The Online Books Page

Heroes

Here are entered works about real people who are admired for their achievements, courage, or noble qualities. Works about fictional heroes who possess abilities beyond those of normal human beings are entered under Superheroes.

See also what's at Wikipedia, your library, or elsewhere.

• Persons

• Antiheroes
• Apotheosis
• Courage

• Heroes -- Biography
• Heroes -- Fiction
• Heroes -- Ireland
• Heroes -- Juvenile fiction
• Heroes -- Juvenile literature
• Heroes -- Mythology
• Heroes -- Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland)
• Heroes -- United States
• Animal heroes
• Explorers
• Heroes in literature
• Martyrs
• Women heroes
• Chapman, George, 1559?-1634 -- Characters -- Heroes
• Dryden, John, 1631-1700 -- Characters -- Heroes
• Marlowe, Christopher, 1564-1593 -- Characters -- Heroes
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Characters -- Heroes
• Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de, 1796-1878
• Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890
• Champlain, Samuel de, 1574-1635
• Columbus, Christopher
• Dewart, Gilbert, 1932-
• Fraser, Simon, 1776-1862
• Henson, Matthew Alexander, 1866-1955
• La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de, 1741-1788
• Nordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik), 1832-1901
• Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 1828-1913
• Wilkes, Charles, 1798-1877

• Heroism

• Heroes in Peace (William Penn lecture #6; Philadelphia: W. H. Jenkins, 1920), by John Haynes Holmes (Gutenberg text)
• On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, by Thomas Carlyle (Gutenberg text)
• The Hero in Man, by George William Russell, contrib. by Clifford Bax (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Hero-Myths and Legends of the British Race, by M. I. Ebbutt (illustrated HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com)
• The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, by Otto Rank, trans. by F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe (HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com)

• Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston (HTML at Baen Feee Library)
• The Heroine (with a new introduction; London: H. Frowde, 1909), by Eaton Stannard Barrett, contrib. by Walter Raleigh (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Heroine: or, Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader (3 volumes; London: Printed for H. Colburn, 1813), by Eaton Stannard Barrett (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (in English and Irish), trans. by Joseph Dunn (HTML at Vassar)
• Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (in German; Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1899), by Rainer Maria Rilke (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• A Primary History: Stories of Heroism (Chicago et al.: Rand, McNally and Co., c1909), by William H. Mace, illust. by Homer Wayland Colby, Jacques Reich, and P. R. Audibert (multiple formats at Indiana)

• Gods and Heroes, or, The Kingdom of Jupiter (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1896), by R. E. Francillon (HTML at Gateway to the Classics)

• The Explorers of Australia, and Their Life-Work (1908), by Ernest Favenc
  • Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• The Last Secrets: The Final Mysteries of Exploration (London et al.: T. Nelson and Sons, 1923), by John Buchan (page images at HathiTrust)
• Notable Voyagers, by William Henry Giles Kingston and Henry Frith (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• Celebrated Travels and Travellers (3 volumes; London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1880-1882), by Jules Verne, trans. by Dora Leigh and N. D'Anvers, illust. by Léon Benett, Paul Philippoteaux, Charles Émile Matthis, and E. Morieu
  • Volume I (The Exploration of the World): Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • Volume II (The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century): Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • Volume III (The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century): Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
• Breaking the Record: The Story of Three Arctic Expeditions (London et al.: T. Nelson and Sons, 1898), by M. Douglas (multiple formats at archive.org)

• The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), by Eugene M. Waith (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Limits of Heroism: Homer and the Ethics of Reading (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2004), by Mark Buchan (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius' Argonautica (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), by James Joseph Clauss (HTML at UC Press)

• Fox's Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs (Philadelphia and Chicago: J. C. Winston Co., c1926), by John Foxe, ed. by William Byron Forbush (page images at HathiTrust)
• Martyrologia: or, Records of Religious Persecution, Being a New and Comprehensive Book of Martyrs, of Ancient and Modern Times (3 volumes; London: J. Mason, 1848-1851), by John Foxe, John S. Stamp, and William Harris Rule
  • Volume I: multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume II: multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume III: multiple formats at archive.org
• The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online (variorum online edition of Foxe's "Book of Marytrs", with transcriptions of four 16th century editions and modern commentary), by John Foxe (HTML at johnfoxe.org)

