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Biographies — page 27
2,466 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 27 of 52.
Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men
Mary Agnes Hamilton
Ancient Rome survived external enemies through raw endurance, but its internal democracy dissolved under the weight of personal ambition, military genius, and class division.
History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother
Lucy Smith
A mother records the extraordinary spiritual rise, relentless persecutions, and violent murder of her sons in early nineteenth-century America.
Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
Elgin, James Bruce, Earl of
A veteran administrator spends two decades steering the British Empire through volatile crises across the globe, leaving behind a personal record of quiet resolve, strategic diplomacy, and statecraft.
Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era
L. (Luise) Mühlbach
A childhood forged in the shadow of the guillotine gives way to a glittering, tragic crown for a woman destined to stand at the heart of Napoleonic Europe.
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A wandering young idealist flees every steady path laid out for him, driven by an unquenchable inner life and an uncanny talent for self-sabotage.
The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi
Candide Chalippe
A devotion so radical it transforms an ordinary man into an iconic vessel of absolute poverty, mystical visions, and complete self-renunciation.
Reminiscences: The Story of an Emigrant
Hans Mattson
From a teenage immigrant in untamed Minnesota to an American consul general navigating the high society and sacred rivers of India, Hans Mattson lives the full promise of the nineteenth-century frontier.
Alexander Pope
Leslie Stephen
A delicate, physically frail man uses razor-sharp wits and endless literary scheming to rule eighteenth-century English poetry from his suburban retreat, turning personal grudges and physical pain into timeless, brilliant verse.
George Washington
William Roscoe Thayer
Behind the myth of the nation’s founding father lies a flesh-and-blood Virginian whose extraordinary self-command, physical stamina, and quiet determination shaped a fledgling republic through sheer strength of character.
Heroines of the Crusades
C. A. (Celestia Angenette) Bloss
In their devotion and their daring, six royal women shape the fate of Europe and the Holy Land across two turbulent centuries of holy war.
Recollections of a Military Life
Adye, John, Sir
A professional gunner charts the evolution of Victorian imperial warfare across forty years, recording the transition from Crimean mud and Indian insurgencies to administrative reform and desert engagements.
The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509. Volume 4 (of 6): New Complete Library Edition
Unknown
A family of ambitious gentry fights to defend its newly acquired estates across decades of civil strife, betrayal, and relentless courtroom warfare.
Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements
Frank B. Lord
An idealist scholar enters the American presidency to reform national finance, only to be forced onto the global stage by world war and a tragic struggle for international peace.
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 4
George Müller
A life of radical, deliberate financial vulnerability reveals what happens when a person resolves never to ask for a penny. This ledger of answered prayers tracks every farthing that sustains hundreds of parentless children.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852
Various
A vast, sprawling canvas of mid-nineteenth-century thought and story captures a rapidly changing world through biographical sketches, serial fiction, natural history, political reportage, and satirical social commentary.
Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe: Wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bt., Ambassador from Charles II to the Courts of Portugal and Madrid
Ann Fanshawe
Faithful companions through exile, war, and foreign courts, a royalist couple navigates the collapse and resurrection of the Stuart monarchy.
Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman: Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West
Austin Steward
Born into Virginia slavery, Austin Steward endured twenty-two years of brutal bondage before gaining his freedom, establishing a business, and eventually helping lead an ambitious colony for fugitive slaves in Canada West.
The Mormon Prophet and His Harem
C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg) Waite
An uncompromising nineteenth-century exposure reveals the political machinations, total authoritarian control, and structural reality of polygamy inside Brigham Young’s Utah Territory, warning an exhausted nation of a second impending rebellion.
The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812
Walter R. Nursey
An undaunted commander rallies a fragile colony against overwhelming odds, transforming a desperate border defense into the foundation of a nation's identity.
Bedouins: : Mary Garden, Debussy, Chopin or the circus, Botticelli, Poe, Brahmsody, Anatole France, Mirbeau, Caruso on wheels, Calico cats, The artistic temperament
James Huneker
An observant critic explores the fragile, brilliant lives of artists who wander outside the conventional bounds of society. He studies the fire and discipline required to turn raw temperament into enduring creation.
Maxim Gorki
Hans Ostwald
A penniless vagrant rises from the lowest strata of Russian society to become the defining literary voice of a nation on the brink of revolution.
Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections
Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
Crippled by inherited gout and driven by theatrical ambition, a young cornet of horse maneuvers through political factions to seize the destiny of an empire.
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A young man wanders through 18th-century Europe, guided less by reason than by intense passions, unvarnished eccentricities, and an insatiable desire to understand his own heart.
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 5 (of 7)
Arthur Thomas Malkin
History is shaped not by abstract forces, but by the precise, often flawed decisions of individuals. From the laboratories of Parisian chemists to the turbulent parliaments of England, human progress is driven by brilliant, contradictory minds.
Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories
Thomas Furlong
The law is a blunt instrument, and justice, as one veteran operative learns, is often a matter of patience, carefully placed informants, and the grim reality of a well-aimed bullet.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
Henry Morgenthau
The eyewitness account of a diplomat reveals how Germany orchestrated the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the First World War and enabled the catastrophic destruction of the Armenian people.
