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All free summaries — page 220
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 220 of 988.
Thaumaturgia
Oxonian
A skeptical mind dissects the world's most enduring illusions, tracing how ancient priests, medieval astrologers, and modern quacks exploit human credulity.
The Appetite of Tyranny: Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A home burns down, but the disaster is not caused by the victims' small vices; it is caused by the arsonist who lit the torch.
The Art of Paper-Making: A Practical Handbook of the Manufacture of Paper from Rags, Esparto, Straw, and Other Fibrous Materials, Including the Manufacture of Pulp from Wood Fibre
Alexander Watt
From the precise sorting of global rags to the chemical secrets of wood pulp and bleaching, nineteenth-century paper manufacture reveals itself as an intricate, rigorous science where industrial innovation transforms crude vegetable fibres into smooth white sheets.
The Barnet Book of Photography: A Collection of Practical Articles
Various
Mastering early photography demands total command over erratic light, treacherous chemical baths, and unyielding glass plates. This 1898 treatise systematically dismantles those technical hurdles, revealing how careful discipline transforms unpredictable chemistry into enduring visual art.
The Breath of Life
John Burroughs
A quiet contemplation on whether the mysteries of biological life can ever be fully measured by physical laws.
The Chemistry of Cookery
W. Mattieu (William Mattieu) Williams
An energetic inquiry into the chemical transformations of the kitchen shows how understanding heat, water, and organic compounds turns cooking from blind routine into a precise, economical science.
The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia: An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. Darter
C. Malcolm Watkins
Colonial schemes fade, but soil and shards remain to tell the true history of a failed Virginian port town.
The Fight for Conservation
Gifford Pinchot
Exploitation of shared lands threatens national survival, making wise resource stewardship the ultimate test of democratic patriotism.
The King Country
J. H. (James Henry) Kerry-Nicholls
Across a closed frontier into New Zealand's restricted volcanic interior, an adventurous explorer ventures into an unmapped native kingdom.
The Maids of Paradise
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
A secret agent and a idealist countess clash in the shadows of a collapsing empire, bound by a dangerous hunt for stolen treasure and a shared quest for redemption.
The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence
A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
A masterclass in naval analysis shows how control of the seas dictating global strategy decided the outcome of the American Revolution.
The Mystery
Stewart Edward White
A ghost ship in the Pacific hides a terrifying secret, drawing a naval cruiser into an impossible mystery of lost crews, elemental power, and total annihilation.
The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents
Arthur Conan Doyle
A courtier’s secret marriage, a tyrant’s religious purge, and a terrifying wilderness escape converge in Arthur Conan Doyle’s sweeping seventeenth-century epic.
The Silver Box: A Comedy in Three Acts
John Galsworthy
A drunken night of class privilege and bitter poverty leads to a stolen cigarette box and a single question: is there one law for the rich and another for the poor?
The Wild Knight and Other Poems
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A fierce delight in the physical world fights against modern cynicism, insisting that the ordinary dirt, weeds, and noise of human life are charged with holy mystery.
Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy
A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
Through the lives of six exemplary admirals, a master military historian examines how tactical daring, rigid discipline, and professional character transformed the eighteenth-century Royal Navy into an invincible instrument of global sea power.
A Chinese Wonder Book
Norman Hinsdale Pitman
A tapestry of ancient magic, filial devotion, and cosmic justice where animals speak, emperors falter, and quiet virtue reshapes the world.
A Lute of Jade
L. (Launcelot) Cranmer-Byng
A delicate bridge spanning centuries of song, these verses carry the quiet sorrows of parted lovers, the ghost-haunted ruins of fallen empires, and the serene joy of wine shared beneath a autumn moon.
A practical treatise on the manufacture of perfumery
C. (Carl) Deite
Through rigorous chemistry, historical study, and tested laboratory formulas, late nineteenth-century cosmetic art transforms raw botanical extracts into refined commercial perfumery.
A preface to morals
Walter Lippmann
When the ancient scaffolding of faith collapses, modern individuals face the daunting task of governing their own desires. This incisive critique outlines how to build a mature, self-directed life amid the fragments of broken authority.
A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe
John MacGregor
Alone in a custom-built oak and cedar canoe, a Victorian traveler glides along the rivers, lakes, and canals of Western Europe. Every turn of the water brings quiet solitary reflection, swirling rapids, or sudden crowds of astonished onlookers.
Arabian Wisdom: Selections and Translations from the Arabic
John Wortabet
A single word from a wise man carries the weight of a lifetime of experience. This collection brings together centuries of Arabic moral philosophy, offering timeless guidance on character, speech, and human nature.
Auguste Rodin: The Man - His Ideas - His Works
Camille Mauclair
A painstaking critical study strips away academic convention to reveal how a self-taught, impoverished French master revolutionized modern sculpture by returning directly to nature, geometrical balance, and the emotional truth of living forms.
