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British Literature — page 54
4,542 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 54 of 95.
The Green Eyes of Bâst
Sax Rohmer
A journalist stumbles into a web of lethal obsession, ancient Egyptian curses, and a series of impossible murders orchestrated by a brilliant, vengeful mastermind.
The Last Hope
Henry Seton Merriman
HOOK A young man is drawn into a dangerous, high-stakes plot to restore a fallen royal line, only to discover that his fate is inextricably tied to the volatile currents of French politics.
The loyalists
Jane West
A chronicle of the English Civil War, this narrative follows a displaced family’s struggle to maintain their integrity and faith while navigating a nation torn apart by political and religious upheaval.
Three Lancashire Plays: The Game
Harold Brighouse
A sharp, insightful look at the rigid social structures and internal conflicts of industrial-era Lancashire, where family duty, economic survival, and personal desire collide with quiet intensity.
Aspects of Modern Oxford, by a Mere Don
A. D. (Alfred Denis) Godley
Oxford is a place of ancient architecture, shifting academic fashions, and an enduring, somewhat elusive spirit that defies the rigid categories of the outside world. This observant portrait captures the university at the close of the nineteenth century, balancing the earnestness of the scholar with the inevitable…
Celt and Saxon
George Meredith
A young man’s arrival in Wales initiates a complex meditation on the tension between the fiery, romantic spirit of the Celt and the stoic, practical rigidity of the Saxon. This posthumous, unfinished novel serves as a final, panoramic exploration of British identity and the shifting political tides of the…
Hints to servants
Jonathan Swift
The master of irony offers a biting manual for servants, teaching them exactly how to ruin their employers through calculated incompetence and petty theft. It is a razor-sharp satire of domestic life, disguised as a helpful handbook.
Joy: A Play on the Letter "I"
John Galsworthy
The story captures the collision between youthful idealism and the compromised lives of adults, set against the backdrop of a single, sweltering summer day. It is a quiet, piercing examination of how deeply we hurt those we claim to love when our personal desires override our responsibilities.
King John
William Shakespeare
A ruler’s desperate grasp for legitimacy ignites a fire that threatens to consume the realm, forcing his subjects to choose between their conscience and the crown.
Monsieur Beaucaire
Booth Tarkington
HOOK A mysterious French gambler in 18th-century Bath orchestrates a daring masquerade to expose the cruelty of his social betters, only to discover that love and reputation are fragile, shifting things.
My heart's in the Highlands
Amy Le Feuvre
The joy of a life lived in faith, even when physical illness or worldly cynicism threatens to take hold, is the anchor for those who choose to look upward. Through grace and quiet conviction, a young woman transforms the lives of those around her, proving that the heart finds its true home not in geography, but in…
No Quarter!
Mayne Reid
Amidst the upheaval of the English Civil War, a divided family and a nation at odds navigate a brutal struggle where the cry of "No Quarter!" marks the thin line between conviction and ruin.
Ovington's Bank
Stanley John Weyman
A banker’s son and a squire’s daughter navigate the rigid social strata and financial panics of 19th-century England. Their quiet devotion defies a divide that is as much about class as it is about coin.
The book of Martha
Mrs. Dowdall
A writer discovers that her life and household have been quietly annexed by her indispensable housemaid, Ruth, leading to a wry, philosophical investigation of domestic power.
The Borough
George Crabbe
The coastal landscape of a seaside town provides the backdrop for a sprawling, unsentimental examination of the human condition. It captures the intersection of quiet desperation and social vanity found in the lives of ordinary people.
The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 19
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The thin, feverish frame of an aging man becomes the vessel for an undying spirit, proving that madness can be a more courageous way of living than cold, quiet sanity. In a world grown dull and gray, one knight-errant resolves to see the brilliance of a golden age that no one else can perceive.
The Leader of the Lower School: A Tale of School Life
Angela Brazil
A spirited, world-traveled girl arrives at a strict English boarding school, determined to challenge the status quo and champion the cause of her fellow students.
The Potter's Thumb
Flora Annie Webster Steel
The potter’s thumb leaves a mark on everything it touches, shaping lives and deaths with the indifference of a craftsman at his wheel. Beneath the sun-drenched surface of imperial India, an ancient, cyclical fate pulls the unsuspecting into its orbit.
Two Men: A Romance of Sussex
Alfred Ollivant
Two brothers born into a world of rigid class distinctions and hard-bitten necessity must navigate the unforgiving landscape of Sussex to define their own worth. This sprawling, atmospheric novel examines the tension between inherited expectations and the stubborn human spirit.
Writ in Barracks
Edgar Wallace
A grimy, vital chorus of working-class soldiers gives voice to the mud, blood, and strange comedy of late-Victorian imperial conflict.
Boycotted, and Other Stories
Talbot Baines Reed
Silence falls over the dormitory as a ghost rises from the dark grass, only to turn out to be a half-deflated balloon dragging its basket across the lawn.
Broken to Harness: A Story of English Domestic Life
Edmund Yates
A proud, high-born woman marries a middle-class writer, only to find that love alone cannot bridge the gap between aristocratic expectations and everyday domestic compromise.
Daddy's Girl
L. T. Meade
A devoted eight-year-old girl idealizes her parents, unaware that their lives are unraveling through greed and financial deceit.
