Below are links to free vintage novels, mostly published from the mid-1800s to 1923. They include bestsellers in a range of genres. This page is one of 10 containing links to 300+ novels. Use the Vintage Novels Directory to access the other 9 pages.
Vintage Novels Directory
Authors A & B
The Log of a Cowboy; a Narrative of the Old Trail Days
Audio Book
Adams, Andy (1859-1935)
The journal of a cattle drive, with a herd of several thousand, from Texas through Arkansas and Wyoming to the Blackfoot Agency in Montana. The account is admitted to be an extremely accurate picture of a bygone phase of existence in the Far West.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Democracy, an American Novel
Audio Book
Adams, Henry (1838-1918)
1870s. The political society of Washington, its corruptions, intrigues and cabals, realistically and pessimistically depicted. The various diplomats, senators, and members of Congress are incisively portrayed – actual people have been pointed out as the originals – and the scandals; e.g. the bribery case that hastens the denouement, resemble chapters of history.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Success
Adams, Samuel (1871-1958)
A novel based on life in New York newspaperdom, by one familiar with all sides of the game. A station agent in a western town becomes a journalist, discards his early ideals and grasps at worldly success as editor of a ‘yellow’ newspaper.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Little Women
Audio Book
Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888)
Story of childhood and home life, portraying four girls who are wholesome types of character, and following their growth to womanhood.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Story of a Bad Boy
Audio Book
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey (1836-1907)
The author drew on his own memories in writing this story of normal, mischievous boyhood in a New England village.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Choir Invisible
Allen, James (1849-1925)
Story of Kentucky in years following the war of independence; delicate in analysis of feeling, and in the suggestive and poetical use of landscape.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
In Circling Camps; a Story of the Civil War
Altsheler, Joseph Alexander (1862-1919)
1861-65. The hero and heroine, young Kentuckians, are in Washington on the eve of the war. The hero witnesses many of the scenes which lead to the appeal to arms. He enlists with the Northern army and is present at the battle of Shiloh, which is described at length. The scene shifts to the east and contains much description of the gathering of the armies for the battle of Gettysburg, and the story of that battle is told with much detail.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
A Soldier of Manhattan, and his Adventures at Ticonderoga and Quebec
Altsheler, Joseph Alexander (1862-1919)
1758-59. The French and Indian War. A young New Yorker is an officer in one of the regiments raised by the king in the colonies and known as the Royal Americans. The hero takes part in the battle of Ticonderoga, which is described from authentic sources. He is captured and taken to Quebec, where he is held a prisoner, but escapes in time to join Wolfe’s expedition and participate in the battle on the Plains of Abraham and Wolfe’s victory.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Sun of Saratoga; a Romance of Burgoyne’s Surrender
Altsheler, Joseph Alexander (1862-1919)
1777. General Burgoyne’s descent from Canada upon the colony of New York. Chief historical events: the battle of Saratoga and the surrender of Burgoyne’s army. The purpose, aside from the romance, is to show the feeling between Americans who followed Congress and Americans who were loyal to the king.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Winesburg, Ohio
Audio Book
Anderson, Sherwood (1876-1941)
“A group of tales of Ohio small town life.” is the subtitle, and the reader feels that it is real life that is passing by in a procession of “grotesques,” as the author himself suggests. Most of the characters portrayed are scarred and warped by handicaps from within or without, the hidden sources of which are revealed by the writer’s flashes of insight.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Conqueror; a dramatized Biography of Alexander Hamilton
Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn (1857-1948)
1757-1804. Told in the manner of fiction, though based on a careful study of the Hamilton family papers and public records of the West India Islands, which are eloquently described. Meant originally for a biography. Altogether 80 years are covered.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California
Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn (1857-1948)
Thirteen tales of old California and the romantic, passionate, half Oriental life of the Spanish caballeros, under Mexican rule, before the advent of the improving Yankee.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Cameron of Lochiel
Aubert de Gaspe, Philippe (1786-1871)
1757. A good account of the French Canadians. The hero, Archibald Cameron, is a namesake of the famous Jacobite (c. 1753).
