The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 23
1,474 public-domain books, summarised. Page 23 of 31.

The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
Ellen Gould Harmon White
The cosmic struggle between good and evil is not merely a historical record but a living drama, and you are cast in a leading role.

The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3): 1809-1859
John Morley
Born into the rigid hierarchies of the early nineteenth century, a young man of boundless energy and profound theological intensity navigates the treacherous currents of British governance to reshape the nation’s soul.

The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
The wanderer seeks in stone and sky a mirror for a restless soul, finding that while empires crumble into dust, the ache of human longing remains the only constant under the sun.

Werwolves
Elliott O'Donnell
Deep in the shadows of folklore, there exists a hunger that refuses to remain human. This exploration of the lycanthropic tradition traces the beast from ancient myth into the cold, modern light of the early twentieth century.

The Antichrist
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The shadow of a long, cold winter has fallen over the spirit of man, and only the most ruthless intellectual honesty can light the way back to the sun.

The vision of hell.: By Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
A man loses his way in a dark, terrifying forest, only to find that his only path forward is a descent into the deepest, most agonizing regions of the afterlife. This journey through the dark heart of the universe maps the geography of human failure, showing that even in the depths of ruin, there is a clear,…

The Big Bow Mystery
Israel Zangwill
A man is found murdered in a locked room with no way in or out. The mystery of his death becomes an obsession for a city, a puzzle for the police, and a dark game for one man.

The Story of the Greeks
H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber
The ancient world lives through its legends, where gods and men collide, and the choices of a single king can alter the course of history for centuries to come.

The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870
Charles Dickens
Behind the public mask of the Victorian literary titan lies a restless, weary, and deeply observant man navigating the sunset of his life. These letters trace the final thirteen years of a relentless creative engine, chronicling a journey from the domestic sanctuary of Gad’s Hill to the exhausting, intoxicating…

The Task of Social Hygiene
Havelock Ellis
To improve society is not to force it into a rigid mold, but to foster the conditions where human life can expand, flourish, and achieve a newfound freedom from outdated, restrictive traditions.

History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens
George Washington Williams
A history of a people’s resilience, this account traces the long, arduous path from the shackles of slavery to the hard-won dignity of American citizenship and service.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
The world is not always as it seems, and sometimes, the only way to find out what lies beneath the surface is to follow a rabbit down a hole and see where the tumble leads.

The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 5: Poetry
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
The restless spirit of a man who dared to look into the abyss, finding beauty in the ruins of empires and the contradictions of his own flawed, brilliant heart.

Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers
Unknown
A sudden turn of fate can strip a prince of his kingdom or a merchant of his home, but in these shifting lands, a single word of magic or a moment of patience may restore everything that was lost.

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
William James
Discover how the deepest, most private moments of human belief shape a life, as ordinary individuals describe their encounters with an unseen reality that changes everything they know.

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences
René Descartes
To think clearly is to dismantle the architecture of received wisdom, brick by brick, until only the unshakeable foundation remains. This journey demands nothing less than the total reconstruction of one’s own mind.

Humorous Ghost Stories
Dorothy Scarborough
When the veil between the living and the dead wears thin, it is not always a chilling hand that reaches through—sometimes, it is a comedian in a sheet.

Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary
Denton Jaques Snider
A singular, rigorous map of the ancient world’s most famous journey, revealing how Homer’s architecture of gods and men reflects the eternal struggle between human agency and divine decree.

The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
Scholars and witnesses reconstruct a hidden history, challenging the distortions of their era to provide a rigorous, evidence-based account of the African American experience across centuries and continents.

Mearing Stones: Leaves from My Note-Book on Tramp in Donegal
Joseph Campbell
The road offers a singular promise: to those willing to walk it, the landscape reveals not just its stones and heather, but the ancient, quiet pulse of a people living in harmony with the earth.

The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
The world is vast, wild, and indifferent to our comfort, yet within the quiet corners of a riverbank, there exists a profound, unspoken pact of friendship that makes the struggle of existence bearable.

Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record
William Austen-Leigh
A quiet life lived in the corners of a country rectory reveals the hidden machinery behind some of the most celebrated novels in the English language. This family record offers an intimate, unadorned look at a literary life defined by devotion, domesticity, and a sharp, observant wit.

The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2: Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War
John Marshall
A young soldier faces the harsh realities of the frontier, eventually leading a fragile, disorganized army through the crucible of a revolutionary war against the greatest power on earth.

The art of money getting
P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum
Wealth is a machine that anyone can learn to operate, provided they master the discipline of keeping more than they spend. True independence, however, requires a steady brain and the wisdom to know when to hold your ground.

