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British Literature — page 38
4,564 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 38 of 96.
Gammer Gurton's Needle
Unknown
A lost sewing needle throws an entire sixteenth-century village into chaos, sparking bitter feuds, broken heads, and wild accusations.
The Case of Richard Meynell
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A reformist English clergyman risks his living and his repute to transform his ancestral Church from within, only to face a ruinous public scandal when his enemies unearth a long-buried secret.
The Career of Katherine Bush
Elinor Glyn
A young woman of lower-middle-class origins resolves to rise into the highest ranks of Edwardian society using sheer intellect, absolute self-control, and calculated ambition.
Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self
Marie Corelli
A mystical vision on a desolate ancient plain shatters a poet’s worldly skepticism, setting him on a extraordinary journey across time to confront his own forgotten past.
The Drunkard
Guy Thorne
A brilliant poet surrenders his soul to inherited dipsomania, destroying his art and his marriage in a tragic descent toward murder and spiritual ruin.
Poems in Two Volumes, Volume 2
William Wordsworth
A quiet, reflective journey through mountain landscapes and inner memories reveals how simple moments of everyday life can grow into enduring spiritual truths.
The Lunatic at Large
J. Storer (Joseph Storer) Clouston
An escaped asylum patient effortlessly assumes new identities, outwits aristocrats across England, and turns every absurd turn of fortune into a hilarious social victory.
My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
Walter Scott
A quiet walk through a changing Scottish landscape opens into a haunted parlor where long-dead grievances, forbidden magic, and family betrayals are brought into the light.
A Dominie in Doubt
Alexander Sutherland Neill
This is a restless, searching inquiry into the nature of freedom and authority in the classroom, written by a teacher who is perpetually questioning his own methods.
Old Christmas
Washington Irving
This observant journey captures the fading charm of traditional English yuletide customs, offering a window into a world where communal warmth once defied the winter chill.
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 01
Unknown
These early dramatizations mark the literal birth of English theater, moving from the pulpit to the public square. They serve as a foundational archive of how humanity first began to stage its own moral and intellectual struggles.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 09 of 10
John Fletcher
These plays capture the volatile spirit of Jacobean drama, blending sharp wit, desperate survival, and high-stakes romance across five distinct, character-driven narratives.
From a Cornish Window: A New Edition
Arthur Quiller-Couch
A life of active inquiry requires both the discipline to challenge bad ideas and the grace to find wonder in the quiet corners of the world.
Max Carrados
Ernest Bramah
A gentleman of leisure solves intricate crimes by noticing what everyone else overlooks, all while navigating a world he cannot see.
The Fixed Period
Anthony Trollope
A zealous colonial leader faces the collapse of his utopian plan to end old age through mandated, state-sanctioned retirement.
The Rosary
Florence L. (Florence Louisa) Barclay
A grand, emotionally heightened romance set in the Edwardian era, this narrative explores the profound bond between a gifted artist and a steadfast woman as they navigate the devastating challenges of sudden blindness and long-held secrets.
Aesop Dress'd
Bernard Mandeville
A collection of fables rendered into verse, this work adapts the timeless observations of human folly from classic sources into the sharp, colloquial English of the early eighteenth century.
Brothers: The True History of a Fight Against Odds
Horace Annesley Vachell
The bond between two siblings is tested by the crushing weight of expectation and the secret sacrifice of individual identity. This chronicle follows the divergence of two paths: one of public glory and one of private truth.
Denry the Audacious
Arnold Bennett
An extraordinary, irrepressible young man from the industrial heart of England rises from clerk to local legend through audacity, humor, and a series of increasingly elaborate schemes that defy conventional social expectations.
Griselda: a society novel in rhymed verse
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
The story of a woman trapped between a stifling marriage and a reckless impulse, this verse novel explores the friction between social duty and personal longing. It is a cautionary tale of a soul seeking meaning in the rigid, unfeeling landscape of high society.
Liberalism and the Social Problem
Winston Churchill
This collection of speeches captures a pivotal transition in British governance, as a young, ambitious legislator articulates the case for a modern state that balances industrial growth with the fundamental well-being of its citizens.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-28
Various
A collection of period wit and commentary, these pages capture the idiosyncratic voice of a nation navigating the immediate aftermath of the Great War through satire, sketches, and sharp-eyed social observation.
The Book-Bills of Narcissus: An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne
Richard Le Gallienne
The story follows the internal and external growth of an idealistic young man whose life is charted not by diaries, but by the receipts of his bibliomania. Through the eyes of a devoted friend, we witness the quiet, intense odyssey of a soul seeking beauty and truth in a world that often demands a more conventional…
The Squaw Man: A Novel
Edwin Milton Royle
A man’s sacrifice to protect his family’s honor leads him into the harsh, untamed American West, where he must reconcile the life he left behind with the one he has built in the wilderness.
The Tree of Heaven
May Sinclair
This is a sprawling, deeply felt portrait of an English family whose domestic rhythms are irrevocably shattered by the Great War. It captures the transition from a sheltered Victorian upbringing to the harsh, fractured reality of the early twentieth century.