Biographies of distinguished scientific men. First series
F. (François) Arago
Through personal peril, political upheaval, and rigorous observation, a pioneering French astronomer illuminates the human drama behind scientific discovery, revealing that the march of knowledge relies as much on personal character as on mathematical genius.
Children of the Dawn
E. F. (Elsie Finnimore) Buckley
A single choice can ripple outward to shatter kingdoms or bind lovers across the boundaries of death and heaven.
China collecting in America
Alice Morse Earle
A pioneer of American material culture retraces early domestic life through the porcelain, pewter, and pottery that survived in rural attics, old taverns, and coastal homesteads.
Common poisonous plants of New England
Youngken, Heber W., Jr. (Heber Wilkinson)
Bright berries, roadside weeds, and familiar garden flowers carry hidden chemical defenses that can swiftly turn fatal to curious children and unwary foragers across New England.
De La Salle Fifth Reader
Christian Brothers
A carefully curated collection of prose, poetry, and moral instruction guides readers through foundational lessons in literature, faith, and civic duty.
Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas
William Wood
Through centuries of storm and battle, the freedom of the global oceans has been bought and preserved by the unrelenting vigil of British sea-power.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850
Various
An eclectic snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century thought, this periodical captures a world rapidly transforming through industrial labor, scientific observation, revolutionary politics, and literary genius.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates: Fiction, Fact & Fancy Concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main
Howard Pyle
A grim, authentic portrait of the Golden Age of Piracy, where real-world greed and sudden violence strip the romance from the high seas.
India for Indians: Enlarged Edition
Chitta Ranjan Das
A passionate plea for Indian self-determination, this collection of speeches exposes the injustice of colonial rule and calls for unified national action.
L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas
John Milton
Light and shadow balance each other across the landscape of human thought, tracing a passage from the joyous warmth of dawn to the quiet depth of midnight.
Letters from an American Farmer
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
A peaceful farmer finds his idyllic rural life shattered when war forces him to abandon everything he has built.
Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman
Sarah Grimké
To reduce a human mind to a decorative ornament or a legal dependency is to corrupt both the creature and the sacred design of her existence.
Maid Marian
Thomas Love Peacock
A fugitive wedding, a besieged castle, and a forest democracy bound by wine and archers turn the Robin Hood legend into a witty celebration of freedom.
Myths and Dreams
Edward Clodd
Before logic or dogma refined human thought, the earliest explanations of existence grew from the immediate evidence of nighttime visions and natural terrors. Primitive minds forged the foundation of modern belief simply by taking their sensations seriously.
Philippine Mats: Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1
Philippines. Bureau of Education
Woven throughout the archipelago, Philippine mats transform local palm, pandan, and sedge fibers into vital household necessities and enduring expressions of practical art.
Scarabs
Percy E. (Percy Edward) Newberry
An in-depth exploration of ancient Egyptian scarabs, seals, and signet rings, offering insights into their historical significance, uses, and artistic techniques.
Si Klegg, Book 3: Si and Shorty Meet Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy, Who Relates His Adventures
John McElroy
When two Indiana infantrymen encounter a shadowy spy network in Civil War Tennessee, ordinary picket duty turns into a chaotic gauntlet of backwoods rogues, high-stakes gambling, and unexpected courtships.
Submarine U93
Charles Gilson
A orphaned British teenager in New York longs to fight for his homeland, only to fall into the crosshairs of a ruthless espionage network operating on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Age of Big Business: A Chronicle of the Captains of Industry
Burton Jesse Hendrick
From the ashes of the Civil War rose an industrial empire, forged by ambitious men who remade a nation of scattered farms into a single high-tech titan.
The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales: Including Stories by Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, Jörgen Wilhelm
Various
Darkness, obsession, and fatal errors bind these European tales, where a single miscalculation or buried secret drives men and women toward inevitable ruin.
The Devil's Garden
W. B. (William Babington) Maxwell
An ordinary man’s conscience becomes a devastating battleground when a hidden act of violence unravels his moral sanity.
The Lodger
Marie Belloc Lowndes
A desperate, impoverished London couple unknowingly rent their spare rooms to a eccentric gentleman who matches the profile of a terrifying serial killer.
The Niagara River
Archer Butler Hulbert
A natural conduit carved by glacial retreats becomes the focal point where ancient wilderness, geopolitical conflict, and modern industrial ambitions collide.
The Quest for a Lost Race
Thomas Edward Pickett
A forgotten nineteenth-century theory of origins leads a Kentucky physician on a historical hunting expedition, tracing the physical strength and spirit of his fellow Kentuckians back to Scandinavian and Norman roots.
The Story of Baden-Powell: 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps'
Harold Begbie
A buoyant Victorian youth grows into a fearless officer whose boundless humor, keen observation, and resourceful leadership transform him into an iconic military hero during the siege of Mafeking. <Image alt="Portrait of Robert Baden-Powell" caption="Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell"…