American Literature

Patty's Success

Carolyn Wells

Patty’s Success is a light‑hearted juvenile tale that opens with a bustling New York harbor scene, where the…

For the Liberty of Texas

Edward Stratemeyer

Sally of Missouri

Rose E. Young

The opening places the reader on the crest of the Tigmore Hills in the Ozark Uplift, where a young New York…

The Hunters of the Ozark

Edward Sylvester Ellis

The work is a frontier adventure set in the late eighteenth‑century Missouri territory, then part of the vast…

2 B R 0 2 B

Kurt Vonnegut

The piece is a science‑fiction short story by Kurt Von Negut, opening in a bleak, institutional waiting room…

Down the River; Or, Buck Bradford and His Tyrants

Oliver Optic

Down the River; Or, Buck Bradford and His Tyrants is a mid‑nineteenth‑century juvenile adventure that begins…

The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V Political Essays

James Russell Lowell

The work is a political essay by James Russell Lowell, taken from the fifth volume of his collected prose and…

A Woman for Mayor: A Novel of To-day

Helen M. Winslow

Helen M. Winslow’s novel is a political fiction that foregrounds the question of women’s civic leadership at…

The Thing from the Lake

Eleanor M. Ingram

The Thing from the Lake is a gothic tale set in rural Connecticut, catalogued under haunted‑house fiction,…

Marcia Schuyler

Grace Livingston Hill

Grace Livingston Hill’s “Marcia Schuyler” opens with a vivid, pastoral scene that quickly establishes the…

The Range Boss

Charles Alden Seltzer

The Range Boss is a Western tale that launches with a lone rider and his wiry pony scaling a rugged mesa,…

The Forbidden Trail

Honoré Morrow

The Forbidden Trail opens in a sun‑splashed midsummer yard where a gang of children, Roger, a lanky…

The Fighting Shepherdess

Caroline Lockhart

The Fighting Shepherdess is a Western tale that thrusts the reader straight into the rough‑and‑tumble life of…

Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party

Jacobs, Caroline Elliott Hoogs; Read, Edyth Ellerbeck

Blue Bonnet’s Ranch Party is a juvenile‑fiction adventure that follows a lively group of girls, the “We are…

The Youth of Jefferson Or, a Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764

John Esten Cooke

The work is a playful, dialogue‑driven vignette set in 1764 Williamsburg, presenting a young, flamboyantly…

Polly and Eleanor

Lillian Elizabeth Roy

Polly and Eleanor is a juvenile adventure set in the rugged Colorado frontier, where a group of spirited…

Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines; or, Following the Flag against the Moros

H. Irving Hancock

Uncle Sam’s Boys in the Philippines is a juvenile adventure that follows the same two young sergeants, Hal…

As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home

This work is a collection of letters written between 1892 and 1902 by a highly educated Chinese gentleman who…

The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle; or, The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht

Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle is a continuation of Edward Stratemeyer’s long‑running juvenile adventure…

Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

Joseph A. Altsheler

The novel is a Civil‑War‑era romance set against the Confederate capital’s bustling streets.

Virginia of Elk Creek Valley

Mary Ellen Chase

Virginia of Elk Creek Valley is a youthful, ranch‑life romance that opens with a lush, almost painterly…

Penny of Top Hill Trail

Belle Kanaris Maniates

Belle Kanaris Maniates’s “Penny of Top Hill Trail” opens on a spring afternoon in a western railway depot,…

Fame and Fortune; or, The Progress of Richard Hunter

Horatio Alger, Jr.

Fame and Fortune; or, The Progress of Richard Hunter is a nineteenth‑century American tale of upward…

A Little Traitor to the South A War Time Comedy with a Tragic Interlude

Cyrus Townsend Brady

This work is a Civil‑War novel that mixes a light‑hearted romance with a somber vignette about a Confederate…