The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 277
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 277 of 988.
Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman
Albert Sidney Bolles
A practical 1921 guide to American commercial law, demystifying daily legal obligations for non-lawyers across property, contracts, business, and personal liability.
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
Algernon Blackwood
An old forestry officer's soul is slowly drawn into the collective consciousness of the woods, driving a wedge between his quiet life and his terrified wife.
Beautiful Bulbous Plants for the Open Air
John Weathers
Cultivating bulbs transforms a garden into an extraordinary display of color, provided the grower respects the silent, subterranean mechanics of root, corm, and soil.
Being Well-Born: An Introduction to Eugenics
Michael F. (Michael Frederic) Guyer
A scientific argument for controlling human breeding, this work frames heredity as an unyielding biological law that dictates the future of society.
Betty Trevor
Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
In a grey London square full of busy homes, a doctor’s daughter learns to navigate the noisy demands of family, the pull of quiet romances, and the unexpected choices that shape a woman's life.
Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales
Henry James
Crossed-cultural romance falters when high-born English propriety meets raw American wealth, forcing both sides to weigh social vanity against personal freedom.
Popular misgovernment in the United States
Alfred Byron Cruikshank
A passionate, unyielding assault on universal suffrage, this legal treatise argues that opening the ballot box to the unpropertied mass has degraded American democracy into a reign of corruption.
Scotch Wit and Humor
W. H. (Walter Henry) Howe
A dry, sharp humor quieted by earnestness and thrift runs straight through these short sketches, proving that a serious people still hold an abundance of point, playfulness, and shrewd wit.
Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match
Francis C. (Francis Channing) Woodworth
A varied assembly of quadruped anecdotes reveals how animals think, feel, and act when interacting with each other and the human world.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 81, July, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
The heavy weight of wartime survival presses hard against the quiet longings of ordinary human hearts.
The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers
Mary Cholmondeley
A family legacy of stolen Indian gems sets off a tangled web of deceit, mistaken identities, and unexpected romantic entanglements across English country estates.
The Early Christians in Rome
H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice) Spence-Jones
An obscure, persistent community grows inside a hostile imperial capital, enduring centuries of legal suspicion, public execution, and underground survival until its sudden elevation across the Roman world.
The Ethnology of the British Islands
R. G. (Robert Gordon) Latham
An ambitious attempt to unearth the ancestral origins of the British peoples by peeling back layers of written history, archaeology, and comparative linguistics.
The Golden Skull: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story
Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin
A shadowy figure stalks a teenager across Manila Bay, launching a high-stakes search through the rugged Philippine highlands for a lost tribal treasure.
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05
Unknown
A single city grows to command the Mediterranean world, only to find its constitutional order shattered by the very power, wealth, and military commanders its conquests created.
The Sign of Silence
William Le Queux
A dead woman in a bachelor's flat, a stolen identity, and a trail of poisonous serpents lead an innocent man across Europe in search of the truth.
Treachery in Outer Space
Carey Rockwell
Rough-edged space opera from the early atomic age, where teenaged cadets run radar, balance reactors, and trade heavy-handed hazing between high-stakes rocket launches.
Wee Wifie
Rosa Nouchette Carey
A gentle, earnest Victorian romance of mistaken motives and deep devotion, where lost souls find their way home through patience and quiet forgiveness.
Adventures on the Roof of the World
Le Blond, Aubrey, Mrs.
High above the timberline, where sheer rock meets shifting ice, the margin between triumph and catastrophe is razor-thin. This collection captures the stark reality of early mountaineering, where a single misstep, a damp match, or a sudden roar can rewrite a life in seconds.
Religion and Lust
Weir, James, Jr.
A late-nineteenth-century alienist traces religious ecstasy back to primitive reproductive impulses, arguing that human spiritual passion and sexual desire spring from the same biological root.
Sam
E. J. Rath
A wealthy heiress, stranded on an island in the St. Lawrence River, accepts a ride from a questionable local boatman and finds herself drawn into a web of stolen jewels, false identities, and unexpected romance.
A Popular Schoolgirl
Angela Brazil
An overdue move, a lost family fortune, and a fiercely proud girl trying to navigate high school while keeping her private struggles hidden from her wealthy peers.
A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time
Caine, Hall, Sir
A dark family secret, a stolen inheritance, and a devious double threaten to destroy a young couple’s future in the rugged Cumbrian fells.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Various
An eclectic mid-nineteenth-century literary miscellany brings together European travelogues, Caucasian military adventures, art historical debates, romantic fiction, Victorian science, and high-stakes international trade policy.
Four Hundred Humorous Illustrations: With Portrait and Biographical Sketch
Unknown
A young artist’s extraordinary talent for observation transforms the landscape of Victorian caricature, eventually capturing the spirit of a nation before his own intense sensitivity to the world leads to a premature end.
