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Biographies — page 7
2,670 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 7 of 56.
The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers
Philip Gosse
A rogue's gallery on the grandest scale imaginable, this volume turns the golden age of seafaring crime into a meticulously compiled, wildly entertaining directory of real-world desperadoes.
The Three Brontës
May Sinclair
A quiet Yorkshire parsonage yielded three of English literature's most distinctive creative minds. This insightful biography untangles the lives, art, and surrounding myths of the remarkable sisters who transformed Victorian fiction forever.
The Letters of William James, Vol. 2
William James
A mind of rare warmth and intellectual vigor navigates the final decades of a life spent redefining American philosophy.
Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2)
John Morley
John Morley constructs a rigorous, emotionally grounded examination of a writer whose explosive sensibility reshaped the modern moral landscape.
The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee, and the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts
John Dee
A mid-sixteenth-century polymath records the domestic, financial, and occult details of his daily life alongside a comprehensive inventory of his vast collection of rare medieval manuscripts.
Lives of alchemystical philosophers: To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy
Arthur Edward Waite
An examination of the lives, labors, and elusive legacies of those who sought the philosopher’s stone, bridging the gap between ancient mystical tradition and the birth of modern experimental chemistry.
The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story
Frank Harris
This inquiry seeks to reconstruct the inner life of the world's most famous playwright by reading his dramas as a series of involuntary, autobiographical confessions.
The World's Greatest Books
Unknown
A vast gallery of human lives reveals how thinkers, artists, and leaders confront passion, ambition, imprisonment, and mortal frailty. Through condensed personal records, history transforms into an intimate encounter with individual experience.
Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1
Ludwig van Beethoven
When a great artist leaves behind hundreds of letters, he unwittingly writes his own autobiography, stripping away romantic myth to expose the daily friction of living. This first volume of personal correspondence reveals a master torn between transcendent creative vision and the brutal, mundane realities of…
William Shakespeare
Victor Hugo
A passionate defense of artistic genius expands into an sweeping meditation on human thought, social progress, and the eternal conflict between political tyranny and creative freedom.
Napoleon's Marshals
R. P. Dunn-Pattison
An extraordinary aggregate of military talent supported the rise and fall of the First French Empire. This biographical study evaluates the twenty-six soldiers granted the marshal’s baton under Napoleon, tracing how individual character shaped the map of Europe.
Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency: A Lecture Delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London
Nikola Tesla
Blinding electric sparks, glowing vacuum bulbs, and wireless current vibrations transform an Victorian lecture hall into a staging ground for the future of power.
The Autobiography of an Indian Princess
Maharani of Cooch Behar Sunity Devee
Born into a reformist Calcutta home, an Indian princess navigates the strict demands of royal tradition and Victorian high society without losing her devotion to family.
Jane Austen and Her Times
G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
A quiet Hampshire parsonage frames the life of an sharp-eyed novelist whose modest domestic world reveals the grand architecture of Georgian society.
An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
An unsparing account of literary labor reveals how an unpromising boyhood turned into a life of disciplined output, professional pride, and quiet self-determination.
Wagner as Man & Artist
Ernest Newman
Behind the sweeping scale of monumental music lies a deeply flawed human being whose massive egoism, personal chaos, and relentless ambition paradoxically fueled one of history’s most astonishing artistic revolutions.
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
Thomas Jefferson
An elder statesman reflects on the birth of a republic, offering intimate views on power, statecraft, freedom, and the frailties of men. Through personal letters and private notes, a political vision of America unfolds.
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
An unpretentious boyhood in Shropshire quietly unfolds into a globe-spanning journey, yielding a revolutionary understanding of the living world and a deeply reflective life of study.
The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative And Descriptive Biography With Pen-Pictures And Personal
Francis F. (Francis Fisher) Browne
A rustic childhood spent scrawling on cabin floors gives way to the heaviest burdens of statecraft in this sprawling, affectionate portrait of a national icon.
Charles the Bold, Last Duke of Burgundy, 1433-1477
Ruth Putnam
A headstrong prince risks everything to forge an independent empire between France and Germany, only to see his grand ambitions collapse against treacherous rivals and defiant towns.
History of Frederick the Second, Called Frederick the Great
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
Absolute power, inherited cruelty, and strategic genius converge to shape a European empire through decades of unrelenting bloodshed and personal sacrifice.
James B. Eads
Louis How
An inventive mind confronts shifting waters and political inertia, shaping national trade and defense through sheer technical mastery and persistent will.
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Unknown
Across centuries of conflict, empires rise and crumble through the ambitions, military innovations, and tragic miscalculations of world-shaping rulers and warriors.
The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2
Anatole France
The story of Joan of Arc is often framed as a divine fairy tale, but strip away the pious legend and you find a desperate political gamble, a broken kingdom, and a young woman caught between military necessity and ecclesiastical ambition.
Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
A stubborn Provencal youth transforms into France’s most formidable literary craftsman, wielding the novel like a battle-ax to reshape public morals and defend the wrongly accused.
The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Hugh Binning
God's majesty transcends human comparison, yet true spiritual wisdom begins when men discover the depth of their own powerlessness and seek union with their Creator through the offered grace of Christ.
The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
A wartime leader sits at his desk, managing the immense, messy mechanics of a fractured nation through telegrams, official orders, and private letters that steadily transform a brutal civil conflict into a newly reconstructed American republic.
Crimes and Punishments: Including a New Translation of Beccaria's 'Dei Delitti e delle Pene'
James Anson Farrer
When laws rely on fear, torture, and severe executions, they fail to curtail crime and instead degrade the society that enforces them.
The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson
Robert Southey
Driven by an innate compulsion to reach the very top of his profession, a frail clergyman’s son leaves home at twelve, braves sickness and battle, and reshaping naval warfare, becomes his country’s most celebrated commander.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 1
United States. Work Projects Administration
Captured directly from those who survived it, this collection of first-person interviews reveals the unvarnished realities of American slavery—from the relentless labor of the fields to the complex, fraught bonds of post-emancipation life in Texas.
The adventures of a blockade runner
William Watson
A small vessel slips through dark coastal waters, loaded to the gunwales with cotton and running blind under bare poles to outwit Union gunboats.
The Life of Froude
Herbert W. (Herbert Woodfield) Paul
A defender of historical truth steps past partisan squabbles to champion an unvarnished vision of national identity, proving that literary craftsmanship and moral courage can outlast the bitterest controversies of an era.
Hidden Treasures
Harry A. Lewis
A collection of biographies revealing the secrets of success through the lives of America's most accomplished individuals.
The Life and Times of John Wilkins: Warden of Wadham College, Oxford
P. A. (Patrick Arkley) Wright Henderson
A portrait of a seventeenth-century visionary, this biography traces the life of a man whose rare gift for moderation allowed him to navigate the violent political shifts of his era with grace.
Memoirs of the life, exile, and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. (Vol. I)
Las Cases, Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné, comte de
A fallen ruler surrenders to his enemy, choosing exile over war, while a loyal companion records his daily reflections on power, law, and human nature.
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern
Unknown
A vast gallery of human expression, this collection gathers essential literary voices from across history and the globe, offering a sweeping panoramic view of thought, verse, and narrative.
Through St. Dunstan's to Light
James H. Rawlinson
A Canadian soldier's journey from blindness to independence through the transformative power of St. Dunstan's Hostel.
A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry: With an appendix, containing the Constitution of the United States, and other documents
L. Carroll (Levi Carroll) Judson
This collection of portraits documents the lives of the American Revolution’s foundational figures, pairing personal biographies with the primary constitutional documents that gave the new nation its legal structure.
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, March
Alban Butler
This vast, meticulous chronicle preserves the lives of the early Christian saints, documenting their spiritual struggles, miraculous endurance, and the rigorous historical research used to separate legend from verifiable fact.
The Life of Cesare Borgia
Rafael Sabatini
Cesare Borgia emerges from the shadows of history not as a monster, but as a man of his time: a figure of steel and velvet whose reach defined an age of violent, brilliant transition.
Memoirs of the Empress Catherine II.: Written by Herself
Empress of Russia Catherine II
A German princess arrives at the Russian court as a young bride, only to navigate a treacherous, stifling web of imperial intrigue and isolation. She systematically transforms herself from a vulnerable outsider into a formidable political force.
Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions. Volume 1 (of 2)
Frank Harris
The tragedy of a brilliant mind dismantled by the rigid machinery of a society he once charmed, this account traces the ascent and inevitable collapse of a celebrated literary figure.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
A master of the Enlightenment captures the essence of a rapidly changing world through the lens of scientific curiosity, civic duty, and a remarkably pragmatic approach to the art of living.
Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne: Written in the years MDCCCXIX and MDCCCXX and now given from the original manuscripts
John Keats
These private messages document an intense, tragic romance between a dying poet and the woman who captured his heart, capturing the raw vulnerability of a genius facing his own premature end.
The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume 1 (of 2)
Marshall, Julian, Mrs.
This intimate biography charts the formative years of a literary icon, revealing the private joys and relentless pressures that shaped a visionary mind.
Pascal
John Tulloch
This volume offers a concise, scholarly portrait of a singular French genius, tracing his evolution from a brilliant child prodigy in science to a profound, tormented voice of religious conviction. It remains essential for its balanced, non-partisan engagement with a man who defined the intellectual boundaries of…
Franz Liszt
James Huneker
Franz Liszt was more than a pianist; he was a revolutionary force who transformed the keyboard into an instrument of infinite color and dramatic power. This exploration examines his life, his art, and his legacy.
Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life
Jersey, Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers, Countess of
A spirited account of a life lived in the heart of the Victorian era, spanning from the twilight of the nineteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth.