radical shifts within human hearts.
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series One
Emily Dickinson
Solitude transforms into a boundless domain where quiet observation unlocks the hidden intensity of mortal existence.
Whirligigs
O. Henry
Human fate twists like a children's toy across crowded Manhattan streets, dusty Texas rangelands, and tropical banana ports. In these brief tales, desperate gambits and casual deceptions repeatedly backfire into unexpected redemption.
The snow-image, and other twice-told tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In these haunting tales, ordinary New England life dissolves into shadow and symbol, revealing the dark, imaginative interior of the human heart.
Poems by William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant
In these quiet, stately verses, the vast American landscape meets the ancient, inescapable truths of mortality and the passage of time. The poems serve as a meditative bridge between the wild, untamed frontier and the reflective spirit of the nineteenth century.
The Blithedale Romance
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A group of idealists retreats to a farm to reinvent society, only to find that human nature—jealousy, ambition, and hidden pasts—proves stronger than their utopian blueprints. This meditation on the failure of high-minded schemes remains a haunting portrait of how personal obsession can dismantle collective hope.
Youth
Isaac Asimov
Two boys discover small, intelligent aliens who have crash-landed in their barn, leading to a profound misunderstanding where both sides view the other as dangerous and primitive monsters.
Freckles
Gene Stratton-Porter
A disfigured, orphaned laborer finds purpose and belonging in the deep woods, where his protection of a wild sanctuary leads to a life-changing encounter with a young woman known as the Swamp Angel.
Eight Cousins
Louisa May Alcott
When a frail, orphaned girl is placed under the care of an eccentric uncle, she discovers that true health and happiness are found not in parlor manners, but in the rough-and-tumble joy of an unconventional family.
Christian Science
Mark Twain
The spectacle of a new, sprawling religion is viewed with a skeptical, searching eye that balances sharp wit against the undeniable momentum of a modern movement.
English Translations from the Greek: A Bibliographical Survey
Finley Melville Kendall Foster
A comprehensive catalog of English-language renderings of ancient Greek literature, tracing the evolution of translation from the early days of the printing press through the onset of the First World War.
The best short stories of 1922, and the yearbook of the American short story
Unknown
A curated glimpse into the American literary pulse of 1922, this collection archives the year’s most significant short fiction alongside a comprehensive index of the era’s storytelling landscape. It captures a fleeting moment when the magazine short story defined the national imagination.
The Magic of Oz
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A malicious ex-king and a wayward boy conspire to conquer a peaceful fairyland by transforming its inhabitants into beasts. Only a resourceful girl, a wizard, and a few magical companions can stop their dark plot.
The Art of the Moving Picture
Vachel Lindsay
The moving picture is a modern hieroglyphic, a powerful new visual language that bridges the gap between mechanical art and the human soul. This foundational work treats the screen not as a mere novelty, but as a vast, untapped frontier for American civic and spiritual expression.
Pierre
Herman Melville
A young man’s crusade to rectify a secret family injustice leads him away from a privileged life into a labyrinth of moral ruin. It is a dense, feverish exploration of the peril of absolute virtue.
Judith of the Cumberlands
Alice MacGowan
Amid the rugged, isolated peaks of the Cumberland Mountains, a young woman’s awakening heart collides with the dangerous, insular traditions of an illicit distilling community. This story captures the friction between ancient mountain codes and the encroaching influence of the modern world.
The Rise of Silas Lapham
William Dean Howells
A self-made paint tycoon finds his hard-won fortune and social ambitions colliding with the rigid, old-money hierarchies of Boston, forcing a brutal reckoning with his own integrity.
Flower Fables
Louisa May Alcott
These enchanting tales weave together the lives of fairies, flowers, and insects to illustrate the transformative power of kindness, patience, and selfless love in a world of both beauty and suffering.
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
Mark Twain
A town that prides itself on being incorruptible meets its match in a stranger’s cruel, calculated plot to turn its vaunted honesty into a public scandal.