Gammer Gurton's Needle
Unknown
A lost sewing needle throws an entire sixteenth-century village into chaos, sparking bitter feuds, broken heads, and wild accusations.
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society
Royal Society (Great Britain)
This collection captures a pivotal era of discovery, where the expanding horizons of the seventeenth-century world were cataloged with the urgent curiosity of an emerging scientific age. It serves as a repository for the reports of travelers, merchants, and scholars who sought to map both the physical geography and…
Proportional Representation Applied to Party Government: A New Electoral System
T. R. (Thomas Ramsden) Ashworth
A rigid, two-party political structure is not an unfortunate compromise of modern democracy, but the essential engine of human progress.
The Case of Richard Meynell
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A reformist English clergyman risks his living and his repute to transform his ancestral Church from within, only to face a ruinous public scandal when his enemies unearth a long-buried secret.
The Mormon Prophet and His Harem
C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg) Waite
An uncompromising nineteenth-century exposure reveals the political machinations, total authoritarian control, and structural reality of polygamy inside Brigham Young’s Utah Territory, warning an exhausted nation of a second impending rebellion.
The Myths and Fables of To-Day
Samuel Adams Drake
A dark cat darting across a quiet hallway, a horseshoe nailed over a doorway, or a sudden shiver at a dinner table of thirteen—these ordinary moments carry the ancient, quiet weight of human fear and hope.
The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812
Walter R. Nursey
An undaunted commander rallies a fragile colony against overwhelming odds, transforming a desperate border defense into the foundation of a nation's identity.
The Thames
G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
Bright parasols, painted boats, and dark cedars against a turquoise sky give way to thundering green weir waters and rain-soaked paths as a midsummer journey traces the sweeping curves of England's primary waterway.
The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays
Walter Ben Hare
A collection of festive, accessible scripts offers performers of all ages a clear path to stage-ready holiday warmth, humor, and reverence.
Theory and practice of the confessional
Caspar E. (Caspar Erich) Schieler
A judge, shepherd, physician, and father must walk a narrow, delicate line between absolute canonical rigor and profound human mercy.
Bedouins: : Mary Garden, Debussy, Chopin or the circus, Botticelli, Poe, Brahmsody, Anatole France, Mirbeau, Caruso on wheels, Calico cats, The artistic temperament
James Huneker
An observant critic explores the fragile, brilliant lives of artists who wander outside the conventional bounds of society. He studies the fire and discipline required to turn raw temperament into enduring creation.
Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters
Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin
A frontier chronicle of nerve, gunpowder, and grit.
Claudian, volume 2 (of 2): With an English translation by Maurice Platnauer
Claudius Claudianus
Majestic panegyrics and glowing mythologies capture the final twilight of classical Rome, celebrating imperial victories while painting vivid pictures of ancient gods.
De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars
Thomas De Quincey
A grand historical exodus becomes a theatrical spectacle as an entire nation flees Russian oppression across thousands of miles of brutal, unforgiving desert.
Poems 1918-21, Including Three Portraits and Four Cantos
Ezra Pound
A modern poet wanders through classical Rome, medieval Provence, and post-war London, discarding grand imperial ambitions to capture fleeting moments of beauty, desire, and intellectual frustration.
Sinking of the "Titanic" : most appalling ocean horror
Jay Henry Mowbray
This contemporary account captures the raw horror, chaotic rescue, and profound grief surrounding the world's most infamous maritime tragedy before history could turn it into myth.
Studies in modern music, second series
W. H. (William Henry) Hadow
A deep, rigorous investigation into how technical structure and historical identity intersect to define the highest achievements of European classical composition.
The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use: 'The Strad' Library, No. III
Henry Saint-George
An indispensable companion to the violin, the bow transformed a crude wooden box into an instrument capable of echoing the nuance, passion, and subtlety of the human voice.
The Career of Katherine Bush
Elinor Glyn
A young woman of lower-middle-class origins resolves to rise into the highest ranks of Edwardian society using sheer intellect, absolute self-control, and calculated ambition.
The Life of the Caterpillar
Jean-Henri Fabre
A quiet observer in a Provençal garden watches caterpillars march, weave, and transform, discovering that the humblest creature’s daily routine holds profound secrets of instinct, climate, and life’s broader order.
Travels in Western Australia: being a description of the various cities and towns, goldfields, and agricultural districts of that state
May Vivienne
An adventurous traveler traverses a vast, sun-drenched frontier of untouched forests and roaring gold rushes, documenting a rapidly growing society with keen observation and infectious enthusiasm.
All in the same boat
Earle L. Reynolds
A family builds a Japanese yacht to circumnavigate the globe, confronting unpredictable seas, bureaucratic obstacles, and shifting interpersonal dynamics across years of blue-water travel.
Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self
Marie Corelli
A mystical vision on a desolate ancient plain shatters a poet’s worldly skepticism, setting him on a extraordinary journey across time to confront his own forgotten past.