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All free summaries — page 440
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 440 of 988.
A Bullet for Cinderella
John D. (John Dann) MacDonald
A man burdened by war brings home a dead friend’s secret, only to find that searching for buried fortune forces him to confront the wreckage of his own soul.
A Bundle of Ballads
Unknown
These verses preserve the echoes of a vanishing world, where wandering minstrels and village storytellers turned the tragedies of history and the whims of the heart into enduring song.
A Gallery of Children
A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne
These twelve whimsical sketches capture the bright, unbothered logic of early childhood, where a simple trip to the beach can provoke tears, a missed day turns into a second birthday, and toys serve as weary confidants.
A Phyllis of the Sierras
Bret Harte
A young English traveler finds himself nursed back to health by a mysterious household in the California mountains, only to trigger a complex web of social ambitions, hidden wealth, and class-conscious rivalries.
A Princess of Thule
William Black
A young Highland woman leaves her remote Hebridean island for London society, only to discover that her romantic urban husband values her as an exotic trophy rather than a living partner.
A Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate
Simon Paulli
This seventeenth-century medical inquiry challenges the burgeoning European obsession with exotic stimulants, arguing that local flora might better serve the human constitution than the costly, adulterated imports arriving from distant lands.
A West Pointer with the Boers
John Y. Fillmore Blake
A American cavalry lieutenant leaves his military career behind, heads to South Africa, and leads an Irish unit fighting alongside Boer burghers against the British Empire during the South African War.
About Paris
Richard Harding Davis
Paris serves as a grand, glittering stage for both the earnest traveler and the idle dreamer, yet it remains a city that ultimately cares little for those who surrender their identity to its fleeting charms.
Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America: To which are added, the conquest of Siberia, and the history of the transactions and commerce between Russia and China
William Coxe
This volume offers a meticulous survey of Russian maritime expansion into the Pacific and the establishment of overland trade with China, charting an era of ambitious discovery and frontier commerce. It acts as a comprehensive chronicle of the eighteenth-century Russian reach toward the North American coast.
After the Pardon
Matilde Serao
A piercing study of the wreckage left by an affair, this narrative follows two former lovers who discover that, though their passion has vanished, the emotional ghosts of their betrayal remain inescapable.
America: A history
Robert Mackenzie
This expansive historical survey traces the growth of free institutions across the Americas, framing the development of these nations as an essential, often turbulent education in the spirit of human liberty.
An illustrated commentary on the Gospel according to St. John
Lyman Abbott
An attentive, scholarly voice guides the reader through the Fourth Gospel, unlocking its ancient context to reveal a deeply intimate, living faith.
Ancient and Modern Physics
Thomas Edgar Willson
The universe operates as a nested system of vibrations, where physical reality serves as only the densest layer of a much larger, interconnected mechanism of life and mind.
Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
James Fenimore Cooper
This tale traces the life of a single embroidered handkerchief as it moves from the hands of a struggling French noblewoman to the vanity of New York’s social elite. It serves as a curious, enduring satire on human value and the shifting tides of wealth.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Various
Great Britain in 1843 stands at the summit of imperial power, a nation of both profound responsibility and restless internal critique. These collected pages offer a vital, unfiltered portrait of a society at a turning point.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical offers a fascinating, unfiltered window into the Victorian mind, balancing urgent political debates on crime and empire against sophisticated, spirited literary criticism of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.
By Desert Ways to Baghdad
Louisa Jebb Wilkins
Unfettered by European convention, two British women set out on horseback and raft to navigate the ancient, fading routes of the Ottoman Empire.
Chip, of the Flying U
B. M. Bower
A reserved cowboy and a spirited, newly minted doctor navigate the dust, dangers, and unspoken tensions of a Montana ranch in this classic tale of the American West.
Cleopatra's needle
Wilson, Erasmus, Sir
Standing prostrate in the Alexandrian sand, a three-thousand-year-old monolith awaits its journey across the ocean to take up a new life on the banks of the Thames.
Common objects of the microscope
J. G. (John George) Wood
A hidden universe thrives beneath the lens, waiting to be revealed through the patient application of light and curiosity. This guide illuminates the microscopic architecture of the natural world, turning common fragments of existence into windows of wonder.
Contemporary American History, 1877-1913
Charles A. (Charles Austin) Beard
This history examines the rapid industrial transformation of the United States, tracing how the shift from a rural, agrarian society to a complex, capitalist powerhouse reshaped the nation’s laws, politics, and social fabric between 1877 and 1913.
Cruise and Captures of the Alabama
Albert M. Goodrich
The Alabama was a ghost that haunted the oceans during the American Civil War, a singular vessel that turned the tide of commerce into a theater of fire and ruin.
Daisy Dare, and Baby Power: Poems
Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
The wreckage of pride and the quiet, persistent pull of domestic love define this collection of verse. Through the lens of a nineteenth-century sensibility, the work explores how quickly human connection can be severed by impulsive judgments and the long, slow process of finding one’s way back to grace.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of restless intellect and deep human frailty, a high-ranking naval administrator records the texture of his daily life in Restoration London, capturing everything from grand political intrigue to the most intimate domestic squabbles.
Domestic Peace
Honoré de Balzac
A shallow social climber mistakes a neglected wife for an easy conquest, only to be dismantled by the very object he uses to seduce her. This sharp study of manners captures the brittle, high-stakes artifice of the Napoleonic elite.
Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 1 of 3)
William Black
A young woman inherits a Highland estate, only to find her earnest, progressive ideals clashing against the stubborn loyalties and ancient grievances of a community still devoted to an exiled local heir.
