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All free summaries — page 125
6,138 public-domain books, summarised. Page 125 of 128.
The Universal Kinship
J. Howard (John Howard) Moore
An impassioned, early-twentieth-century plea for animal ethics, J. Howard Moore’s treatise uses Darwinian science to dismantle human arrogance and argue that all living beings share a single physical, mental, and moral heritage.
Theologico-Political Treatise
Benedictus de Spinoza
Reason drives away superstitious terror when natural events are no longer mistaken for divine anger. By untangling ancient texts from dogmatic claims, reason reveals that human understanding grows only as we observe the order of nature.
Victory: An Island Tale
Joseph Conrad
A detached Swedish aristocrat retreats to a remote tropical island, only to find his total isolation shattered by a desperate act of compassion.
Whales, dolphins, and porpoises of the western North Atlantic
Stephen Leatherwood
Across the wide reaches of the western North Atlantic, mariners and observers gather raw observational data to transform brief surface sightings into a systematic picture of marine mammal life.
Across China on Foot
Edwin John Dingle
Conquering rugged trails, dangerous gorges, and severe illness, an intrepid journalist walks clear across Western China to uncover the inner realities of a country on the brink of profound transformation.
Mediaeval Church Vaulting
Clarence Ward
Mastering the stone vault was the central engineering triumph of medieval architecture, transforming vulnerable wooden timber roofs into permanent, fireproof masterpieces of structural logic and soaring light.
Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages
A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton) Thompson
A methodical evolution of stone and earth reveals how medieval builders transformed the raw necessity of defense into an art of enduring structural mastery.
Oscar Wilde in outline
Charles Joseph Finger
A provocative stylist challenges Victorian complacency with biting paradox, proving that beneath his sparkling superficiality lies a rigorous, deeply intentional critique of modern society.
The Big Trip Up Yonder
Kurt Vonnegut
When the discovery of anti-gerasone halts human aging, packed families are forced to spend decades jockeying for floor space and the whims of tyrannical, immortal patriarchs.
The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literature
Christian D. (Christian David) Ginsburg
An extraordinary secret lore claims to descend from Paradise, offering mind-expanding answers to the ultimate mysteries of God, creation, and the human soul.
The Queen of Hearts
Wilkie Collins
Three elderly brothers in a remote Welsh valley attempt to hold an heiress captive through storytelling, only to find their own hidden histories unraveling in the process.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A meticulously detailed window into seventeenth-century London, capturing the exact pulse of a government administrator balancing public office, domestic friction, and private ambitions.
English Translations of Works of Emile Zola: An Index to the Project Gutenberg Works of Zola in English
Émile Zola
An exhaustive bibliographic guide brings together the expansive universe of French naturalism, tracing interconnected narratives of social ambition, religious crisis, and human suffering across nineteenth-century Paris.
Guy Mannering
Walter Scott
An exiled heir, a prophecy forged in his cradle, and a network of smugglers, gypsies, and corrupt lawyers collide along the stormy coast of eighteenth-century Scotland.
Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
Unknown
An anonymous collector’s stark chronicle of Eighteenth-century London crime reveals how poverty, liquor, and bad company led hundreds to the executioner’s rope.
Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals
J. C. (John Cuthbert) Lawson
Peasant tales and living customs across the Greek countryside preserve the very heart of ancient Hellenic religion, long surviving the rise of formal Christian theology.
The German Arctic expedition of 1869-70, and narrative of the wreck of the "Hansa" in the ice
Karl Koldewey
Bound for the high north in 1869, two German ships set out to conquer the Arctic ice, only to find their destinies shattered and divided in a perilous struggle for survival against the frozen sea.
A church dictionary
Walter Farquhar Hook
A precise, authoritative reference work that defines theological terminology, clarifies ecclesiastical discipline, and systematically establishes the traditional, legal, and historical identity of the Church of England.
Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo: Comprising a Tour Through North and South Italy and Sicily with a Short Account of Malta
W. Cope (William Cope) Devereux
A sun-drenched journey through a newly unified nation reveals grand cathedrals, coastal harbors, and historic ruins, all contrasted against the glittering vices and modern transformations of nineteenth-century Europe.
Lord of the World
Robert Hugh Benson
A charismatic peacemaker unites a war-weary globe under a single secular creed, while a solitary priest struggles to keep faith alive as the world hurtles toward its final reckoning.
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany
Georg Brandes
Poetry marries philosophy to chase a fleeting, ethereal ideal beyond real life.
Norse Tales and Sketches
Alexander Lange Kielland
A razor-sharp gallery of Norwegian portraits where high-society hypocrisy, bourgeois vanity, and the unrelenting tide of human smallness are laid bare with genial yet biting precision.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
A quiet afternoon along the Connecticut shore gives way to a sweeping consideration of mid-nineteenth-century thought, spanning intimate personal memories, classical philosophical debates, scientific evolution, and critical literary reviews.
