The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 308
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 308 of 714.
From Sand Hill to Pine
Bret Harte
A collection of short stories set in the American West, exploring themes of adventure, love, and the human condition.
From Slave to College President: Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington
G. Holden (Godfrey Holden) Pike
Born into the soul-crushing despair of Southern plantation slavery, an ambitious boy rises against staggering odds to become a transformational pioneer of industrial education and a world-renowned leader for his people.
Ghetto Tragedies
Israel Zangwill
A heart-wrenching glimpse into the fractured souls of the Ghetto, where devotion to ancient traditions clashes violently with the seductive, unforgiving pull of a modern world.
Grisly Grisell
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A childhood accident with gunpowder leaves a noble girl severely scarred and cast aside. She quietly rebuilds her life and earns her reluctant husband’s true devotion during the Wars of the Roses.
Hanging in Chains
Albert Hartshorne
Long after the breath leaves a condemned body, the iron cage holds its form against the weather, swinging in the open wind above the crossroads.
Here and Hereafter
Barry Pain
Quiet human dramas unfold across English countryside towns and wealthy urban drawing rooms, exposing how social facades crumble under sudden moral reckoning.
History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)
Robert Southey
A gritty, detailed narrative of endurance and strategy, this volume captures the peninsular conflict as a grueling war of attrition fought across shattered fortresses, mountainous passes, and politically fractured halls.
How animals talk
William J. (William Joseph) Long
Two friendly dogs touch noses in a quiet parley before setting off together, unlocking a hidden wilderness of unspoken signals, animal telepathy, and silent natural forces.
Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer
Steele, Richard, Sir
A humorous and satirical autobiography of Isaac Bickerstaff, a physician and astrologer, exploring human nature and society.
Jacqueline
Th. Bentzon
A young French heiress, discarded by fashionable Paris after her father's financial ruin and death, navigates betrayal and social exile before discovering true redemption in an old friend's devotion.
La Grande Mademoiselle, 1627-1652
Arvède Barine
Born into the peak of French royal opulence, an adventurous princess seeks glory and self-determination in a world pivoting toward total monarchy, only to find herself cast out when the political tides finally turn against her.
Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane
A firsthand account of the life and adventures of Calamity Jane, a legendary figure of the American West.
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Annie Besant
A sharp, unyielding legal critique exposes marriage in Victorian Britain as a system of institutionalized servitude, urging legislative reform and voluntary partnerships grounded in strict equality.
My Friend Pasquale, and Other Stories
James Selwin Tait
A devoted friend uncovers a terrifying secret behind a series of inexplicable murders in Victorian London, where the line between brilliant intellect and sudden madness vanishes into tragedy.
No Moss
Harry Castlemon
A spoiled youth joins a band of runaways, attempting to play pirate on the Rhode Island waters while fleeing school, authority, and common sense.
On Horseback Through Asia Minor, Volume 1 (of 2)
Fred Burnaby
A British officer mounts up in winter to cross Anatolia on the eve of war, listening to everyone along the way.
Out of the Hurly-Burly
Charles Heber Clark
Seeking an escape from city corruption, a suburban husband moves his family to a tranquil village, only to find that small-town life brings its own hilarious chaos, quirky neighbors, and unexpected mishaps.
Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus
George W. (George Wilbur) Peck
A boy and his father join the circus circus workforce, turning every city and menagerie into an arena for outrageous pranks, animal stampedes, and accidental chaos.
Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 1 (of 2)
Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
Written from the immediate, electric edge of an unfolding crisis, this contemporary chronicle documents the opening year of the American Civil War with raw urgency, capturing a nation suddenly fracturing into fire, dust, and blood.
Pursuit
Lester Del Rey
A man wakes in terror to find months erased from his memory, pursued by invisible forces through a city that has suddenly become a lethal maze.
Saint Bonaventure: The Seraphic Doctor Minister-General of the Franciscan Order
Laurence Costelloe
A fragile child saved by a saint’s prayer grows into one of the medieval Church’s formidable intellectual and administrative giants.
Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight
John Willcock
An eccentric Scottish polymath spends a lifetime defending his ancient ancestral heritage, writing wild baroque prose, and fighting for a doomed royalist cause.
Sketches From My Life: By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha
Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden
A rogue Royal Navy officer turned blockade-runner and Ottoman grand admiral recounts a life lived entirely on the high seas and at the edge of danger.
Some Reflections Upon Marriage.: With additions
Mary Astell
This work serves as a foundational, searing critique of the social and domestic structures of the early 18th century, challenging the inherent inequality between the sexes through a lens of biting logic and theological rigor.
