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All free summaries — page 321
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 321 of 988.
The case against evolution
George Barry O'Toole
This scholarly critique systematically dismantles the foundational arguments for transformism, arguing that the evidence cited by evolutionary theorists—from paleontology to comparative anatomy—frequently collapses under rigorous logical and scientific scrutiny.
The First and the Last: A Drama in Three Scenes
John Galsworthy
A desperate confession, a brother’s cold ambition, and a final act of tragic defiance collide in this stark, high-stakes drama. It is a haunting exploration of how the law, when wielded by the rigid, can leave no room for the broken.
The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere
M. A. (Mabel Annie) Stobart
A woman challenges the traditional boundaries of wartime service by commanding a field hospital unit in Serbia, witnessing the harrowing realities of total war and a desperate retreat across the Balkan mountains.
The fugitive
Rabindranath Tagore
The universe is an eternal traveler, an "Eternal Fugitive" whose frantic, rhythmic movement breathes life into the stillness of space. This dance of light and shadow, urgency and peace, forms the heartbeat of a collection that explores the intersection of the divine, the human, and the natural world.
The Head of the House of Coombe
Frances Hodgson Burnett
London in the years before the Great War is a glittering facade, a world of rigid social codes and profound human neglect. This narrative explores the intersection of a shallow, beautiful socialite and the quiet, observant daughter she willfully ignores.
The Heavens Above: A Popular Handbook of Astronomy
W. J. (William James) Rolfe
A systematic tour of the cosmos, this handbook translates the complex mechanics of the night sky into accessible prose for the curious Victorian-era observer. It remains a fascinating relic of a time when the universe felt both vast and newly quantifiable.
The history and poetry of finger-rings
Charles Edwards
The history of the finger-ring is a vast, sparkling collection of legend, superstition, and social record. It reveals how a simple band of metal can anchor the weight of human identity, law, and myth.
The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
John Dewey
To think is to act, and to act is to transform the world—a radical shift in perspective that defines the intellectual legacy of a changing modern age.
The Irrational Knot: Being the Second Novel of His Nonage
Bernard Shaw
An engineer and an aristocratic woman attempt to bridge their vast social divide through marriage, only to find that their differing values turn their union into an impossible, tangled calculation.
The Kangaroo Hunters
Bowman, Anne, active 19th century
A shipwrecked family finds themselves stranded in the wild, uncharted Australian bush, forced to rely on their wits, moral fortitude, and the strange, untamed nature surrounding them to survive and eventually find their way home.
The Land of the Kangaroo: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent
Thomas Wallace Knox
Two young travelers embark on a wide-ranging expedition across Australia, documenting the geography, wildlife, and societal quirks of a rapidly modernizing frontier.
The Meaning of Evolution
Samuel Christian Schmucker
Evolution is a process of unfolding, a grand narrative that reconciles the rigorous observations of natural science with a deeply held belief in divine purpose. It frames the development of life not as a series of accidents, but as a deliberate and continuous journey toward higher complexity.
The Metropolis
Upton Sinclair
The gilded promise of a new life in New York quickly dissolves into a moral labyrinth for a naive newcomer navigating the treacherous, decadent world of the ultra-wealthy.
The Old Merchant Marine: A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors
Ralph Delahaye Paine
The story of American seafaring is a forgotten epic of blue water, where a people with a native genius for the ocean once ruled the waves before turning their gaze permanently inland.
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation
Richard Hakluyt
This expansive collection chronicles the ambitious, often perilous quest of English merchants to map the frozen reaches of the North-East and secure direct trade routes to the fabled riches of Muscovy and beyond.
The Psychology of Beauty
Ethel Puffer Howes
The human urge to justify why we find certain things beautiful is a fundamental tension between emotional transport and intellectual rigor. This inquiry bridges that divide, seeking a unified psychological principle to ground our aesthetic judgments.
The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the Second Millenium B.C
Stanley Arthur Cook
This scholarly investigation reconstructs the spiritual landscape of ancient Palestine, drawing upon archaeological discoveries and non-biblical records to illuminate a world of sacred sites, ritual practices, and divine kingship.
The Restless Sex
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
The restless nature of the human spirit—and the specific, often turbulent ways it manifests in the young—drives this portrait of lives in transition. It is a story of how we search for meaning through art, love, and the pursuit of independence.
The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War
Victor Lefebure
The modern battlefield is no longer defined by geography alone, but by the laboratory; this work serves as an urgent warning that the chemistry of peace is inextricably linked to the mechanics of total war.
The Story of the Cotton Plant
Frederick Wilkinson
This book offers a comprehensive, technical examination of the cotton plant, tracing its journey from botanical origin and global cultivation to its systematic transformation into finished yarn through industrial machinery.
The Teaching of History
E. C. (Ernest Clark) Hartwell
This compact guide offers a rigorous, practical framework for teaching history in secondary schools, focusing on the techniques that transform a passive classroom into an active laboratory of investigation and critical thought.
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. I. Being the First of the First Voyage
James Cook
The vast, uncharted Pacific becomes a theater of discovery, danger, and cultural collision under the steady hand of a master navigator. This account maps the early stages of a journey that forever altered the world’s geography.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice
Stephen Leacock
The world stands at a crossroads, caught between the crushing weight of an outdated status quo and the perilous, utopian promises of those who would dismantle society entirely to build it anew.
The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual
Anonymous
This is a foundational 1838 treatise on the art of feminine horsemanship, serving as a comprehensive instructional guide for the Victorian lady. It details the mechanical, physical, and moral requirements for achieving graceful control over a horse while riding in the side-saddle style.
