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 S
Captain Blood; His Odyssey
Audio Book
Sabatini, Rafael (1875-1950)
Peter Blood was many things in his time—soldier, country doctor, slave, pirate, and finally Governor of Jamaica. Incidentally, he was an Irishman. Round his humorous-heroic figure Mr. Sabatini has written an exciting romance of the Spanish Main, the facts of which he alleges to have been found in the diary and log-books of one Jeremiah Pitt, a follower of Monmouth in 1685 and Blood’s faithful companion in adventure.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Sea Hawk
Audio Book
Sabatini, Rafael (1875-1950)
The story of how Sir Oliver Tressilian, Cornish gentleman and sometime commander of one of her majesty’s ships which dispersed the Spanish Armada, became a follower of Mahmud, and a Barbary corsair, winning for himself the title of Sakr-el-Bahr, hawk of the sea.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Story of an African Farm
Audio Book
Schreiner, Olive (1855-1920)
In this novel which presents an unforgettable picture of South Africa, there are two significant stories, the one concerning Waldo and his struggle for religious faith, the other Lyndall and her demands for freedom.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Impostor; a Tale of Old Annapolis
Scott, John Reed (1869-1942)
1766. Annapolis and Maryland in Governor Horatio Sharpe’s time. Life and manners in the Colony, the great estates and the country houses, the assembly, the horse-races. The last scene is at Whitehall, Colonel Sharpe’s estate on the Chesapeake.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Ivanhoe
Audio Book
Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)
A many colored picture of medieval England at the time when Norman and Saxon had hardly begun to fuse, when the castles were the strongholds of baronial oppressors and the woods full of outlaws. The story itself is concerned with the loves and adventures of a young Saxon knight.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Adrienne Toner
Sedgwick, Anne Douglas(1873-1935)
The heroine, a curious creation, is a rich American who marries into an old English family. Generous, affectionate, given to uttering abject banalities, a believer in some strange mystic cult, she has a certain psychic power and influences those with whom she comes in contact. As the story progresses she does not change, but those who know her come to see her in another light.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Coast of Freedom; a Romance of the Adventurous Times of the First Self-made American
Shaw, Adele Marie
1686. The career of Sir William Phips (1651-94), governor of Massachusetts. Boston, time of Cotton Mather and the persecutions for witchcraft.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Duke Jones
Sidgwick, Ethel (1877-1970)
Full of interest and subtlety and finely written, it is the story of a commonplace, undistinguished Englishman, a foil for a group of charming or unscrupulous but always clever people, yet capable of greater chivalry and self-sacrifice than any of them. Sequel to A Lady of Leisure, but complete in itself.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Quo Vadis; a Tale of the Time of Nero
Audio Book
Sienkiewicz, Henryk (1846-1916)
The book that brought Sienkiewicz recognition throughout the European world. A theatrical picture of Roman life, bringing into salient contrast the licentiousness of paganism and the spiritual beauty of Christianity. Scenes of court life and of Christian worship, the burning of Rome, and the massacres in the amphitheatre, are woven into a rapid narrative. Petronius Arbiter, the artist in refined sensuality, the worshipper of beauty, is the dominating personality of the book.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Creators; a Comedy
Sinclair, May (1863-1946)
Brilliant study of the inevitable conflict of genius and domesticity as exemplified in the lives of a coterie of London writers who find both congenial and uncongenial married life a burden to their genius.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
The Jungle
Audio Book
Sinclair, Upton Beall Jr. (1878-1968)
Raised an extraordinary agitation by its revelations of the corrupt and unsanitary methods of the Chicago meat-packers. Its equally scathing indictment of their conduct towards their workpeople excited little comment.
— Bacon, Corinne, compiler, Standard Catalog: Fiction Section (1923)
Ten Hours
Smith, Constance I.
