May I reccomend Lafcadio Hearn? Particularly
Chita: a Memory of Last Island? It is a novella/long short story and had gorgeous descriptions of a vanished/vanishing place. A little purple on the prose but that's par for the course in the 19th century.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/sear...tity&query=368
So, who else has some good public domain recs?