The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 269
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 269 of 988.
Recollections of My Youth
Ernest Renan
A quiet bell tolls from a submerged city beneath the Breton tides, calling a lost soul back to a faith he can no longer hold.
Religions of Ancient China
Herbert Allen Giles
Long before philosophical systems or imported creeds took hold, a personal, watching deity stood at the heart of Chinese spiritual life.
Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
Across the shallow salt marshes of the Adriatic, a fugitive settlement built of wood and mud slowly transforms into an invincible maritime empire ruled by a jealous, self-electing council of nobles.
Sketches of the Covenanters
J. C. (James Calvin) McFeeters
A devotion to divine liberty drives a persecuted people into the wilderness to defy the dictates of earthly kings.
The Appreciation of Music - Vol. 1 (of 3)
Daniel Gregory Mason
Train your ears to hear the logic, balance, and architecture within every musical phrase. This guide strips away confusing technical jargon to reveal how simple folk tunes gradually evolved into the monumental symphonic masterpieces of classical music.
The Boy With the U.S. Census
Francis Rolt-Wheeler
An eager youth tours early twentieth-century America as a census enumerator, discovering that the nation's truest heroes are those facing real hardship in its factory towns, icy frontiers, and crowded tenements.
The Clarion
Samuel Hopkins Adams
An idealistic young editor fights to reform his newspaper, confronting his quack-doctor father, local corruption, and a deadly, hidden epidemic in his city.
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast
William Cowper Brann
A ferocious nineteenth-century journalist takes aim at the hypocrisies of his age, tearing into corrupt politicians, economic theorists, and religious bigots with unforgiving satire.
The De Coverley Papers, From 'The Spectator'
Steele, Richard, Sir
A quiet observer moves through the coffee-houses of London and the quiet lanes of Worcestershire, chronicling the life, oddities, and enduring charm of an old-fashioned country gentleman.
The death's head meteor
Neil R. Jones
A lone astronaut's space car becomes wedged inside a massive, skull-shaped meteor that is knocked off course and sent plunging straight into Mars.
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 1 (of 2)
George Adam Smith
A scholar’s guide to the ancient Hebrew prophets, mapping a turbulent history of faith, political intrigue, and moral struggle onto the enduring landscape of human character.
The Haunted Mind (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A sudden midnight awakening leaves a sleeper suspended between reality and illusion, where dark phantoms of memory rise to haunt the mind before dissolving into peaceful visions of human connection and quiet rest.
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 07
Unknown
A vast civilization fractures and rebuilds across a thousand years, driven by ambitious emperors, ruthless invaders, and the unyielding weight of its own administrative corruption.
The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales
H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen
A mother perishes in a deep glacier, but her rescued infant grows into a fearless mountain hunter, unaware that the icy nature spirit who spared him intends to claim him in the end.
The Kidnapped President
Guy Boothby
A straightforward British merchant sailor accepts a lucrative, secret assignment in Central America, only to find himself trapped in a high-stakes conspiracy of revolution, kidnapping, and political intrigue.
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II
Theophilus Cibber
A collection of literary portraits reveals how the brilliant, flawed poets of Great Britain navigating political turmoil, poverty, and personal ambition shaped a nation’s dramatic and poetic history.
The Living Link: A Novel
James De Mille
Imprisoned in her own ancestral estate by a ruthless guardian, a resolute young heiress fights against a web of deceit and a forced marriage to reclaim her freedom and her family's honor.
The Roots of the Mountains: Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their Friends, Their Neighbours, Their Foemen, and Their Fellows in Arms
William Morris
A quiet valley of peaceful farming folk finds its ancient tranquility shattered when a mysterious threat emerges from the wild-wood, forcing them into a desperate alliance with forgotten, displaced kindred to reclaim their freedom.
The Ruined Cities of Zululand
Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley
An imperial expedition turns into a desperate struggle for survival when an army officer and a missionary trek across the uncharted interior of southern Africa in search of ancient ruins.
The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A summer rainstorm sends a restless young traveler ducking into a showman's covered wagon, where he meets a band of colorful rovers who briefly accept him as their resident storyteller.
The Story of the Submarine
Farnham Bishop
Submerged beneath the ocean waves lies a hidden revolution in naval warfare, where daring mechanical visionaries risked their lives to reshape global power dynamics and rewrite the rules of combat.
The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars: Containing his Life, a Dictionary of the Cant Language, and many Entertaining Particulars of that Extraordinary Man
Unknown
A rogue of good family flees his Devonshire school, joins a band of itinerant mendicants, and turns the art of trickery into a lifelong profession.
The Voice of the People
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
An ambitious boy from the dirt-roads of post-bellum Virginia fights his way to the governor’s mansion, only to learn that political victory cannot buy the heart of the woman he loves or heal a fractured state.
The watchmakers' hand book
Claudius Saunier
Precision micro-engineering meets workshop craft in a definitive nineteenth-century manual that transforms raw metals, mathematical principles, and specialized tooling into time-keeping art.
