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British Literature — page 19
4,240 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 19 of 89.
The Queen of Hearts
Wilkie Collins
Three elderly brothers in a remote Welsh valley attempt to hold an heiress captive through storytelling, only to find their own hidden histories unraveling in the process.
Guy Mannering
Walter Scott
An exiled heir, a prophecy forged in his cradle, and a network of smugglers, gypsies, and corrupt lawyers collide along the stormy coast of eighteenth-century Scotland.
Lord of the World
Robert Hugh Benson
A charismatic peacemaker unites a war-weary globe under a single secular creed, while a solitary priest struggles to keep faith alive as the world hurtles toward its final reckoning.
Caesar and Cleopatra
Bernard Shaw
Under the serene light of an ancient Egyptian moon, a middle-aged Roman general stumbles upon a terrified young princess hiding between the paws of a Sphinx.
Confessio Amantis
John Gower
A weary lover lays his open heart before the priest of Venus, finding that the true nature of desire is a mirror for the soul's salvation.
The Great English Short-Story Writers, Volume 1
Unknown
Masterful storytellers capture human ambition, folly, and mortality through small, intensely focused narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Under Western Eyes
Joseph Conrad
A solitary student betrays a revolutionary fugitive to protect his own future, only to find himself trapped in a nightmare of moral isolation and mandatory espionage.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, Jan. 8, 1919
Various
Fresh off the heels of the Great War, this January 1919 issue captures a weary yet triumphant Britain navigating demobilization, political upheaval, and the comical absurdities of returning to peacetime life.
The Rivals: A Comedy
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
When a young romantic demands a broke, lowly lover, a wealthy officer invents a dirt-poor alter ego to win her heart. In 18th-century Bath, their tangled deceptions snowball into a sparkling, high-stakes duel of wits and weapons.
Poems 1817
John Keats
Youthful ambition meets natural splendor as a fresh voice reaches toward poetic mastery, invoking ancient myths, quiet bowers, and close friendships.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster
A poignant tale of love, loss, and cultural clash, set against the backdrop of Italy's beauty and England's social norms.
Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare
David Nichol Smith
Long before romantic critics claimed to rediscover the English playwright, an earlier century waged fierce battles over his text, his learning, and his human genius. This anthology uncovers how those foundational debates built modern literary criticism.
King Richard II
William Shakespeare
When a monarch misjudges his absolute power, the foundation of an entire kingdom fractures under the weight of his excess.
The Phoenix and the Carpet
E. (Edith) Nesbit
When four London siblings accidentally acquire a magic carpet and a mythic bird, their ordinary Victorian nursery becomes the launching pad for wild, unpredictable adventures.
A Child's Garden of Verses
Robert Louis Stevenson
Transforming routine daily domestic boundaries into vast, uncharted realms of imagination, this collection captures the internal life of childhood with rare precision.
The Odd Women
George Gissing
To be a woman without private means in late-Victorian England is to stand upon a narrow ledge, where a single misstep or sudden bereavement precipitates a swift slide into poverty.
The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice
Wilkie Collins
A sinister Countess, a vanished courier, and a grand Venetian palace converted into a luxury hotel converge in a tale of murder, unnatural presences, and inescapable guilt.
Leave it to Psmith
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Underneath the serene surface of a grand English country house lies a chaotic tangle of secret schemes, stolen jewels, and mistaken identities.
Can You Forgive Her?
Anthony Trollope
A young English woman breaks her engagement to a steadfast country gentleman, convinced she is made for a higher purpose, only to find that liberty is far more perilous than devotion.
A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories
Beatrix Potter
Underneath a quiet surface of English hedgerows and domestic interiors lies a world of sly, resilient creatures constantly negotiating survival, propriety, and their own worst impulses.
Letters of Samuel Rutherford: (Third Edition)
Samuel Rutherford
An exile’s letters turn an isolated Galloway parish into the center of a cosmic struggle, transforming political banishment into an intense, ecstatic exploration of divine love and human vulnerability.
The Woodlanders
Thomas Hardy
Deep in the Dorset woodlands, a young woman returned from her fine schooling is caught between three men and two social classes, while the ancient trees above them measure every human mistake.
The Lifted Veil
George Eliot
To know the human heart completely is not a power, but a sentence. Driven by an unwanted gift of foresight and telepathy, a sickly young man watches his life unravel toward a lonely death he has already witnessed down to the final second.
English Literature for Boys and Girls
H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth) Marshall
A grand tapestry of storytellers spans the centuries, turning ancient legends, monkish chronicles, and quiet personal reflections into a shared national voice.
The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 1 (of 2)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Early verses of grief and mathematical whimsy evolve into grand visionary odes, tragic ballads, and quiet meditations, tracing a lifetime's struggle to unite imagination with truth.
