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British Literature — page 48
4,564 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 48 of 96.
The Mentor: Famous English Poets, Vol. 1, Num. 44, Serial No. 44
Hamilton Wright Mabie
The literature of the nineteenth century stands as a towering legacy, defined by six distinct voices that reshaped the English imagination. This survey captures the essence of that era’s poetic revolution through the lives and works of its most enduring figures.
The Necromancers
Robert Hugh Benson
A grieving young man turns to spiritualism to contact his deceased beloved, only to discover that the doors to the beyond are not as easily closed as they are opened.
The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls
L. T. Meade
The three sisters lose their mother and home, but they vow to remain together in London, determined to build their own "Palace Beautiful" through hard work and steadfast, sisterly devotion.
The Victories of Love, and Other Poems
Coventry Patmore
The joys and quiet agonies of nineteenth-century domestic love are captured in this collection, tracing the path from the youthful ache of unrequited passion to the profound, settled serenity of a lifelong marriage.
The Woman with the Fan
Robert Hichens
The story of a woman whose beauty acts as a mask, this novel examines the tension between the self the world sees and the hidden person beneath. It is a portrait of a socialite forced by tragedy to confront her own interior life.
Told in the East
Talbot Mundy
The burning sun of India provides the backdrop for this tale of imperial duty, where individual soldiers—often lonely and far from home—find themselves pitted against the chaotic tide of uprising and rebellion.
Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 2
Charles Robert Maturin
A desperate prisoner locked within the claustrophobic cruelty of a Spanish convent recounts his harrowing search for salvation. His tale reveals the dark reach of an immortal wanderer who offers freedom at an unutterable price.
Mortomley's Estate: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)
Riddell, J. H., Mrs.
The financial ruin of a merchant exposes the fragile nature of social standing and personal loyalty. This portrait of Victorian bankruptcy captures the desperate, suffocating decline of a household under the pressure of creditors and callous associates.
Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories and Sketches
Maurice Baring
A collection of shadows and echoes, these tales traverse the boundary between the mundane parlor and the uncanny dreamscape, mapping the quiet tragedies of those who live between worlds.
Peter Bell the Third
Percy Bysshe Shelley
This satirical epic traces the spiritual and moral degradation of a man who transitions from a living, passionate poet into a soulless, establishment-sanctioned drone. It serves as a biting indictment of intellectual hypocrisy and the artistic decline that follows the betrayal of one’s own ideals.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, March 14, 1891
Various
This collection captures the sharp-tongued spirit of late-Victorian London, blending biting political satire, dramatic parodies, and the frantic, fog-bound anxiety of a society bracing for the modern age.
Sturdy and Strong
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
Success is the result of character, not fortune; a young man’s steady climb from poverty to prosperity serves as a blueprint for the virtue of perseverance.
The Angel of Pain
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
The Angel of Pain traces the fragile intersections of love, artistic ambition, and the cruel inevitability of fate. It explores how deep-seated human connections fracture and mend under the weight of sudden, life-altering tragedy.
The Beggar's Opera
John Gay
In a world where the gallows is a career goal and morality is a matter of price, love becomes the only currency that never quite balances. This sharp, melodic satire remains as biting today as it was in the eighteenth century.
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 6 (of 8): Ideas of Good and Evil
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
These essays trace a poet’s search for a national soul, arguing that art must abandon the distractions of politics and science to rediscover the ancient, symbolic power of the imagination.
The Kingdom of the Blind
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
The shadow of the Great War falls across London, where a silent, unseen battle between masters of espionage decides the fate of the nation. Loyalty and deception blur in a world of high-stakes secrets and whispered threats.
The Man Who Rose Again
Joseph Hocking
A cynical socialite wagers his honor on a high-stakes courtship, only to find his life unraveling through pride and deception. Years later, he returns in disguise, seeking both retribution and the redemption he once discarded.
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, No. 06, June 1891: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
This diverse collection captures the spirit of the late Victorian era through a blend of intense short fiction, social reportage, and curiosities. It serves as a fascinating time capsule of nineteenth-century literary culture.
The Wanderer
Fanny Burney
A young woman, stripped of her identity and name, navigates the crushing indifference of English society while fleeing the terrors of the French Revolution.
Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes: 1865 edition
Francis Thynne
A stinging, learned defense of an editor’s legacy, this sixteenth-century tract corrects the blunders of a contemporary scholar while preserving a vital literary heritage. It serves as a sharp-witted bridge between the Tudor court and the origins of English textual criticism.
Command
William McFee
A sea captain finds himself adrift in the shifting moral landscape of the Mediterranean during the Great War, caught between the rigid traditions of the British merchant marine and the chaotic, opportunistic allure of a Levantine port.
Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I (of II)
Charles Lever
The dying breath of an era meets the quiet resignation of a man facing his own end, as a weary traveler drifts through the landscapes of Europe and the fading memories of a life spent in the halls of power.
Doctor Marigold
Charles Dickens
A traveling merchant finds redemption and family on the open road. This poignant tale explores the enduring bonds of love that transcend speech, social status, and tragedy.
Ixion In Heaven
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
A banished king finds himself a guest in Olympus, where he discovers that gods are as petty, vain, and bored as the mortals he left behind.
King Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
This sweeping historical drama depicts the disintegration of England’s continental empire and the internal decay of its ruling house. It captures a realm transitioning from the hard-won triumphs of a legendary past to the chaotic, factional infighting that foreshadows decades of civil war.
Mushroom Town
Oliver Onions
The tranquil Welsh coastline faces an irreversible transformation as the modern age arrives, turning a quiet, natural sanctuary into a frenetic, commercialized tourist trap.
Nocturne
Frank Swinnerton
This is a quiet, piercing portrait of two sisters trapped in the monotony of a London household, finding their lives momentarily upended by the sudden, romantic intrusion of the outside world. It is a story of how a single night can rearrange the furniture of the soul.
Stories of the Border Marches
John Lang
These are the echoes of a vanishing world, capturing the ghosts, outlaws, and rugged landscapes of the Scottish Borders before the rush of modernity swept the past away.
The Lamp in the Desert
Ethel M. (Ethel May) Dell
A woman caught in a loveless marriage finds herself adrift in a hostile, colonial wilderness, searching for a path toward redemption and peace.
The Late Tenant
Louis Tracy
A man moves into a quiet London flat only to discover he is living in the shadow of a dark, unsolved tragedy. He must navigate a web of deception and hidden identities to uncover the truth and clear a woman's name.
The Moorland Cottage
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
A quiet, isolated upbringing is shattered by the weight of family expectation and the moral failings of a beloved brother. This narrative follows the endurance of a young woman navigating the rigid class structures and emotional burdens of nineteenth-century England.
The Postmaster's Daughter
Louis Tracy
A novelist finds his quiet Sussex life shattered by the appearance of a face at his window, followed immediately by the discovery of a dead woman in his garden stream. This mystery pulls a local writer into a web of police suspicion and dangerous strangers.
Trelawny of The "Wells": A Comedietta in Four Acts
Arthur Wing Pinero
The theater is a world of its own, but when a young actress attempts to bridge the gap between the footlights and the rigid society of a wealthy suitor, the collision reveals the stubborn humanity of both.
A Rogue by Compulsion: An Affair of the Secret Service
Victor Bridges
The sudden, desperate escape of an innocent man from Dartmoor prison sets off a pulse-pounding race against time, as a wrongly convicted inventor fights to clear his name and thwart a clandestine international conspiracy.
A Woman's Burden: A Novel
Fergus Hume
A suffocating London fog sets the stage for a web of blackmail, inheritance, and hidden identities, where a woman’s past threatens to destroy her precarious new life. This Victorian melodrama explores the crushing weight of secrets and the lengths to which one will go to protect them.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Various
This collection of nineteenth-century periodical writing captures the restless intellect and fierce cultural debates of its era. It serves as a sprawling, multifaceted window into the literary, political, and social preoccupations of the British establishment.
Essays
Alice Meynell
These essays offer a quiet, deliberate meditation on the rhythms of nature and the arts, written with a steady hand that finds deep meaning in the margins of daily life.
Furze the Cruel
John Trevena
On the rugged expanse of Dartmoor, human lives entwine with the harsh, unforgiving landscape. This is a story of how cruelty—much like the omnipresent furze—takes root in the hearts of those who dwell among the rocks.
King Henry VI, Part 2
William Shakespeare
A fragile king loses his grip on a fracturing England as rival nobles and a populist uprising plunge the nation into the bloody dawn of civil war.
Scissors
Cecil Roberts
A young man’s journey from a childhood in the exotic East to the harsh realities of London and the Great War traces the painful, rhythmic pulse of coming of age.
The Burning Spear: Being the Experiences of Mr. John Lavender in the Time of War
John Galsworthy
The madness of war finds a mirror in a gentle, book-addled soul, turning a quiet life into a surreal crusade of grand phrases and literal fires.
The Days of Auld Lang Syne
Ian Maclaren
In the quiet, tradition-bound world of a Scottish glen, the residents cling to the enduring ties of faith, neighborly duty, and the unspoken weight of the past.
The Days of Bruce: A Story from Scottish History. Vol. 1
Grace Aguilar
A sweeping historical epic that follows the struggle of Robert the Bruce to reclaim Scotland, viewed through the eyes of those who sacrificed everything to see him crowned.
The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story
Talbot Baines Reed
A boarding school is a world in miniature, where the small choices of youth ripple outward to shape character and fate. This classic tale captures the trials and friendships of boys navigating that intense, formative landscape.
The Girl Who Had Nothing
A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson
A resourceful, impoverished orphan reinvents herself through a series of daring, ethically flexible deceptions, determined to claw her way from the gutters of London into the heights of high society.
The Patrician
John Galsworthy
At its center, this story of a noble family and their internal struggles explores the collision between individual passion and the rigid demands of high-born tradition. It is a study of how social caste acts as a cage for those born within its gilded walls.
A Crooked Path: A Novel
Mrs. Alexander
A desperate woman seizes a hidden fortune, only to find that the weight of her secret becomes a harder burden to bear than the poverty she fought so hard to escape.
A Fair Barbarian
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A spirited American heiress descends upon a rigid, tradition-bound English village, inadvertently dismantling its stuffy social order with nothing more than her own guileless charm.