The Canon of the Bible
Samuel Davidson
The collection of sacred writings known as the Bible did not descend from heaven as a single, immutable volume; it was laboriously constructed over centuries through human debate, institutional politics, and shifting theological needs.
The Law
Frédéric Bastiat
What happens when the weapon meant to protect your life and property becomes the very instrument used to strip them away?
We Women and Our Authors
Laura Marholm
Modern literature claims to liberate woman, but it really only seeks to reshape her into a mirror of man's own restless, divided mind.
A boy's voyage round the world
Samuel Smiles
A frail sixteen-year-old clerk leaves Victorian England on a globe-encircling journey, trading a desk in Yorkshire for two years of ocean gales, Australian goldfields, tropical precipices, and snowbound American railways to fight for his life.
Caesar and Cleopatra
Bernard Shaw
Under the serene light of an ancient Egyptian moon, a middle-aged Roman general stumbles upon a terrified young princess hiding between the paws of a Sphinx.
Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market
Walter Bagehot
The credit system of nineteenth-century London relies on a central reserve of gold, making its stability fragile and entirely dependent on the Bank of England acting as a lender of last resort in times of financial panic.
Mashi, and Other Stories
Rabindranath Tagore
A dying husband clings to his wife’s invented devotion while surrounding lives unravel in silent misunderstandings, quiet sacrifices, and sudden cruelty.
Paris as It Was and as It Is: A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution
Francis William Blagdon
Post-revolutionary Paris emerges not as a ruined wasteland, but as a feverish, fascinating metropolis where science, art, and raw social ambition rebuild a society from its ashes.
Reflections on War and Death
Sigmund Freud
Human nature exposes its unyielding primitive roots when global violence shattering civilized ideals forces a total reckoning with illusion and mortality.
Short Stories for English Courses
Unknown
A curated gateway into classic short fiction showcases how nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers constructed stories that remain vivid, sharp, and structurally complete.
The story of Burnt Njal: From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga
Dasent, George Webbe, Sir
A heroic soul’s tragic flaw set against an unyielding code of honor turns neighbor against neighbor in medieval Iceland.
The Venetian School of Painting
Evelyn March Phillipps
A vibrant survey traces the rise, radiance, and eventual fading of Venetian art across centuries of cultural shift.
Tolstoy
Lilian Winstanley
The nineteenth-century Russian literary awakening transformed European thought through writing of unprecedented vigor, moral urgency, and raw human truth.
A history of social thought
Emory S. (Emory Stephen) Bogardus
A vast intellectual current flows from ancient moral precepts to modern social science, shaping how human beings understand their obligations to one another.
Amenities of Literature: Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature
Isaac Disraeli
Across centuries of shifting monarchs, social upheaval, and evolving dialects, the human mind leaves its indelible imprint in the written word, transforming ephemeral passions into the permanent intellectual history of a nation.
Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their Evolution
Ralph Straus
The evolution of the wheel is a journey from the primitive cart to the refined carriage, tracing the ingenuity, vanity, and social rituals of those who rode within.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Latin Language" to "Lefebvre, François-Joseph": Volume 16, Slice 3
Various
A repository of human knowledge maps the shift from ancient foundations to modern systems.
On dreams
Sigmund Freud
Nighttime visions are not random biological noise, but highly structured fulfillments of suppressed wishes disguised by a vigilant internal censor.
The Adventurous Simplicissimus: being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim
Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen
A young boy raised among pigs and rustic fools wanders into the scorched clearings of the Thirty Years' War, learning that surviving a ruined world requires constantly changing one's skin.
The Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry, and Associations
F. Edward (Frederick Edward) Hulme
A comprehensive study of international heraldry traces how civil, naval, and royal banners evolved from primitive tribal markers into modern national emblems.
The letters of Hart Crane, 1916-1932
Hart Crane
An ambitious young poet battles financial precarity, commercial drudgery, and domestic discord while fighting to forge a visionary original voice in modern American poetry.
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird
A solitary woman on horseback rides eight hundred miles through the high, frozen wilderness of the nineteenth-century American West, discovering an untamed world of mountain peaks, rough-hewn log cabins, and dangerous, outcast souls.
American root drugs
Alice Henkel
A practical guide to identifying, harvesting, and preparing wild American medicinal roots, balancing botanical observation with commercial agricultural advice.
An Analysis of the Lever Escapement
H. R. Playtner
Deep within the beating heart of every mechanical watch lies a complex, microscopic geometry that dictates its life. Mastering this tiny universe requires not just steady hands, but an unwavering grasp of mathematics and architectural precision.
Confessio Amantis
John Gower
A weary lover lays his open heart before the priest of Venus, finding that the true nature of desire is a mirror for the soul's salvation.