St. Nicholas v. 13 No. 9 July 1886: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks
Various
An energetic tapestry of late-nineteenth-century youth culture, this collection combines historical biography, adventurous serial fiction, outdoor instructional guides, and playful reader contributions.
Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
Separated by violence, guided by visions, and hunted across the South African veldt, two lovers race against a vengeful enemy to reclaim their stolen lives.
The American Missionary
Various
A monthly record of Northern Christian philanthropy during Reconstruction, capturing the urgent, unvarnished efforts to establish schools and churches for newly freed African Americans and marginalized populations across the American South.
The art of fiction
Walter Besant
A passionate defense of narrative prose establishes storytelling as an equal among the fine arts, governed by strict laws of observation, dramatic selection, and unconditional human sympathy.
The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Second: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Siam and Java
Thomas Wallace Knox
Two American youths and their learned mentor travel across Southeast Asia, recording the architecture, wildlife, and cultures of a rapidly changing world.
The Castle Inn
Stanley John Weyman
An eighteenth-century heiress is spirited along dark roads while gamblers, fortune-hunters, and an aristocratic rogue race through Wiltshire inns to claim or rescue her.
The Cave of Gold: A Tale of California in '49
Everett McNeil
A pair of young ranch boys in 1849 California brave wild bears, crooked gold-rush boomtowns, and ruthless ambushers to locate a secret mountain cavern stuffed with crude gold nuggets.
The Child in Human Progress
George Henry Payne
Across thousands of years of human history, society treated the child not as an individual with rights, but as property, sacrifice, or economic liability.
The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn
William Benjamin Smith
A passionate argument for racial segregation, rooted in controversial scientific and historical claims.
The Constitution of Japan, 1946
Japan
A nation reborn from the ashes of war casts off autocratic rule to build a peaceful, democratic society grounded in human rights and popular sovereignty.
The Courage of Marge O'Doone
James Oliver Curwood
Driven by a mysterious photograph and a desire for renewal, a man plunges into the frozen Canadian wilderness, where he finds unexpected comradeship, a rescued half-wolf dog, and a young woman fighting for her freedom.
The Deserted City
Francis Sherman
A soul navigates loss, doubt, and spiritual despair, seeking timeless love and divine mercy across a architecture of memory and grief.
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Samuel
William Garden Blaikie
A steady faith carries a mother through grief, a nation through political upheaval, and an outlaw through desert caves toward an unexpected throne.
The Gypsies
Charles Godfrey Leland
An observer of quiet roads and vanished trails steps into dark tents, joining a wandering people whose language he speaks and whose world he records with sharp, affectionate clarity.
The History of the Catnach Press: at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Alnwick and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in Northumberland, and Seven Dials, London
Charles Hindley
An empire of cheap paper, ink, and street songs once ruled the imagination of nineteenth-century Britain from a squalid corner of London.
The lieutenant and commander
Basil Hall
A life at sea demands absolute discipline tempered by humanity, bridging the wild unpredictability of the ocean with the rigid mechanics of naval duty.
The Lion's Skin
Rafael Sabatini
An illegitimate son returns to London carrying a Jacobite treason code and a dead man’s demand for revenge, only to discover that mercy cuts deeper than any sword.
The Little Colonel at Boarding-School
Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston
Leaving behind the ease of childhood is never simple, but doing it under the eyes of an entire boarding school makes every mistake feel magnified.
The mastery of the air
William J. Claxton
In an era when rising into the clouds shifted from an impossible fantasy to an everyday weapon, the sky became man's newest arena. This chronicle captures the triumphs, perils, and rapid evolution of early flight.
The mind of the artist
Unknown
Art is not a matter of random whimsy, but a deliberate visual language shaped by rigid practice and keen observation. This volume gathers centuries of working painters and sculptors to explain how masterworks are built from life and mind.
The Mississippi Bubble: How the Star of Good Fortune Rose and Set and Rose Again, by a Woman's Grace, for One John Law of Lauriston
Emerson Hough
Gambling debts, a fatal duel in the dark, and a daring escape from Newgate send a brilliant Scotsman fleeing across the Atlantic, where the vast wilderness of the Mississippi inspires the grandest financial scheme in history.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Other Poems: Every Boy's Library
Robert Browning
A collection of verse that breathes life into the past, turning moments of legend and history into sharp, urgent dramas. These poems challenge the reader to weigh the cost of courage against the burden of human frailty.
The progress of the marbling art, from technical scientific principles
Josef Halfer
A comprehensive guide to the art of marbling, exploring its history, techniques, and scientific principles.
The Rotifers
Robert Abernathy
A young boy gazes into a brand-new microscope and discovers that the tiny, microscopic creatures in his garden pond are staring right back at him with icy intelligence.