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Pride and Prejudice
Audio Book
Austen, Jane (1774-1817)
A witty comedy of manners which is modern in spirit, if old-fashioned in form. Elizabeth Bennet is one of the gallant heroines of English literature
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Eugenie Grandet
Audio Book
Balzac, Honore (1799-1850)
The author’s best known work. It is the pathetic story of a gentle and long-suffering girl sacrificed first to her father’s inhuman avarice, and then to the brutal indifference of love and husband.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Spellbinders
Banning, Margaret Culkin (1891-1982)
A sympathetic presentation of the problem of the modern woman with absorbing interests outside her home. The story is concerned with four women of different type, the ‘spellbinders,’ who have undertaken to organize their sisters of a Middle Western town to play an efficient part in politics. It deals chiefly, however, with the readjustments in the life of one of them, Helen Flandron, whose husband, a successful lawyer, is opposed to his wife’s independent activities.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Under Fire; the Story of a Squad
Barbusse, Henri (1874-1935)
An epic of the war ranked as the greatest piece of imaginative war literature produced in France and awarded the Goncourt Prize of 1916. A grimly realistic picture of the dull misery and nastiness of trench warfare.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Midshipman Farragut
Barnes, James (1866-1936)
The early life of Admiral David G. Farragut, telling especially of his cruise as a young midshipman with David Porter in the frigate Essex in the war of 1812. Principal authorities, his own family records and his letters, his autobiography and that of David Porter.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
City of the Discreet
Baroja, Pio (1872-1956)
A Spanish ‘regional’ novel conveying wjth vividness the native color and flavor ot life in the city of Cordova. The story combines the sharp fidelity to detail of realism and the rambling humorous garrulity of the picaresque novel. The hero, son of a Marquis and an innkeeper’s daughter, is sent to England to be educated and the plot is concerned with his return to Cordova and life as a reckless young man about town.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Remember the Alamo
Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston (1831-1919)
A tale of the revolt of the Americans in Texas against Mexican rule. Davy Crockett, Sam Houston and Santa Anna figure prominently; and the storming of the Alamo is the chief incident.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Trinity Bells; a Tale of Old New York
Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston(1831-1919)
1800. Tranquil, idyllic pictures of life in New York, connected into a narrative of family life. The heroine’s father is captured by Algerian pirates, and this episode is the sole exception to the sobriety of the tale.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Colette Baudoche; the Story of a Young Girl of Metz
Barres, Maurice (1862-1923)
Gives a close, merciless, but not unsympathetic, portraiture of the Pomeranian professor who comes to Teutonize Lorraine and finds himself in the end thrall to the refinement of the civilization which France implanted there.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Peter and Wendy
Audio Book
Barrie, Sir James Matthew (1860-1937)
The play Peter Pan made into a fascinating story, with additions.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Audio Book
Baum, L. Frank (1856-1919)
The 1900 first edition of the first story in what would become a hugely popular children’s series. Illustrated.
