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All free summaries — page 40
3,125 public-domain books, summarised. Page 40 of 66.
Antony Gray,—Gardener
LM (Leslie Moore)
A mysterious letter upends a gardener's life, leading him to England, a grand estate, and a web of secrets.
Vice Versa
F. Anstey
A pompous father wishes he were a schoolboy again while holding a magic stone, only to find himself trapped in his son's body and shipped off to a tyrannical boarding school.
The Book of Dragons
E. (Edith) Nesbit
Monsters hatch from nursery storybooks, freeze the North Pole, or swallow entire towns, while resourceful children navigate absurd adult authority and absurdly giant beasts to put the world back in order.
True to His Home: A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin
Hezekiah Butterworth
A tale of Benjamin Franklin's boyhood, weaving fact and fiction to illuminate his early years.
The Problems of Psychical Research: Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal
Hereward Carrington
An investigation into the mechanical forces, hidden mental currents, and physical anomalies of spiritism offers a rigorously scientific framework for the unexplained.
At Aboukir and Acre: A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
An English youth finds himself swept into the heart of the Mediterranean campaign, forging an unlikely alliance across cultures to survive the clash between French ambition and British naval might.
Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier
Charles King
Rough, wind-scoured, and strictly observed, these stories capture the routine and sudden violence of the nineteenth-century American frontier army, where personal honor and frontier hazards shape every choice.
Elkan Lubliner, American
Montague Glass
A ambitious young immigrant works his way from the cutting room floor of a garment firm to full partnership in New York’s competitive cloak-and-suit trade.
The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886
Various
Through essays spanning medieval monasticism, French secular schooling, Venetian state archives, and modern Irish Home Rule, this issue examines how historical institutions adapt, govern, and preserve order during times of profound political transition.
Athelstane Ford
Allen Upward
A runaway youth plunges into eighteenth-century imperial warfare, chasing an elusive love and confronting a treacherous cousin across the perilous waters of India.
"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea
Morgan Robertson
A collection of raw, vital tales from the turn-of-the-twentieth-century American merchant marine, where men fight the sea, their captains, and their own rough natures with fists, iron, and stubble.
Little Novels of Italy
Maurice Hewlett
A world of sunlit riverbanks and darkened alleyways unfolds, where passion and vanity clash with saintly innocence across the volatile landscapes of Renaissance Italy.
Demonology and Devil-lore
Moncure Daniel Conway
A global tour of horror shows that humanity creates its own gods and devils out of natural fears, projection, and historical strife.
New York Times Current History
Various
Governments, soldiers, and citizens locked in global conflict attempt to explain, justify, and document the early months of the First World War.
The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura
Apuleius
A second-century philosopher stands accused of using dark magic to woo a wealthy widow, defending his freedom, intellect, and honor before a Roman court.
Demian
Hermann Hesse
A boy's dark secret becomes his doorway into a shadow world where standard morality fractures, forcing him to choose between comfortable lies and the dangerous work of becoming himself.
Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan
Toru Dutt
A devoted wife confronts the god of death to reclaim her husband's soul in a sweeping collection of classical Indian legends and deeply felt personal lyrics.
The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave
George Augustus Sala
A roguish eighteenth-century mercenary wanders from stage-fighting in London to global privateering, French espionage, Barbary captivity, and Eastern exile before claiming his peaceful reward.
The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1
George Warburton
A stark structural divide defines the early history of North America: while English settlers built permanent, self-sustaining communities along the coast, the French erected a centralized feudal outpost strictly bound to the interests of the distant crown.
Mary, Mary
James Stephens
In the tight, impoverished tenement rooms of Dublin, a young girl and her charwoman mother navigate romantic intrusion, poverty, and sudden illness through the protective magic of shared imagination and fierce devotion.
Puck of Pook's Hill
Rudyard Kipling
A chance performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in an English meadow summons a ancient sprite, who unlocks forgotten centuries of local history for two children through vivid personal encounters with those who lived them.
South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 8): From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum of 9th Oct. 1899
Louis Creswicke
Decades of imperial miscalculation, political maneuvering, and bitter territorial friction collide in South Africa, setting the stage for an explosive colonial war.
Footprints in the Forest
Edward Sylvester Ellis
Deep in the nineteenth-century American wilderness, two boys and their native allies search for a lost friend across hostile territory where survival demands constant vigilance and moral restraint.
World's War Events, Vol. I
Unknown
An eye-witness mosaic of the First World War's opening chapters, this volume captures a civilization fracturing in real time. Through official dispatches and raw accounts, it details how grand strategic calculations quickly collapsed into the grim reality of modern industrial warfare.
