About 25 minutes
Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas — Background and Themes
Fantasy Juvenile Worlds
5,686 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #23161
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Three of the shortest recorded reading commitments in this catalog. Times are estimates, not quality ratings.
About 28 minutes
Mrs. Christy's Bridge Party — Edition Insights
Exploration Survival Adventure Tales
6,242 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #23973About 33 minutes
The Beauty Of The Village — Text and Context
Exploration Survival Adventure Tales
7,411 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #22845Search stored excerpts and compare books → Choose by your preferences →
How these choices and excerpts are prepared
Choices use stored catalog measurements. Estimates vary with reading speed. A shared category is a catalog label, not a claim that two books have the same argument or literary quality.
Search reads excerpt text stored with this catalog and links to its associated Gutenberg record. The connection is stored in the site database; this tool does not recheck that every excerpt is word-for-word identical to that external record. Excerpt search does not cover every chapter and does not verify historical publication dates.
Catalog snapshot checked: 2026-09-26. Coverage: 94 public books, 94 available source excerpts.
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Independent digital catalogue
Browse 94 Public Domain Books from 76 Authors at COALH Library
This catalogue organizes 94 public-domain novels and stories into four browsing categories—exploration and adventure, juvenile fantasy, speculative time travel, and historical or psychological fiction. The categories are navigation aids, not strict labels; many works fit more than one. For practical entry, three reading paths are suggested: maritime adventure (Marmaduke Merry, The Three Cutters, Rattlin the Reefer), social comedy (The House, Buying a Horse, Mrs. Christy's Bridge Party), and war and memory (An Echo Of Antietam, One Man's Initiation—1917, The Lost Despatch). Each book page provides a synopsis, author, keywords, and an editorial note by the catalogue project.
94 public-domain works76 represented authorsSource-attributed catalogue records
Subject gateways
Explore by Theme
Browse the catalogue by literary type, historical era, or the nature of the source material.
01
Exploration Survival Adventure Tales
Stories of childhood, exploration, resilience and imaginative adventure represented across the current public-domain collection.
02
Fantasy Juvenile Worlds
A focused group of public-domain works connected by subject, literary setting and recurring questions.
03
Time Travel Speculative Futures
Works exploring technology, imagined futures, discovery and speculative changes in society and everyday life.
04
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
Texts connected with historical lives, social customs, institutions and the worlds in which people lived.
Literature — Editor’s Selection
Newly Catalogued by COALH
The River of Darkness; Or, Under...
In Explora...
The Lost Despatch — Reading Notes
In Time Tr...
One Man's Initiation—1917 — A Re...
In Explora...
The Tinted Venus: A Farcical Rom...
In Fantasy...
Waring's Peril — Context and Dis...
In Fantasy...
The Northern Iron — Story, Setti...
In Histori...
Cousin Henry — Story, Setting & ...
In Histori...
Shadows of Shasta — Key Ideas to...
In Fantasy...
About these records
Frequently Asked Questions
How the collection is organized, presented and corrected.
It generally means that the represented source text is no longer protected by copyright in the applicable jurisdiction or has been released for public use. Status may vary by country and edition.
A record may include the title, author, category, cover, description, edition information, source references and available reading or download options.
A category reflects a work’s principal subjects, literary setting, source type and relationship to nearby records in the collection.
The catalogue adds navigation, metadata and editorial context. The represented source text retains its wording, edition information and rights status.
Use the contact page and include the work title, page address and the exact attribution, category, metadata or source detail requiring attention.
Catalogue stewardship
COALH Catalogue
Catalogue information
This section documents the scope of the digital library, listing the number of books, authors, and categories, with oversight of the collection's structure.