From Paddington to Penzance: The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's End
Charles G. (Charles George) Harper
A dusty knapsack and a map with a straight line drawn across it are all that is needed to exchange London’s heat for the open sea.
The Gambler: A Novel
Katherine Cecil Thurston
Born into the chaotic, reckless warmth of an impoverished Irish estate, Clodagh Asshlin inherits her father’s fatal appetite for risk, carrying a dangerous penchant for high-stakes gambling into the rigid drawing rooms of Edwardian high society.
The House That Grew
Mrs. Molesworth
When sudden financial setbacks threaten to uproot a gentle English family, their resourcefulness turns a temporary displacement into an extraordinary domestic adventure.
The King's Men: A Tale of To-morrow
Robert Grant
A fallen monarchy, a desperate coup, and the cold calculations of class and money reshape an imaginary future Great Britain.
The Vultures
Henry Seton Merriman
The air of fin-de-siècle Europe is heavy with the scent of conspiracy, where the survival of nations depends on the silence of individuals and the shifting loyalties of the shadows. Two unlikely allies find their paths irrevocably crossed as they navigate the dangerous intersections of love, politics, and the grim…
A Changed Man, and Other Tales
Thomas Hardy
A dark, winding road in Wessex leads through quiet villages where secret marriages, sudden returns, and quiet tragedies unfold under moonlight and sea fogs.
Heriot's Choice: A Tale
Rosa Nouchette Carey
A spinster steps into her widowed brother’s chaotic Westmorland vicarage to mend his broken family, only to find her own heart transformed by unexpected love.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
A man of humble origins transforms the dialect and spirit of his homeland into enduring verse, navigating the tensions between rural life, political turmoil, and the quiet dignity of the common person.
Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 3
Charles Robert Maturin
A doomed traveler sells his soul for immortality, only to discover that unearthly life is an inescapable torment he can transfer solely by convincing another desperate heart to swap fates.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, October 31, 1917
Various
Frontline humor and home-front satire combine to capture the resilient spirit of a nation under the strain of total war.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin: Showing How He Went Farther Than He Intended, and Came Safe Home Again
William Cowper
A linen-draper’s anniversary outing collapses into chaotic, high-speed hilarity when a borrowed horse bolts across the English countryside, leaving a trail of broken wine bottles, lost wigs, and wildly mistaken onlookers in its wake.
The Master of Greylands: A Novel
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
A quiet English coastal village becomes a shadow-land of missing heirs, nocturnal smuggling, and ruined cloisters when a young Frenchman arrives to claim his ancestral estate.
The tunnel
Dorothy M. (Dorothy Miller) Richardson
A young woman navigates the noise, independence, and quiet interior light of turn-of-the-century London, finding her identity in the routine of self-support.
The White Rose of Langley: A Story of the Olden Time
Emily Sarah Holt
A orphan child and a royal princess navigate the treacherous courtyards of medieval England, where faith and dynastic ambition clash.
Three Prayers and Sermons
Jonathan Swift
Grounded in religious duty and civic necessity, these writings weigh the fragility of human life against the structural demands of moral order.
Under Lock and Key: A Story. Volume 2 (of 3)
T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight
Behind the quiet facade of Dupley Walls, a twenty-year-old deathbed curse collides with a stolen Indian diamond, entangling a mistreated orphan, a secretive Russian, and an unscrupulous father-son pair of sleuths.
Berry and Co
Dornford Yates
High-spirited English gentry, accompanied by an indomitable Sealyham terrier, drift from absurdity to absurdity across leafy shires, motorways, and law courts with unfailing poise and bright-eyed banter.
Julian Home
F. W. (Frederic William) Farrar
Youthful ambition, moral hazard, and the quiet triumph of virtue collide across the ivy-draped quadrangles of nineteenth-century university life.
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances
Juliana Horatia Ewing
Looking through a nursery window, a lonely child finds comfort in the daily routine of an elderly neighbor, eventually stepping across the street to form a warm, lasting friendship rooted in shared stories.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, July 19, 1890
Various
A sharp, satirical pulse beats through this late-nineteenth-century issue of the famous British periodical. It skewers the absurdities of Victorian high society, political paralysis, and literary pretensions with relentless, parodic energy.
Sussex Gorse: The Story of a Fight
Sheila Kaye-Smith
Driven by an obsession that outlives wives, drives away children, and consumes sixty years of his life, a Sussex farmer wages a ruthless, lifelong war against an wild, overgrown moorland to build an empire.
The Art of Politicks
James Bramston
A satirical verse manual for aspiring eighteenth-century British politicians adapts classical poetic advice to the cynical, money-driven realities of parliamentary power.
The Fugitive: A Play in Four Acts
John Galsworthy
A stifled woman attempts to escape the suffocating expectations of high-society marriage, only to find that the world offers no shelter for those who break its rules.
The King of the Golden River
John Ruskin
A cruel drought ruined by greed finds its cure in a boy's selfless kindness. True riches spring not from hoarding gold, but from sharing what little one has with the suffering.
The Mating of Lydia
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A reclusive miser hoards art and starves his estate, while a young female artist and a conflicted agent wrestle with love, duty, and dirty money in the Lake District.