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
An isolated estate, a decaying dynasty, and a lingering sense of doom set the stage for an unforgettable tale of psychological unraveling.
The Armed Forces Officer: Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2
United States. Department of Defense
Leadership is not a matter of theatrical heroism, but of steady character, deep empathy, and practical competence. Command is forged in daily attention to duty and the quiet cultivation of human trust.
An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises
George Lyman Kittredge
The study of language is not a collection of arbitrary rules, but a logical system designed to clarify human thought. This comprehensive guide serves as both a map and a toolkit for mastering the mechanics of English.
Pharaoh's Broker: Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner
Ellsworth Douglass
A restless Chicago wheat broker abandons the chaos of the commodities market to join an eccentric scientist on a daring voyage to Mars, where they discover a civilization mirroring the ancient history of Egypt.
Tales of Giants from Brazil
Elsie Spicer Eells
A great river, a moon giant, and a daughter who walks the earth looking for her lost mother: the Portuguese stories brought to South America took root in new soil and grew wild.
Tom, The Bootblack
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A young street boy works his way from hardship to independence, using his wits, honest labor, and unyielding self-reliance to survive in the city.
Finnish Legends for English Children
R. Eivind
Through the warmth of a hearthside fire, ancient Finnish myths come alive, transforming complex epic verse into enchanted tales of grand sorcery, perilous quests, and the primordial forces of nature.
Self Help
Samuel Smiles
Individual achievement stems not from passive privilege or effortless fortune, but from patient labor, moral courage, and persistent self-reliance in the face of steep adversity.
The Royal Pawn of Venice: A Romance of Cyprus
Turnbull, Lawrence, Mrs.
A captive crown, a court of deadly intrigue, and a young bride forced to choose between the empire of her birth and the island that claims her heart.
Ben's Nugget
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A young miner and his loyal companions navigate wilderness perils, treacherous outlaws, and crooked guardians to secure their hard-won fortunes and protect those they love.
Little Bobtail
Oliver Optic
A poor Maine boy finds an abandoned yacht, protects his mother from a violent stepfather, and stands firm against a web of theft and smuggling that threatens his good name.
The Panchronicon
Harold Steele MacKaye
Flying over the North Pole at extreme speeds, an aerial vessel made of glass and copper winds backwards through time, carrying three modern New Englanders straight into the vibrant, chaotic world of Elizabethan England.
Hidden Gold
Wilder Anthony
A range war brews as invading sheep herds threaten to ruin the mountain valley, forcing a steadfast rancher to defend his home and his heart.
Prairie Flowers
James B. (James Beardsley) Hendryx
A shadow on a man’s reputation rarely hides the whole truth, especially when frontier justice and high-water torrents collide to separate a husband from his wife.
Theaetetus
Plato
A wandering pursuit of what it truly means to know something reveals that defining knowledge is far harder than holding an opinion.
A Simple Story
Mrs. Inchbald
A Catholic priest inherits a fortune and a fiery young ward, triggering a tragic cycle of passion, pride, and generational redemption across two contrasting halves of one family.
Lady Luck
Hugh Wiley
A veteran of the Great War, his wandering mascot goat, and a pocketful of dice navigate a chaotic post-armistice America where fortune shifts with every roll.
The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Robert Paltock
A shipwrecked traveler builds a life in a subterranean realm, marrying a winged woman and raising a family before her people discover his existence.
The Keepers of the Trail: A Story of the Great Woods
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
A small band of young Kentucky woodsmen discovers that a British-led force is bringing heavy artillery into the wilderness to destroy the border settlements.
Kant's Critique of Judgement
Immanuel Kant
A systematic inquiry into the bridges connecting human reason and nature reveals how aesthetic feeling and organic order bind our divided world together.
Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts
Rosalind Northcote
Rugged granite tors give way to quiet river valleys and historic coastal ports in this expansive portrait of England's southwest.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce
A Southern planter stands on a northern Alabama bridge, a noose tight around his neck. As the drop falls, time stretches, opening a desperate path toward escape and home.
Deerfoot in The Mountains
Edward Sylvester Ellis
An intrepid Shawanoe warrior and two young settlers brave unforgiving mountain passes, hostile raiding parties, and harsh winter freezes during an epic overland journey across the American frontier at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Modern British Poetry
Unknown
A sweeping literary evolution captured through verse, tracing a nation's shift from gilded Victorian elegance to the raw, unsparing realities of a modern industrial world.