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
John Dryden
Poetry and polemics define the intellectual landscape of this collection, capturing a master writer at the height of his influence during the turbulent reign of the later Stuarts. It serves as a formidable record of a shifting age.
A Bed of Roses
Walter Lionel George
Victoria Fulton is a woman who, having been cast into the grinding machinery of London’s labor market, chooses to sell her beauty rather than her servitude. This narrative follows her ascent from destitution to a position of calculating, independent comfort.
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
The world of high-stakes power and the intimate wreckage of a consuming romance collide in this portrait of a legendary collapse. It is a study of how grand figures, when stripped of their empires, face the finality of their own choices.
Delia Blanchflower
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A young heiress struggles to reconcile her fierce commitment to the women’s suffrage movement with the unwanted, protective guardianship of a man who ultimately wins her heart.
In the Mountains
Elizabeth Von Arnim
Seeking solitude on a Swiss mountainside, a grieving woman discovers that healing is not found in isolation, but in the chaotic, often vexing presence of others.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, February 19, 1919
Various
This collection captures the sharp, weary, and resilient spirit of London in early 1919, as a nation attempts to laugh while navigating the strange, quiet wreckage of the Great War’s end.
The Dawn of a To-morrow
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A man standing on the precipice of suicide finds his path diverted by a street-urchin, leading him to discover a radical, life-altering faith hidden within the city’s most desperate slums.
A Young Man's Year
Anthony Hope
A young barrister navigates the hollow expectations of his profession and the turbulent complexities of the heart, ultimately learning that life is less a steady climb than a series of unpredictable, formative collisions.
In a steamer chair, and other shipboard stories
Robert Barr
A collection of vignettes capturing the peculiar, transient intimacy of life on the high seas, where strangers become confidants and the vast ocean acts as a crucible for human emotion.
In the Days of the Guild
Louise Lamprey
The past is a living workshop where the clatter of the loom and the ring of the hammer reveal the true heartbeat of history. These tales bridge the distance between the distant Middle Ages and the hands that built its enduring legacy.
Paul Faber, Surgeon
George MacDonald
This story of a skeptical surgeon and the people of a small town explores whether a life lived for others can lead to a deeper understanding of God.
Philistia
Grant Allen
This story of youthful idealism colliding with the rigid social machinery of Victorian England captures the profound tension between a person’s inner moral compass and the unforgiving demands of the world. It is a quiet, thoughtful study of integrity, poverty, and the quiet sacrifices required to survive.
Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution
Maurice Hewlett
A woman’s quest for autonomy unfolds against the shifting landscapes of high-society London and a solitary, wild Wiltshire valley. This journey tests the strength of independent spirit against the rigid expectations of family and status.
Tales of Mean Streets
Arthur Morrison
The streets of London’s East End are not paved with gold, but with the grit of survival. These stark, unsparing sketches pull back the curtain on a world where poverty is a cage and dignity is a luxury.
The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
Arthur Machen
A single short story, spun from imagination, transforms into a national myth that stubbornly refuses to die despite the author’s persistent protests that it is pure, unvarnished fiction.
The Children of the New Forest
Frederick Marryat
A story of survival and honor in the shadow of the English Civil War, this tale follows four orphaned siblings who find refuge in the rugged wilds of the New Forest.
The Fatal Dowry
Philip Massinger
A tragic collision of honor and obsession, this play charts the ruin of a young man caught between his duty to a benefactor and the betrayal of his marriage. It is a work of dark, forensic intensity, where the courtroom serves as both stage and final judgment.
The Lady of Lynn
Walter Besant
A young woman of immense, hidden fortune becomes the target of a nobleman’s cold-blooded conspiracy in this atmospheric tale of 18th-century deception. The narrative unfolds through the eyes of a faithful sailor, Jack Pentecrosse, who watches as his childhood friend, the resilient "Lady of Lynn," is courted and…
The Paradise Mystery
J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
The serene, ancient beauty of a cathedral town masks a dark web of secrets, where the discovery of a stranger’s body ignites a desperate scramble for hidden truths.
The Purple Fern
Fergus Hume
A determined woman investigates the brutal murder of her guardian, fighting to clear her brother’s name from the shadow of a mysterious, lethal secret society.
Dog Stories from the "Spectator": Being anecdotes of the intelligence, reasoning power, affection and sympathy of dogs, selected from the correspondence columns of "The Spectator"
Unknown
This collection of Victorian correspondence reveals the surprising ingenuity of dogs, proving they are far more than simple companions through documented accounts of their reasoning, humor, and complex emotional lives.
Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 3 of 3)
William Black
A remote Highland estate becomes the stage for a tense struggle between ancestral loyalties and modern reform, centering on a proud, mysterious local leader and the spirited woman who inherits his corner of the world.
Essays
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
A sharp wit and a melancholic grace define these sketches, capturing the fleeting manners of a gentleman’s world. They offer a window into the mind of a brilliant, restless writer whose observations remain as biting and polished as ever.