To the Person Sitting in Darkness
Mark Twain
This biting political satire exposes the hypocrisies of turn-of-the-century imperialism by contrasting the noble rhetoric of "civilization" with the brutal, profit-driven reality of global conquest.
The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel
W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois
A young man and woman rise from the poverty of a Southern swamp to confront the crushing economic and social realities of the post-Reconstruction American South.
The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.: 1791-1804
Thomas Paine
The fire of democratic idealism burns through these pages, capturing a thinker caught in the violent churn of two revolutions. This collection preserves the voice of a man who refused to be silenced by empires or factions.
The Troll Garden, and Selected Stories
Willa Cather
The contrast between the crushing weight of ordinary life and the brief, blinding flashes of beauty defines these stories. They capture individuals caught between the stark, lonely plains and the seductive, often hollow promise of art.
Mark Twain's Letters
Mark Twain
This collection of correspondence offers an intimate, unvarnished window into the life of one of America’s most celebrated literary figures, capturing the messy, vibrant reality behind the public persona. It reveals a man navigating the joys of family, the fatigue of professional authorship, and the persistent,…
A Life of Walt Whitman
Henry Bryan Binns
Walt Whitman’s life serves as a grand, untamed landscape of American spirit, captured here by a biographer who views him not as a mere man of letters, but as a revolutionary mystic.
Contemporary American Literature: Bibliographies and Study Outlines
John Matthews Manly
This reference guide organizes the burgeoning landscape of early twentieth-century American writing into a structured, accessible map for the earnest student. It serves as a vital snapshot of a literary culture in the midst of rapid transformation.
The Haunted Bookshop
Christopher Morley
A quirky Brooklyn bookseller finds his quiet, shelf-lined world turned upside down when a young woman and a dangerous web of international espionage enter his shop.
Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit
Joel Chandler Harris
A clever trickster exploits the vanity and greed of his neighbors in a series of folk tales told by an elderly storyteller to a young boy.
Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe: Compiled From Her Letters and Journals by Her Son Charles Edward Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Seeking solace in a life defined by faith and public service, a writer finds her voice in the turbulent nineteenth century. This biography, woven from private correspondence and personal journals, reveals the woman behind a nation’s conscience.
The Aspern Papers
Henry James
A literary scholar’s obsessive quest for the intimate papers of a long-dead poet turns into a psychological trap within a decaying Venetian palace.
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers
The life of a celebrity writer is often a curious study in contradictions, balancing the ephemeral nature of fame against a genuine, lifelong devotion to the craft of letters.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
This vast index serves as a master key to the collected works of a master satirist, offering a comprehensive map of his fiction, essays, poetry, and biting social commentary. It provides a structured path through the sprawling, cynical, and darkly comedic landscape of a nineteenth-century literary career.
Three Stories & Ten Poems
Ernest Hemingway
The prose here is spare, muscular, and unyielding. It captures the ache of growing up and the sudden, brutal collision between youthful innocence and a world that offers no easy explanations.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Eliza Leslie
This culinary manual serves as a definitive bridge between colonial traditions and the emerging identity of American home cooking. It provides a meticulous, practical guide for managing a nineteenth-century household kitchen.
The American Claimant
Mark Twain
The American Claimant is a satire of Gilded Age ambition and the collision of Old World aristocracy with New World optimism. It follows the frantic, often absurd attempts of a perpetual dreamer to claim his rightful place as an English earl while navigating the eccentricities of American social life.
Washington Square
Henry James
A young woman’s inheritance becomes the battleground for her father’s icy judgment and her suitor’s mercenary charm, forcing her to choose between filial obedience and the risk of a broken heart.
Trees, and Other Poems
Joyce Kilmer
A collection of verse rooted in the quiet sanctity of the domestic, the spiritual significance of nature, and the dignity of the common man. These poems bridge the gap between early twentieth-century urban life and a profound, traditional reverence for the divine.
Prejudices, first series
H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
The critic’s duty, as defined here, is to cut through the veneer of polite American letters and expose the "swinish" and "inconsequential" realities beneath the reputations of its most famous figures.