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Biographies — page 11
2,670 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 11 of 56.
The Soul of Abraham Lincoln
William E. (William Eleazar) Barton
Faith, skepticism, and political strategy converge in a exhaustive study that unpicks decades of partisan myth to reveal the evolving interior life of America's sixteenth president.
George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)
George Eliot
A mind of intense intellectual power navigating the friction between private vulnerability and public renown leaves behind a self-portrait marked by rare honesty.
Life and times of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Forced into bondage, stripped of his family, and hardened by the lash, a determined young man secretes himself aboard northbound trains to claim his freedom, transforming his lived agony into the defining moral voice of nineteenth-century America.
My Memoirs, Vol. II, 1822 to 1825
Alexandre Dumas
Youthful ambition meets literary discovery in an early-nineteenth-century France balancing political turbulence and personal awakening.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers: Dr Lord's Uncompleted Plan, Supplemented with Essays by Emerson, Macaulay, Hedge, and Mercer Adam
John Lord
Through historical, biographical, and literary analysis, a chorus of critical voices evaluates the intellectual giants who shaped modern thought and poetry.
Two Years in the Forbidden City
Princess Der Ling
A young woman educated in French convent schools returns to Peking and enters the innermost sanctuary of the Qing dynasty, stepping directly behind the silk screens of the Imperial Court.
Las Casas: "The Apostle of the Indies"
Alice J. Knight
Through the blood-stained era of Spanish conquest in the Americas, one resolute priest stood between ruthless European conquerors and the native peoples they sought to enslave, dedicating nine decades of his life to mercy and justice.
The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons
Lawrence Beesley
A calm, observant passenger steps off a sinking ocean liner to record the precise truth, replacing sensational rumor with clear facts, steady human dignity, and urgent proposals for safety reform at sea.
The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And Susi
David Livingstone
A dying explorer travels deep into uncharted central African river systems, sustained by an obsession to locate the ultimate sources of the Nile and recorded in raw, daily field notes until his very final breath.
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern
Unknown
A vast, ambitious index of human expression attempts to map the entire terrain of global letters, gathering centuries of voices into a single unified gallery.
Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3
Benson John Lossing
A quiet dignity governs the final act of America’s foundational leader, whose steady resolve anchors a fragile republic through its tumultuous early years.
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
A statesman’s political death, a crown’s violent fall, and an old man wandering among European ruins while his world dissolves into memory and history.
The Letters of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
A brilliant mind wrestles with poverty, intense passion, and failing health across a candid lifetime of personal letters.
Anthony Trollope
T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet) Escott
A boy’s awkwardness and official failures give way to the steady discipline of a writer who turns daily life and public service into a masterclass in Victorian fiction.
An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections
Albert D. (Albert Dresden) Vandam
An eyewitness moves through the high salons and unruly bohemian quarters of nineteen-century Paris, capturing a world of brilliant artists, schemers, and fallen sovereigns before war and revolution bring the century to a violent close.
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
An open window into a brilliant, fragile life, these letters reveal a literary craftsman battling chronic illness while chasing art, friendship, and joy across the globe.
The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 2 (of 3): 1859-1880
John Morley
Deep inside the high machinery of Victorian statecraft, a mid-nineteenth-century finance minister discovers that lowering taxes can actually yield more revenue, unleashing a quiet financial revolution that forever alters British democracy.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A meticulously detailed window into seventeenth-century London, capturing the exact pulse of a government administrator balancing public office, domestic friction, and private ambitions.
Tolstoy
Lilian Winstanley
The nineteenth-century Russian literary awakening transformed European thought through writing of unprecedented vigor, moral urgency, and raw human truth.
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Driven by an uncompromising artistic standard, a celebrated young composer navigates the frustrating machinery of royal patronage, public performance, and personal grief while maintaining his vibrant creative voice.
The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her friends, Volume 2 (of 2)
Hügel, Friedrich, Freiherr von
An exhaustive inquiry into the human soul reveals how mystical ecstasy, psychological fragile states, and rigorous philosophical thought intertwine to form the bedrock of genuine spiritual life.
The Brownings, Their Life and Art
Lilian Whiting
A profound intellectual fellowship and a devotion to verse unite two extraordinary writers, transforming their private romance into one of the nineteenth century’s most celebrated literary partnerships.
The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
Ellen Terry
A childhood spent climbing stage poles and floating as a ceiling angel gives way to a lifetime of grueling rehearsals, enduring creative partnerships, and the quiet realization that art demands everything a performer has to give.
Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1
John Hill Burton
A young Scottish scholar sets out to map the human mind, charting a path through philosophical audacity, military adventure, and intellectual stardom.