English Men of Letters: Crabbe
Alfred Ainger
George Crabbe stands as a singular, unflinching observer of the human condition, a poet who traded the romanticized pastoral for the grit of the village poorhouse. This biography navigates the life of a man whose verse captured the stark realities of rural existence with a precision that both alienated his…
Family Limitation
Margaret Sanger
The path to bodily autonomy begins with the courage to seek knowledge, moving beyond silence and stigma toward the practical mastery of one’s own health and future.
Four Months Besieged: The Story of Ladysmith
Henry H. S. Pearse
A firsthand chronicle of the grueling 1899–1900 siege of Ladysmith, where trapped British forces endured months of bombardment, disease, and uncertainty while awaiting a relief that seemed perpetually just beyond the horizon.
Francis and Riversdale Grenfell
John Buchan
Identical twin brothers ride through the high-society world of Edwardian Britain, excelling at polo and soldiering, before marching directly into the catastrophic early battles of the First World War.
Glimpses into the Abyss
Mary Higgs
To understand the true face of poverty in turn-of-the-century England, one must look past statistics and walk the cold, hard roads of the dispossessed. This inquiry bridges the gap between official policy and human suffering through radical, firsthand immersion.
Gold, Gold, in Cariboo! A Story of Adventure in British Columbia
Clive Phillipps-Wolley
The pursuit of fortune on the rugged frontier turns men into shadows of themselves, leaving only the land to witness the heavy price of greed.
Graphic illustrations of abortion and the diseases of menstruation: Consisting of Twelve Plates from Drawings Engraved on Stone, and Coloured by Mr. J. Perry, and Two Copper-plates from the Philosophical Transactions, Coloured by the Same Artist. the Whole Representing Forty-five Specimens of Aborted Ova and Adventitious Productions of the Uterus, With Preliminary Observations, Explanations of the Figures and Remarks, Anatomical and Physiological
A. B. (Augustus Bozzi) Granville
Detailed clinical observations and intricate anatomical lithographs reveal the delicate, vulnerable mechanics of early human development.
Hasisadra's Adventure: Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
Thomas Henry Huxley
An ancient Mesopotamian flood narrative serves as a rigorous testing ground for the intersection of geological science and historical theology. This analytical exploration challenges traditional readings of scripture by measuring them against the physical realities of the natural world.
History of the World War, Volume 3 (of 7)
March, Francis A., Jr.
This work serves as a panoramic chronicle of the Great War’s middle years, documenting the agonizing transition from mobile warfare to the entrenched, industrial slaughter that defined the conflict. It provides a sobering, detailed record of the shifting battle lines across Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle…
Home Life on an Ostrich Farm
Martin, Annie, Mrs.
A lively account of settling in the South African Karroo, this memoir chronicles the daily absurdities and triumphs of managing an ostrich farm with wit, resilience, and a deep affection for the wild landscape.
Home-made Toy Motors: A practical handbook giving detailed instructions for building simple but operative electric motors
Alfred Powell Morgan
Simple materials and a basic grasp of magnetic attraction are all a home craftsperson needs to turn scrap sheet metal into a functional, working electric motor.
In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
A wandering scholar traverses the ancient sunlight of Provence and Languedoc, uncovering the layers of Roman history, medieval song, and local character hidden within the ruins of the French south.
Inkle and Yarico: An opera, in three acts
George Colman
HOOK A young merchant, stranded in the wilderness and saved by an Indigenous woman, must choose between his soul-crushing pursuit of profit and the life that rescued him.
It Could Be Anything
Keith Laumer
HOOK A young man leaves his small-town home to discover the world, only to find that reality is a fragile, hollow stage managed by inscrutable, fluid entities.
Jack Sheppard: A Romance, Vol. 2 (of 3)
William Harrison Ainsworth
A notorious thief’s relentless struggle against the law and his own dark destiny unfolds through a series of daring prison escapes and high-stakes betrayals.
King Henry VI, Part 1
William Shakespeare
A kingdom’s stability fractures as internal rivalries and external losses consume the legacy of a dead conqueror. This play charts the slow, bitter unraveling of an empire caught between past glory and present incompetence.
Leather for Libraries
Cyril Davenport
This practical handbook serves as a definitive guide for librarians and bookbinders seeking to arrest the rapid decay of modern volumes through the use of sound, chemical-free leather.
Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains
Toofie Lauder
Amid mountain peaks, subterranean realms, and ruined towers, hidden forces constantly test the bounds of human greed, piety, and love.
Letters from a Landscape Painter
Charles Lanman
A wandering artist traverses the American wilderness, finding spiritual resonance in the majesty of nature and the quiet lives of its inhabitants. These reflections offer a meditative glimpse into a lost nineteenth-century landscape.
Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen
Sarah Tytler
A panoramic portrait of a monarch’s life, this account navigates the public grandeur of a shifting empire and the private, persistent sorrow of a woman defined by her devotion to her husband.
Many Fronts
Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman
The world of the Great War is captured through the eyes of an observer tracking conflict from the Mesopotamian sands to the high, frozen peaks of the Italian Alps. These dispatches offer a rare, intimate look at the human cost and the strange, mechanical ingenuity required to survive a global catastrophe.
Messiah
Gore Vidal
A charisma that offers absolute certainty about death will always find a mass audience. This sharp, forgotten mid-century satire charts how easily a civilization's spiritual void transforms a simple message of quiet oblivion into an inescapable global death cult.