Mansfield Park
Jane Austen
A quiet girl, displaced from her family to live with wealthy, indifferent relatives, learns that the greatest test of character is not grand gestures, but the steadfast quiet of doing what is right.

The Madcap of the School
Angela Brazil
The gates of the Moated Grange hold more than just classrooms; they conceal secret passages, restless spirits, and enough adolescent mischief to test the patience of any headmistress.

Crooked Trails and Straight
William MacLeod Raine
A dusty road holds more than one path for a man looking to make amends, and in the high desert, the difference between a life of crime and a life of grace is often just a matter of who you stand beside.

Reels and Spindles: A Story of Mill Life
Evelyn Raymond
A young girl discovers that character is the only currency that matters when her family’s life of refinement collapses into the demanding, soot-stained reality of a textile mill.

Famous Sea Fights, from Salamis to Tsu-Shima
A. Hilliard (Andrew Hilliard) Atteridge
The history of naval warfare is a succession of desperate gambles on the open water, where the fate of empires often hinges on the turning of a single tide.

Olive: A Novel
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
A life measured not by the symmetry of one’s face, but by the steady, unyielding light of a character forged in seclusion and tempered by the complex shadows of a family’s hidden past.

The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality
Rudolf Schmid
How can modern scientific inquiry coexist with the ancient foundations of human faith? This exploration examines the tensions of the nineteenth century, seeking a bridge between the findings of biology and the truths of the soul.

The best short stories of 1917, and the yearbook of the American short story
Unknown
A snapshot of a nation in flux, these stories capture the quiet desperation and sudden revelations of lives caught between the old world and the uncertainty of a new age.

The conspirators
Alexandre Dumas
A young aristocrat stakes his life on a desperate political gamble, only to find that his fate is entwined with a quiet, unsuspecting copyist and the woman he loves.

A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II
Augustus De Morgan
A curious archive of scientific obsession, this collection examines the persistent, often humorous, and always human struggle to solve the unsolvable.

The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I
Jules Lermina
A shadow of the legendary Count of Monte-Cristo looms over a new generation, where the sins of long-buried villains resurface to test the courage of their children and the mettle of a mysterious protector.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
When the earth splits open, home is the last thing you will find at the bottom of the crack.

The Adventures of Maya the Bee
Waldemar Bonsels
Maya is born into a world of rigid order, but she is a creature of curiosity and spirit, refusing to be defined by the dark, claustrophobic hive. She longs to see the sunlight and discover the secrets of the vast, blooming world outside.

Creative Evolution
Henri Bergson
Life is not a machine assembling itself from spare parts, but an erupting fountain of creative change that constantly defies the static predictions of science.

Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter
Lawrence L. Lynch
A young woman, haunted by a past she cannot escape, returns to the home of her childhood nemesis to dismantle his life with the cold, calculated precision of a master detective.

The Home Medical Library, Volume 1 (of 6)
Unknown
HOOK This guide serves as a bridge between the turn-of-the-century household and the physician, offering pragmatic, life-saving protocols for an age before universal access to hospital care.

Odd Numbers: Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe
Sewell Ford
The city is a puzzle, but Shorty McCabe knows where the pieces fit.

The Diamond Coterie
Lawrence L. Lynch
A cold, calculated robbery leaves a wealthy heiress under suspicion, while a dark family secret threatens to destroy everyone she loves. In this tangled web of high-society crime, the truth is the most dangerous possession of all.

Happy Days
A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne
The world is rarely as grand or as tragic as we imagine it, and in these lighthearted sketches, even the smallest daily friction becomes a reason to smile.

When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine
C. A. (Charles Asbury) Stephens
The world of a boy is a romance still unread, where every field holds a secret and the rhythm of the seasons dictates the true measure of a life well lived.

Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)
Tyrone Power
A traveler’s keen eye captures the rhythm of a young, restless nation, mapping the vast landscapes and social currents of a continent finding its own defiant voice.

A Sailor of King George
Hoffman, Frederick, Captain
A career spent chasing fortune across the waves, only to be met by yellow fever, shipwrecks, and the iron grip of a French prison. This is the unvarnished account of life on the front lines of the Napoleonic Wars.

Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
John McElroy
The silence of the dead often speaks louder than the proclamations of the living, and this account brings the forgotten voices of an American tragedy into the light of day.

George at the Fort
Harry Castlemon
The frontier is a place where a boy’s past can be buried in the dust, but where character is eventually dragged into the light by the harsh demands of survival and duty.