The Lair of the White Worm
Bram Stoker
An ancient monster slumbers beneath an English estate, drawing a ruthless heiress, a dark mesmerist, and a brave newcomer into its deadly orbit.
Under the Greenwood Tree
Thomas Hardy
In a quiet Dorset parish, a traditional string choir fights for its survival just as a young cart driver falls for the new schoolmistress.
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
William Hazlitt
A genius for infinite human variety animator of king and beggar, fairy and monster alike—meets a critic eager to trace the exact blood and pulse of dramatic imagination.
Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table, Adapted from the Book of Romance
Unknown
A grand vision of chivalry, divine quests, and heartbreaking betrayal plays out in a realm where honor is tested by fate.
Cato: A Tragedy, in Five Acts
Joseph Addison
A man of unyielding principle stands against a triumphant tyrant, choosing death over submission in the final stronghold of a dying republic.
The Sonnets
William Shakespeare
Time, desire, and mortality collide in a sequence of poems that measure the fragile grace of human devotion against the relentless passage of years.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
These twelve volumes preserve the exhaustive parliamentary record, philosophical inquiries, and polemical writings of a foundational thinker. They offer a window into the evolution of modern political thought through the lens of eighteenth-century governance.
The Warden
Anthony Trollope
A quiet clergyman's comfortable life unravels when a public crusade against church corruption forces him to choose between his lucrative sinecure and his own delicate conscience.
More Celtic Fairy Tales
Unknown
This collection gathers the oral traditions of Ireland and the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland, preserving the wit, sorrow, and supernatural wonder of a culture through its most enduring hero tales and comic drolls.
Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II
Rudyard Kipling
This anthology captures the singular voice of a writer obsessed with the mechanics of duty, the weight of colonial responsibility, and the hidden lives of machines and animals. It offers a portal into a vanished world of imperial ambition and the relentless labor that sustained it.
The Abbot
Walter Scott
A young man’s impulsive loyalties collide with the ruin of an imprisoned queen, charting a perilous course through the fractured politics of sixteenth-century Scotland.
The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home
Charles Dickens
A hearthside sanctuary is threatened by suspicion and a mysterious stranger, yet the rhythm of a home’s quiet music ultimately restores love and trust.
The Magician
W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham
A brilliant, arrogant occultist exerts a terrifying, supernatural influence over an innocent woman, forcing her fiancé into a desperate battle to reclaim her soul. This atmospheric tale blends the gritty reality of early 20th-century Paris with the dark, unsettling allure of black magic and forbidden knowledge.
The Purple Cloud
M. P. (Matthew Phipps) Shiel
A lone man wanders a silent, empty Earth after a mysterious celestial vapor extinguishes all human life, leaving him to confront the crushing weight of solitude and the possibility of a new beginning.
Mrs. Warren's Daughter: A Story of the Woman's Movement
Harry Johnston
A daughter of ill repute casts off her mother’s shadow to forge a life of political rebellion and professional independence. This narrative spans the decades leading up to the Great War, tracking a woman’s struggle for agency in a world defined by men.
The Bruce
John Barbour
A sweeping epic of survival and statecraft, this poem recounts the long, bloody struggle of a king to reclaim his crown and secure his nation's independence through sheer tenacity and force of will.
You Never Can Tell
Bernard Shaw
A family reunion turns into a chaotic, witty collision between rigid Victorian tradition and the irreverent, modern spirit of the twentieth century.
The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables
Robert Louis Stevenson
A tempestuous collection of stories explores the dark, lingering edges of human morality and the supernatural. These tales traverse lonely islands, haunted manses, and quiet French villages, mapping the precarious boundary between civilized restraint and the wild, untamed forces of the soul.
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
Charles Dickens
The haunted man seeks to escape the burden of his past, only to discover that forgetting one’s sorrows also means losing the capacity for love and forgiveness.
Hamlet: A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623
William Shakespeare
The prince of a grieving kingdom discovers that the crown is stained with fratricide and betrayal. He must decide whether to seek vengeance or succumb to the crushing weight of a world gone wrong.
A Miscellany of Men
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
This collection of essays serves as a sharp-witted mirror held up to the absurdities of modern life, offering a vigorous defense of the common man against the encroaching machinery of bureaucracy and social engineering.
Sara Crewe
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A young girl’s vivid imagination and unwavering sense of dignity serve as her only armor against the cruelty of a harsh boarding school mistress after she is orphaned and left destitute. This classic tale explores the power of perspective to transform a bleak existence into a kingdom of the mind.
Just—William
Richmal Crompton
Eleven-year-old William Brown is a whirlwind of well-intentioned chaos whose singular talent is turning the orderly world of his family and neighbors upside down.