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 M, N & O
Dangerous Ages
Macaulay, Rose
A clever rap at Freudians and an acute character study of four generations of women: the great-grandmother who has found peace in waiting for the end, the grandmother turning to psychoanalysis for an outlet for unspent emotions, the mother breaking with the nervous effort to snatch up again her girlhood career as a defense against useless old age, and the whole-hearted ultra-modern daughter.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The White Trail; a Story of the Early Days of Klondike
MacDonald, Alexander (1878-1939)
An accurate account of the gold-rush (based on the journey of actual people) and of the country and its conditions at the time.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Altar Steps
Mackenzie, Compton (1883-1972)
A fictional study of religious experience, dealing with the soul progress of a born priest from infancy to ordination and constituting a history of Anglo-Catholicism from 1880 to the close of the Boer War. The boyhood scenes are depicted with much charm and humor and the book shows a vast deal of knowledge of the ecclesiastical history and biography of the period. Announced as the prelude to a trilogy, The Parson’s Progress.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Washingtonians
Mackie, Pauline Bradford (Mrs. Herbert Muller Hopkins) (1873- )
1864. The politics and political wire-pulling at Washington, when the city was full of barracks and military hospitals, with the war dragging on. The principal figure is a candidate for the presidency, his secretary, and his intriguing daughter. Lincoln and his wife are next in importance in a crowd of characters. Implacably Federal in spirit.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
When Knighthood was in Flower
Audio Book
Major, Charles (1856-1913)
The scenes are laid in sixteenth century England, in the reign of Henry VII, and the story is concerned with the romance of his sister, Mary Tudor, and Charles Brandon, a commoner.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Garden Party and other Stories
Audio Book
Mansfield, Katherine (1890-1923)
A collection of stories by a young English writer who before her death in her early thirties had made a deep impression, both for the artistry of her stories and for their penetrating insight. The fifteen short stories include some of the best examples of her work.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The King’s Own and The Pirate
Volume 2
Marryat, Frederick (1792-1848)
In opening chapters [of A King’s Own] a very full narrative of the mutiny at the Nore (1797), followed by adventures of a daring smuggler, who impresses the young hero into his crew. Contains the famous story of an English captain who deliberately loses his frigate on a lee shore in order to wreck a French line-of-battle ship.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Won in the Ninth
The First of a Series of Stories for Boys on Sports to be known as “The Matty Books”. Edited by W.W. Aulick, the well-known writer of sports.
R.J. Bodmer 1910
Mathewson, Christopher
Christy Mathewson was a star pitcher for baseball’s NY Giants.
Of Human Bondage
Audio Book
Maugham, William Somerset (1874-1965)
A long novel relating in biographical form the life history, from birth to about his thirtieth year, of a young man who suffers from congenital lameness. It pictures with much realistic detail several love episodes and his attempts at adjusting himself to various pursuits, including a period in the Paris art schools.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Command
McFee, William (1881-1966)
The hero is a mate on a British freighter, a nonentity, neither good nor bad, until chance plunges him into the midst of responsibility and romance, and duty and love bring out his latent power. At once a dramatic tale of Mediterranean adventure and a novel of character, alive, varied and richly humorous.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Vintage fiction arranged by authors, names I-J-K-L
Sonia, Between two Worlds
McKenna, Stephen (1888-1967)
A substantial as well as absorbingly interesting novel. George Oakleigh, the young Liberal M. P. and publicist who tells the story, follows a group of his friends through public school and university out into the seething and materialistic world of the English ‘governing classes’ during the two decades preceding the war, and carries them through a year of the struggle. The central figures are David O’Rane, a brilliant young Irish radical, and Sonia Dainton, a spoiled beauty.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Stories of Russian Life by Anton Chekov
The Welding
McLaws, Lafayette (Major General CSA) (1821-1897)
1861-65. The career of an ambitious Georgian, and the politics of North and South during the violent welding of the war epoch. Lincoln, Lee, Clay, Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, Greeley, John Brown, Lloyd Garrison, etc. are among the characters.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Moby Dick
Volume 2
Audio Book
Melville, Herman (1819-1891)
Moby Dick is a ferocious white whale, pursued in a fury of revenge by Captain Ahab, whose leg he has bitten off. The account of the chase becomes an epic story of the contest between two elemental powers.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Come out of the Kitchen!
Miller, Alice Duer (1874-1942)
Light, entertaining comedy of a wealthy young New Yorker, who rents an old Virginia mansion for a few months, ‘service included,’ and finds extraordinary servants installed there.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Van Rensselaers of Old Manhattan, a Romance
Mills, Weymer Jay (1880-1938)
1770s. The old families of New York and the coming of Washington.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Far in the Forest
Mitchell, Silas Weir (1829-1914)
1850s. A tale of the great Pennsylvanian forest before the war, when life in that wild region was of a heroic kind. Not so much a romance as a story of character and the interaction of character.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker; Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General Washington
Mitchell, Silas Weir (1829-1914)
Autobiographic story of the revolution. Introduces Washington, Andre, Dr Rush and others. Excellent in portrayal of times and character.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Our Village
Mitford, Mary Russell (1787-1855)
A series of charming sketches of country scenes and characters.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Anne of Green Gables
Audio Book
Montgomery, Lucy Maud (1874-1942)
The story of the school life of a lively child from a Nova Scotia asylum, adopted into a farmer’s family.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Vintage fiction arranged by authors, names P-Q-R
The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
Morier, James Justinian (1780-1849)
Most brilliant picture we have in English literature of society in Persia, done on the plan of a Spanish rogue-story, by a great traveller and diplomat with an unrivalled knowledge of the people. The sequel relates the comic adventures of a Persian ambassador and his suite in London. A masterpiece of comic literature.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
News from Nowhere, or An Epoch of Rest. Being some chapters from a Utopian Romance
Audio Book
Morris, William (1834-1896)
A socialist artist’s vision of Utopia, painting in rich hues the dress, furniture, and all the accompaniments of everyday life, as they might be, were commercialism destroyed and the love of art universal.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Still Jim
Morrow, Honore McCue Willsie (1880-1940)
The struggles and growth of a young engineer in the Reclamation service whose inflexible New England standards help him to do honest and successful work but hinder him for a time in his human relations.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Jules of the Great Heart; “Free” Trapper and Outlaw in the Hudson Bay Region in the Early Days
Mott, Lawrence (1881-1931)
Life in the wilds of Canada in the early days of the Hudson Bay Company, in some two dozen stories of a “free” trapper, a man who was something of an outlaw. A good rendering of the French-Canadian patois.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte
Robert Cavelier; The Romance of the Sieur de La Salle and His Discovery of the Mississippi River
Orcutt, William Dana (1870-1953)
1666-83. Characters include Frontenac, Louis XIV, Mme. de Maintenon, Mme. de Montespan, Joliet, Tonty. Pictures early life at Montreal and Quebec, and the struggles of the Jesuits for the temporal control of Canada, aided by their influence with the Indians. The magnificent and heroic work of the missionaries and their martyrdom is brought out in contrast with the struggle of their order to gain power.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
The Heritage of Unrest
Overton, Gwendolen (1876- )
A study of the relations between the Apaches in New Mexico and Arizona and the U.S. Government during the latter part of the 19th century, and to some extent an impeachment of American policy. Historical characters like General Crook are portrayed, and the local conditions, the ways of the Indians and whites set forth.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)