• The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), by Eugene M. Waith (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), by Eugene M. Waith (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), by Eugene M. Waith (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), by Eugene M. Waith (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West (a volume from the Works of Washington Irving; New York: G. P. Putnam, 1861), by Washington Irving (page images at MOA)
• The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, by Washington Irving
  • Gutenberg text
  • HTML at xmission.com

• The Life of Captain Sir Richd F. Burton (2 volumes; London: Chapman and Hall, 1893), by Isabel Burton
  • Volume I: multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume II: multiple formats at archive.org
• The True Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton (London: H. S. Nichols, 1896), by Georgiana M. Stisted (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Falconry in the Valley of the Indus (first edition; London: John van Voorst, 1852), by Richard Francis Burton (PDF page images at burtoniana.org)
• The Land of Midian (Revisited) (London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1879), by Richard Francis Burton
  • volume I: Gutenberg text
  • volume II: Gutenberg text
  • Volume I: HTML at wollamshram.ca
  • Volume II: HTML at wollamshram.ca
• The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1897), by Isabel Burton and W. H. Wilkins (illustrated HTML at Celebration of Women Writers)
• The Life of Sir Richard Burton, by Thomas Wright (Gutenberg text)
• Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, by Richard Francis Burton, ed. by Isabel Burton
  • volume I: Gutenberg text
  • volume II: Gutenberg text
• Dreamers of Empire (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1929), by Achmed Abdullah and Compton Pakenham, illust. by B. K. Morris (page images at HathiTrust)

• Expedition of the Sieur De Champlain Against the Onondagas in 1615: Comprising an Inquiry Into the Route of the Expedition, and the Location of the Iroquois Fort Which Was Besieged (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1885), by Orsamus Holmes Marshall (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Founder of New France: A Chronicle of Champlain, by Charles W. Colby (Gutenberg text)
• Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, by Samuel de Champlain, trans. by Charles Pomeroy Otis, contrib. by Edmund F. Slafter
  • volume I: multiple formats at archive.org
  • volume II: multiple formats at archive.org
  • volume III: multiple formats at archive.org
  • volume I: Gutenberg text
  • volume II: Gutenberg text
  • volume III: Gutenberg text
• Pioneers of France in the New World, by Francis Parkman (Gutenberg text)

• Christopher Columbus: A Latter-Day Saint Perspective (1992), by Arnold K. Garr (HTML at BYU)
• Columbus in the Capitol (Quincentenary edition; Washington: GPO, 1992), ed. by Ann Baldessarini Chambers (page images at HathiTrust)
• Christopher Columbus (Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co., c1941), by Daniel Sargent (page images at HathiTrust)
• Christopher Columbus, by Mildred Stapley Byne (Gutenberg text)
• Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery, by Filson Young (Gutenberg text)
• A Discourse Intended to Commemorate the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus: Delivered at the Request of the Historical Society in Massachusetts, on the 23d day of October, 1792, Being the Completion of the Third Century Since That Memorable Event; To Which Are Added Four Dissertations (Boston: Belknap and Hall, 1792), by Jeremy Belknap
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • HTML at Evans TCP
• The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus: To Which Are Added Those of His Companions (Works of Washington Irving, new edition, v3-5; New York: G. P. Putnam, 1861), by Washington Irving
  • Volume I: page images at MOA
  • Volume II: page images at MOA
  • Volume III: page images at MOA
• The Life of Christopher Columbus: From His Own Letters and Journals and Other Documents of His Time, by Edward Everett Hale
  • illustrated HTML at Virginia
  • Gutenberg text
• The True Story of Christopher Columbus, Called the Great Admiral, by Elbridge S. Brooks
  • illustrated HTML at Virginia
  • Gutenberg text
• As Duas Americas (second edition, in Portuguese; Lisbon: J. Bastos, 1900), by Candido Costa, illust. by António Ramalho
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only
• Unpublished Orations, by John Fiske (HTML at elfinspell.com)

More items available under narrower terms.