The record of one intense day in a woman’s life. We follow her through every commonplace act of the day, every passing thought and emotion, every flickering feeling of dissatisfaction with her husband, irritation with father or niece, sentimental interest in her lodger, until at six o’clock she makes a fateful choice between passion and duty.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Kennedy Square
Smith, Francis Hopkinson (1838-1915)
A pleasing but sentimental story of Baltimore in the 50’s, with the conventional “before-the-war” atmosphere, and the conventional southern “gentleman of the old school” as its central figure. The theme is the clash between the ideals of the old regime and the new.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Hidden Hand, or, Capitola the Mad-cap
Audio Book
Southworth, E.D.E.N.
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth (1819-1899) may have been America’s most widely read novelist in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, according to one source. She began writing stories to support herself and her children when her husband abandoned the family in 1844. She eventually wrote over 60 novels, many of which took place in the southern U.S. in the Reconstruction era. The Hidden Hand, published in 1888, was the most popular.
Whispering Smith
Spearman, Frank Hamilton (1859-1937)
The building and managing of an early railroad supplies the dramatic incidents and the Southwest furnishes a picturesque setting for this absorbing tale.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Lefty O’ the Bush
Barse 1914
Standish, Burt L.
A baseball story. Burt L. Standish was a pen name used by Gilbert Patten, who wrote many dime novels. He was best known for his sporting stories in the “Frank Merriwell” series. Patten managed a semi-pro baseball team in Camden, Maine in 1890-91.
On the Face of the Waters
Steel, Flora Annie Webster (1847-1929)
Elaborate historical story of the Indian mutiny; minutely accurate, fiction never interfering with fact. Full of terrible scenes. Careful studies of various native types, and portraits of English officers and civilians.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
Philip Winwood; a Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence…
Stephens, Robert Neilson (1867-1906)
1763-1786. Written by a Loyalist, who gives an account of the rebels’ doings in Boston and New Jersey, Montgomery and Arnold’s attempt upon Quebec (Dec 1775), Sir William Howe’s evacuation of Boston (1776), the British occupation of New York, Sir John Johnson and the Indians in the Mohawk Valley, down to the dispersal of Loyalists after the capitulation of Yorktown.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Kidnapped, Being memoirs of the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751 written by Himself
Audio Book
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
With its sequel David Balfour, it tells the story of David and his relationship with Alan Breck Stewart, a famous Jacobite, and his love for Catriona Drummond, a fine Highland lass and one of Stevenson’s most successful heroines.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Works of R. L. Stevenson
Audio Book “Jekyl & Hyde”
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
This volume includes Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Treasure Island
Audio Book
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
A dashing romance of piracy and buried treasure in which Jim Hawkins, a young and very normal type of English boy, always manages to be in the thick of things without performing any of those prodigious feats common to boy heroes.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
The Minister’s Wooing
Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896)
A semi-historical picture of the manners and character of Newport people early in the 19th century, especially of their Puritanical life and sombre religious creed.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)
Uncle Tom’s cabin; or, Life among the Lowly
Audio Book
Stowe, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher (1811-1896)
A classic picture of the evils of slavery, which by its very passion and prejudice contributed in large measure to the crystallization of public opinion against the institution. The characters are strongly accentuated types of virtue and villainy. The brutal scenes are somewhat relieved by passages of tender pathos and lively humor.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Professor Latimer’s Progress
Strunsky, Simeon (1879-1948)
Clever, witty, plotless medley of discussions, descriptions, and character sketches, wholesomely sane in its outlook upon life and the world—even the world at war. Held together by the device of an elderly professor’s walking tour.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
Uncle Tom of the Old South …
A Story of the South in Reconstruction Days
Surghnor, Mrs. M. F. (b. 1833)
Olde Cascoe; Ye Romance of Casco Bay
Sylvester, Herbert Milton (1849-1923)
Vol. 1 in the 5-volume series Maine Coast Romances. Incidents from historical documents, traditions and legends presented as living pictures with the romantic elements strongly brought out.
— Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914)