Famous Prima Donnas
Lewis Clinton Strang
These profiles capture the fleeting radiance of turn-of-the-century stage stars, documenting the rise of women who defined the American musical theater long before the era of recorded fame.
Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark
J. C. (Jens Christian) Aaberg
This study illuminates the spiritual heart of Denmark by tracing the evolution of its hymnody through the lives and lyrics of its most influential poets.
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An Autobiography
Samuel Thompson
A memoir of endurance and shifting loyalties, this narrative captures the physical labor of the Canadian wilderness and the intricate, often messy evolution of colonial politics during a transformative half-century.
Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In
Henry B. (Henry Benjamin) Wheatley
The private meditations of a seventeenth-century civil servant offer an unparalleled, unvarnished window into the complex heart of London during an age of plague, fire, and political upheaval.
Shelley at Oxford
Thomas Jefferson Hogg
A brilliant, erratic youth navigates the stifling rigidity of 19th-century academia, finding both an intellectual soulmate and inevitable collision with institutional authority.
Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Volume 3
Unknown
This third volume of a curated anthology preserves the voices of British poets who, while often overshadowed by the giants of the canon, offer a vivid, sprawling portrait of the literary spirit across several generations.
The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner
Forstner, Georg-Günther, Freiherr von
A submarine commander recounts the clinical, often detached reality of early underwater warfare, blending the technical demands of U-boat operation with the chilling detachment of a sailor hunting merchant vessels in the North Sea.
The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume 1.: The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century
Unknown
HOOK This collection gathers the spirited, enduring voices of Scottish song, capturing the melodies of the mountains and the rhythmic heart of a nation’s history.
From Workhouse to Westminster: The Life Story of Will Crooks, M.P
George Haw
The story of a man who rose from the crushing poverty of a Victorian workhouse to the halls of Westminster, remaining a champion of the poor without ever losing his common touch.
Musical Criticisms
Arthur Johnstone
These collected journalistic dispatches offer an intimate, rigorous survey of the turn-of-the-century classical music scene, capturing the transition from Romantic traditions to the bold, modern complexities of the early twentieth century.
Remarkable rogues
Charles Kingston
This collection of true-crime narratives explores the lives of notorious figures from Europe and America, dissecting their elaborate frauds, cold-blooded murders, and the insatiable greed that ultimately led to their ruin.
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
William Tuckwell
This portrait of a Victorian intellectual captures a man who navigated the shifting currents of his age with a blend of sharp wit, deep reticence, and a lifelong devotion to the craft of history.
Life in the Confederate Army: Being Personal Experiences of a Private Soldier in the Confederate Army, and Some Experiences and Sketches of Southern Life
Arthur Peronneau Ford
HOOK This memoir captures the daily struggle and quiet desperation of a common Confederate soldier and the domestic anxieties of his family during the final, crumbling years of the American Civil War.
Prison Journals During the French Revolution
Duras, Louise Henriette Charlotte Philippine (de Noailles) de Durfort, duchesse de
A woman of high standing, caught in the gears of the French Revolution, records her months of imprisonment with quiet, unflinching observation. She offers a rare window into the interior lives of those waiting for a sentence that often resulted in death.
The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself
Thomas Ellwood
This memoir offers a clear, unadorned window into the life of a young man during the volatile religious and political landscape of seventeenth-century England. It documents his transformation from a conventional youth into a committed member of the Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers.
The life of Hector Berlioz as written by himself in his letters and memoirs
Hector Berlioz
HOOK This collection captures the turbulent, fire-branded life of a man whose genius for sound was matched only by his capacity for intense emotional suffering.
The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward
Janet Penrose Trevelyan
A formidable Victorian novelist navigates the shifting currents of theology, social reform, and personal ambition, as documented by the daughter who stood at her side through decades of literary triumph and tireless public service.
The Red River Colony: A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba
Louis Aubrey Wood
The Red River Colony tells the harrowing, often violent struggle of early settlers carving a life from the Manitoba wilderness against the fierce, entrenched interests of the North-West Company.
Famous pets of famous people
Eleanor Lewis
This collection of anecdotes reveals the surprising, tender, and sometimes tragic lives of animals who shared the homes and history of history’s most prominent figures.
Historic Girls: Stories Of Girls Who Have Influenced The History Of Their Times
Elbridge S. (Elbridge Streeter) Brooks
These historical sketches trace the lives of young women who shaped their nations, suggesting that the core of girlhood—brave, impulsive, and tender—remains constant across the centuries.
Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda, Vol. 2 (of 3): Queen of Denmark and Norway, and Sister of H. M. George III. of England
Wraxall, Lascelles, Sir
The tragic downfall of a queen and her visionary minister, this historical account chronicles the explosive collapse of a royal court caught between radical reform and the bitter machinery of conspiracy.
Peter the Great
Jacob Abbott
This biographical account traces the transformative life of the Russian monarch who dragged his nation into the modern era through sheer force of will, unyielding discipline, and a ruthless pursuit of Western advancement.