Children of Alsace
Bazin, Rene (1853-1932)
Story of an Alsatian family whose members are hopelessly divided between loyalty to French traditions and acceptance of German domination, giving a good picture of the effect on Alsace of the Franco-Prussian War. Like all Bazin’s novels, it has a strong religious and patriotic vein.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Spoilers
Audio Book
Beach, Rex (1877-1949)
The scene of this story is laid in the Klondike while the gold fever is at its height. The central figure in the narrative is Roy Glenister, a man of powerful nature, whose theory of life is that force can accomplish anything.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Fair Rewards
Audio Book
Beer, Thomas (1889-1940)
Story of the theatre, but with more of an epic touch than most theatrical stories. Delightfully written, presenting the most intelligent and sophisticated analysis of the whole Broadway pageant we have yet had. — Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Antonia
Belden, Jessie Perry Van Zile (1857-1910)
1640-50. A love-tale of colonial New York, and of the Dutch colonists in the Hudson River districts.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Duke of Stockbridge; a Romance of Shay’s Rebellion
Bellamy, Edward (1850-1898)
1786-7. Massachusetts; Shay’s rebellion.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Looking Backward, 2000-1887
Audio Book
Bellamy, Edward (1850-1898)
Written in 1888, this picture of the world as it will be in the year 2000 has taken its place with the famous Utopias of man’s imagination and hope.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Buried Alive
Audio Book
Bennett, Arnold (1867-1931)
Delicious comedy of manners, relating with unexpected turns of plot how a great English painter, abnormally shy, made use of the death of his valet to escape society’s lion-hunting.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Come Rack! Come Rope!
Audio Book
Benson, Robert Hugh (1871-1914)
Story of the religious controversy that made the 16th century in England a period of rack and torture, written from the Catholic point of view. — Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Spanish Gold
Birmingham, George A. (1865-1950)
Rollicking tale of the search by the curate of Ballymoy and his friend Major Kent for the spoil of a galleon of the Armada wrecked off the coast of Ireland.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Judith Shakespeare; her love affairs and other adventures
Black, William (1841-1898)
Faithful study of manners and customs in England 300 years ago; a daughter of Shakespeare, the heroine.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Lorna Doone; a Romance of Exmoor
Audio Book
Blackmore, Richard Doddridge (1825-1900)
Tale of the savage deeds of the outlaw Doones and of honest John Ridd, yeoman of the downs, whose chance encounter with Lorna makes him a soldier and a knight.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
The Bright Messenger
Audio Book
Blackwood, Algernon (1869-1951)
Story of the occult in which one of the characters attempts to explain a strange case of dual personality by psychoanalysis.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
A Servant of Reality
Bottome, Phyllis (1884-1963)
A once self-assured and competent surgeon returns from a German prison shaken and nerveless from suffering. His agony is completed, but also cured by his love for a heartless flirt. Characterization and plot are unusual and compelling. For sophisticated readers.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
I Will Maintain
Bowen, Marjorie (1888-1952)
Historical novel, with William of Orange and John de Witt as the chief characters. The story deals with the political rivalry of the two men and culminates in the downfall and death of De Witt.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Langford of the Three Bars
Boyles, Kate and Boyles, Virgil D.
1850s. Life on the S. Dakota plains in the time when the ‘rustlers’ terrorized the cattle districts and held sheriffs and juries in their pay.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Patriots; the Story of Lee and the Last Hope
Brady, Cyrus Townsend (1861-1920)
1861-65. The military career of Robert E. Lee, from his appointment as major-general in the forces of Virginia, is very full and sympathetic. The fruitless assault on Gettysburg, the battle of Spottsylvania, and Lee’s defeat at Appomattox are described with great fullness. Grant and Lincoln appear also.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Jane Eyre
Audio Book
Bronte, Charlotte (1816-1855)
Life history of a woman of strong and original character, whose plain face was an innovation among heroines, just as her love for an ugly and elderly hero shows a recoil from conventional romance. Largely autobiographic, not so much in incident as in the strong and passionate expression of personal feeling, of revolt from social conventions and of questioning of narrow religious dogmas.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Wuthering Heights
Audio Book
Bronte, Emily (1818-1848)
A weird story of hate and revenge, laid amid the somber dales and fells of moorland Yorkshire.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Pilgrim’s Progress from this world to that which is to come
Audio Book
Bunyan, John (1628-1688)
An allegory of the Christian life, a classic of the Saxon tongue, a picture of 1678, a series of marvellous stories, translated into 80 tongues.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Begum’s Daughter
Bynner, Edwin Lassetter (1842-1893)
1689-90. A tale of New Amsterdam. The episode of the Leisler rebellion in New York admirably told.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)