Two maiden aunts
Mary H. (Mary Harriette) Debenham
Two young sisters suddenly find themselves the guardians of an orphaned nephew, struggling to reconcile their own youth with the immense responsibility of raising a gentleman in a changing world.
Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear
Theresa Gowanlock
A harrowing, firsthand account of the 1885 Frog Lake massacre and the two-month captivity that followed, capturing the stark shift from frontier optimism to profound, life-altering trauma.
Wyandotté
James Fenimore Cooper
Amidst the encroaching chaos of the American Revolution, an isolated colonial family finds their precarious peace shattered by divided loyalties, hidden enemies, and the shifting allegiances of the frontier.
Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto
Abraham Cahan
A man caught between his Old World marriage and his desire for an American identity struggles to reconcile his past with his new, fast-paced life in the crowded immigrant tenements of New York City.
A Book of North Wales
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
This immersive guide illuminates the rugged landscapes and dense history of North Wales, offering a bridge between the casual traveler and the complex spirit of the Welsh people. It serves as a compassionate companion for those who seek to understand the storied hills and ancient ruins they encounter.
A Daughter of the Snows
Jack London
A woman of independent spirit navigates the brutal realities and moral compromises of the Klondike gold rush, ultimately learning that true strength requires an unflinching assessment of one’s own heart and those of others.
A Guide to Peterborough Cathedral: Comprising a brief history of the monastery from its foundation to the present time, with a descriptive account of its architectural peculiarities and recent improvements
George S. (George Searle) Phillips
This guidebook traces the long, weathered life of Peterborough Cathedral, from its seventh-century Saxon origins to the Victorian restoration efforts that sought to preserve its storied stone for a modern age.
A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2)
Henry O. (Henry Ogg) Forbes
This volume serves as a comprehensive, systematic survey of the world’s monkey and ape populations, mapping their physical characteristics, habits, and geographical ranges with the precision of a Victorian-era naturalist.
A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House
Jessie Conrad
Good cooking serves as a moral agent, transforming the simple requirements of daily nourishment into a practice of serenity, decency, and genuine optimism for the home.
A Voyage to Abyssinia
Jerónimo Lobo
A Jesuit missionary navigates the treacherous political and physical landscapes of seventeenth-century Ethiopia, documenting his desperate struggle to sustain a fragile Catholic foothold amidst shifting empires and unforgiving wilderness.
After a Few Words
Randall Garrett
A man dons a high-tech helmet to fight as a Crusader, but his true battle takes place in a broadcast studio. He discovers that the most persuasive fiction is not found in history, but in a product advertisement.
An Author's Mind
Martin Farquhar Tupper
The mind of a writer is a crowded, clamorous, and often contradictory workshop. Here, the reader explores a sprawling collection of essays that serve as a confessional, a notebook, and a philosophical inquiry into the act of creation.
An Essence of the Dusk, 5th Edition
F. W. (Francis William) Bain
Love is a trap of memory and illusion, where the soul’s desire becomes the instrument of its own destruction. Two lovers, bound by the echoes of a past life, reach for a joy that leads only to the grave.
Biographies of Working Men
Grant Allen
This collection of portraits illuminates the lives of seven men who rose from humble beginnings to significant achievement through persistent, disciplined labor. It serves as a testament to the transformative power of focused, lifelong industry.
Books Fatal to Their Authors
P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield
The written word is a dangerous tool, capable of elevating a mind to the heavens or dragging its author into the abyss of a dungeon. Those who dare to challenge established orthodoxy often find that their own creations become the instruments of their destruction.
British Airships, Past, Present, and Future
George Whale
Lighter-than-air flight represents a singular triumph of engineering that once promised to shrink the globe through the silent, majestic navigation of the skies. This account charts the evolution of that ambition from early, fragile experiments to the formidable airships of the Great War.
Bullets & Billets
Bruce Bairnsfather
The modern infantryman’s experience in the Great War is captured here not through grand strategy, but through the visceral, muddy intimacy of existence in a frontline trench.
By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy
George Gissing
In these pages, a traveler seeks the quiet ghosts of Magna Graecia, finding that the harsh reality of the Italian south serves only to deepen his communion with the ancient world.
Cool air
H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft
A lingering chill haunts a narrator who has witnessed the impossible, leaving him forever terrified by the subtle, unnatural bite of cold air. This atmospheric tale captures the dread of a man who must endure the warmth of the living world, lest the secret he guards should melt away.
Crescent and Iron Cross
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
Written during the final years of the First World War, this urgent analysis examines the catastrophic intersection of Ottoman imperial decline and German geopolitical expansionism.
Folk-lore in Borneo
William Henry Furness
This collection of observations serves as a thoughtful, intimate window into the traditions, spiritual lives, and daily habits of the indigenous peoples of Borneo. It offers a rare, grounded look at a world defined by the deep jungle and an intricate system of beliefs that govern every movement, from the planting…
Food for the Mind
John-the-Giant-Killer
The art of the riddle is a timeless bridge between the clever and the curious, serving as both a playful diversion and a sharp instrument for uncovering truth beneath the mask of social convention.
French Art: Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture
W. C. (William Crary) Brownell
French art distinguishes itself through a persistent, rigorous dedication to style and tradition. This analytical survey explores how those classic foundations navigated the turbulent shifts toward Romanticism, Realism, and the modern spirit.
Games for Everybody
Mary Christiana Hofmann
This collection of parlor pastimes offers a practical, timeless toolkit for transforming a quiet room into a space of active, communal play. It is a guide to the art of being a host.