The Life of a Regimental Officer During the Great War, 1793-1815
A. F. (Augustus Ferryman) Mockler-Ferryman
A modest, steady officer marches through two decades of global warfare, recording the grueling mechanics of an army transforming itself from brutal inefficiency into a disciplined force.
Queen Victoria
Lytton Strachey
A young princess, sheltered amid fierce family rivalries, rises to command the premier empire of the modern world with an iron, unyielding will.
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Alexander Wheelock Thayer
A fiercely dedicated artist turns private torment into public mastery while battling the absurdities of patronage, theatre politics, and his own unraveling life.
The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders
Scott, Ernest, Sir
A dedicated naval officer braves violent storms, uncharted seas, and shipwreck to map an unexplored continent, only to find his greatest trial waiting in an enemy governor's prison cell.
American Men of Mind
Burton Egbert Stevenson
A nation's true foundation rests not merely on soldiers and presidents, but on the creative thinkers, scientists, and innovators who forge its cultural and practical life.
Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Through eleven intimate portraits of France’s greatest early writers, a vivid chronicle emerges of how personal temperament, courtiership, and moral conviction shaped the golden age of French literature.
Joseph Bonaparte: Makers of History
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
A gentle, steady portrait of an older brother living in the shadow of a legend, trying to rule with conscience in a world ruled by the sword.
Life of Johnson, Volume 4: 1780-1784
James Boswell
A formidable intelligence faces the final decline of the body, meeting physical decay with unyielding mental sharpness and a stubborn commitment to human society.
Life of Chopin
Franz Liszt
A poet of the keyboard finds his truest likeness not in dates or documents, but in the aristocratic pride, tender melancholy, and fierce national spirit of his native Poland.
Stories of Inventors: The Adventures of Inventors and Engineers
Russell Doubleday
A machine's quiet gears, a spark leaping across miles, a hull descending into green ocean light—human ingenuity continually rewires the physical world to match its imagination.
Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886
Various
Faith, political duty, and the struggles of a migrating community converge in this vibrant nineteenth-century Irish-American monthly compendium.
The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Volume 1
Elizabeth Bisland
An restless artist flees modern industrial life to seek beauty and mystery in tropical backwaters, finding ultimate peace in an old Japanese home.
The Truth about the Titanic
Archibald Gracie
When an ideal ocean voyage vanishes into frozen darkness, survival depends on split-second decisions, strict maritime discipline, and the cold reality of available lifeboats.
After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819
William Edward Frye
An observant British officer crisscrosses a battered Europe, charting the fallout of Napoleon’s final defeat with razor-sharp social commentary and an unyielding passion for continental culture.
Project Gutenberg Edition of The Memoirs of Four Civil War Generals
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
A sweeping, eyewitness composite of military command and political struggle traces the nation's journey through war, from Mexican borderlands to the shattered Confederacy and its contentious aftermath.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume III, Florida Narratives
United States. Work Projects Administration
Bound by a single century and a single state, these voice records capture the daily texture, terror, and quiet defiance of ordinary lives built inside and beyond American slavery.
The Jesuits, 1534-1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present Time
Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph) Campbell
Driven from kingdoms, imprisoned in fortresses, and sent to the ends of the earth, a dedicated order of men shapes modern global history through relentless faith and scholarship.
Journal of my journey over the mountains: while surveying for Lord Thomas Fairfax, baron of Cameron, in the northern neck of Virginia, beyond the Blue Ridge, in 1747-8
George Washington
A sixteen-year-old surveyor ventures into the untamed wilderness of the Shenandoah Valley, recording the raw, pragmatic details of frontier life in colonial Virginia.
Captains of Industry
James Parton
Through vivid life sketches of self-made inventors, artisans, and merchants, this collection redefines human nobility by celebrating practical labor, ethical ambition, and industrial genius.
Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency
Orléans, Charlotte-Elisabeth, duchesse d'
A blunt, fiercely observant German princess maneuvers through forty years of backstabbing, royal scandals, and rigid court etiquette at Versailles.
The 'Blackwood' Group
George Douglas
This survey examines the figures central to the *Blackwood* literary circle, illuminating the lives and reputations of a generation of Scottish writers who once defined the intellectual currents of their age.
Life of Robert Browning
William Sharp
This biography traces the life of a Victorian literary giant, examining the development of his singular dramatic genius and the profound influence of his private life on his expansive body of work.
Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France
This account of life at the French court during the late sixteenth century offers a rare, intimate perspective from a princess navigating the treacherous politics and religious upheaval of the Valois dynasty. It is a candid, sharp-witted look at the personal cost of royal survival.
Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36: Journals of Sir John Lauder Lord Fountainhall with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665-1676
Fountainhall, John Lauder, Lord
A young lawyer’s meticulous record of travel and public life offers an intimate view of the seventeenth-century Scottish mind. His pages bridge the distance between foreign classrooms and the shifting corridors of power at home.