The White Moll
Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
In the shadowed alleys of New York’s underworld, a woman known for her mercy becomes an outlaw overnight, forced to adopt a dead crone's identity to evade the law and outwit a ruthless criminal syndicate.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 08
Robert Louis Stevenson
A young ward discovers that his guardian murdered his father, throwing his loyalty into chaos amidst a civil war.
The Youngest Girl in the School
Evelyn Sharp
An irrepressible tomboy steps into the rigid world of an English boarding school, turning social hierarchies upside down through sheer honesty and an unfortunate knack for breaking bones.
Theory of the Earth, With Proofs and Illustrations, Volume 2 (of 4)
James Hutton
Earth is an active, self-renewing engine where solid rock continuously collapses into soil, rivers carve valleys, and ancient seabed strata are elevated to form mountain ranges across an endless cycle of time.
What's Bred in the Bone
Grant Allen
Identical twins, hidden parentage, and a mysterious murder collide when an innocent man flees a crime committed by a high-standing judge.
Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony Simply Explained: A Practical Treatise Embracing Complete and Detailed Explanations of the Theory and Practice of Modern Radio Apparatus and Its Present Day Applications, Together With a Chapter on the Possibilities of Its Future Development
Alfred Powell Morgan
A century before wireless connectivity became ubiquitous, early experimenters were learning how to send invisible waves surging through the ether to carry voice and telegraph signals around the world.
Zicci: A Tale
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
An English painter in Naples abandons his mortal love to pursue the terrifying secrets of an immortal Rosicrucian sage.
A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette
Charlotte M. Brame
A baby’s innocent bedtime prayer shatters a father facing ruin, setting off a chain of hidden origins and dangerous passions.
A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium
Hugh Gibson
An American diplomat in occupied Brussels records the sudden collapse of European peace, documenting war through official cablegrams, refugee corridors, and the quiet courage of a captive city.
A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
A young boy in Restoration England loses his father to a Roundhead's bullet, setting off a relentless quest across high seas and shattered battlefields to claim his stolen birthright.
Adam Hepburn's Vow: A Tale of Kirk and Covenant
Annie S. Swan
A child rides a pony toward Edinburgh into a gathering dusk, unaware that the kingdom above her is about to tear itself apart over the right of free worship.
Allan's Wife
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A young Englishman wanders deep into the uncharted South African wilderness, finding both catastrophic danger and a love that alters his life forever.
Anthology of modern Indian poetry
Unknown
Bound by no single voice or province, a vast landscape of longing and spiritual awakening opens across these gathered verses.
Buried Cities, Volume 1: Pompeii
Jennie Hall
The earth opens up and buries a thriving Roman city under falling ash and rock, leaving a young Greek slave and a sick boy to fight their way toward the sea for freedom.
Camp and Trail
Stewart Edward White
A practical guide to wilderness travel stripped of all romantic illusion, this manual offers meticulous advice on gear, pack trains, and camp life for anyone seeking to explore the backwoods safely and comfortably.
Chocolate
Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
A rare window into early modern medicine, this seventeenth-century treatise presents chocolate not as a confection, but as a potent, complex drug demanding precise scientific evaluation.
Cuba, Old and New
Albert G. (Albert Gardner) Robinson
Albert G. Robinson’s survey traces Cuba’s path from its initial discovery by Christopher Columbus to its establishment as an independent nation under American oversight, highlighting its geography, social customs, and economic assets along the way.
Elsie Dinsmore
Martha Finley
Motherless, wealthy, and deeply devout, an eight-year-old girl in the antebellum South longs for the affection of her aloof father, whose return threatens to shatter her quiet life of faith and solitary gentleness.
Every Girl's Library, Volume 8 of 10: A Collection of Appropriate and Instructive Reading for Girls of All Ages from the Best Authors of All Time
Unknown
A rich anthology of classic literature guides young readers through tales of high virtue, tragic royalty, romantic folly, and philosophical quietude.
France and England in North America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIV
Francis Parkman
A tale of colonial rivalry, military strategy, and the clash of empires in 17th-century North America.
From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon
J. A. (John Augustine) Zahm
A journey along the world’s oldest trade and transit routes reveals a layered landscape where ancient myth, imperial conquest, and spiritual devotion continuously bleed into one another.
Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young
Jacob Abbott
True authority over a child is absolute, but maintaining it requires patience, sympathy, and steady consistency rather than anger or deceitful tricks.
Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and Students
J. C. F. (Joseph Colin Francis) Johnson
Heavy to get and light to hold, gold demands every ounce of human ingenuity before it yields its fortune to the wilderness.
Grasses
H. Marshall (Harry Marshall) Ward
A hand-lens and a patient eye unlock the hidden, intricate world beneath our feet, where every blade, sheath, and stem reveals a masterclass in structural adaptation.