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All free summaries — page 449
42,801 public-domain books, summarised. Page 449 of 892.
Poems of Cheer
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A quiet, steadfast conviction that the human mind chooses its own peace radiates through this vintage collection of verses.
Portraits in Plaster, from the Collection of Laurence Hutton
Laurence Hutton
This collection of funerary and life masks offers an intimate, often unsettling glimpse into the physical presence of history’s most celebrated figures. It serves as a quiet, somber museum of the human face preserved in plaster.
Practical Boat-Sailing: A Concise and Simple Treatise
Douglas Frazar
A practical, plain-spoken guide to handling small craft, this classic treatise converts ocean-going experience into clear instructions for navigating unpredictable waters with calm confidence.
Pride and Passion: Robert Burns, 1759-1796
J. De Lancey (John De Lancey) Ferguson
Stripping away the whitewash of moralizing biographers, this study reveals the fiery Scottish poet through his immediate relationships, showing how his stubborn pride and explosive passions forged an enduring national legacy from the ashes of a dying culture.
Prince Fortunatus
William Black
A young man who has everything loses his way in the bright glare of early success, only to find himself when the lights go out.
Principles of Public Health: A Simple Text Book on Hygiene, Presenting the Principles Fundamental to the Conservation of Individual and Community Health
Thomas Dyer Tuttle
Good health is presented as a deliberate, national ambition, achievable through the rigorous application of modern preventive science, personal hygiene, and a relentless commitment to cleanliness in every aspect of daily life.
Prosper Mérimée's Short Stories
Prosper Mérimée
An unsparing observer of the human condition explores the dark intersection of raw passion and ancient, unforgiving fate. These narratives capture the cold precision of a master storyteller who leaves sentimentality at the door.
School History of North Carolina
John W. (John Wheeler) Moore
Across three centuries of hardship, conflict, and quiet growth, a Southern colony transforms into a self-governing American state.
Some Roundabout Papers
William Makepeace Thackeray
A whimsical journey through life's oddities, penned by a master of wit and satire.
Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean on board an American frigate
Nathaniel Parker Willis
A captivating journey through the Mediterranean, blending history, culture, and personal adventure aboard an American frigate.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A collection of essays, stories, and poems from 1858, offering a window into American literature, art, and politics of the time.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This May 1864 issue of the premier American monthly offers a vivid snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual life, moving seamlessly between Arctic travel, Civil War history, agrarian philosophy, and cutting-edge industrial technology.
The Attic theatre
A. E. (Arthur Elam) Haigh
Deep within the slope of the Acropolis, masked citizens once sat beneath an open sky to watch gods hover on wooden cranes and tragic heroes fall. Arthur Elam Haigh recovers the lost physical architecture of ancient Greek drama, rebuilding the stage from stone fragments and forgotten records.
The Bandbox
Louis Joseph Vance
Mistaken identities and a high-society jewel heist spark a breathless chase across the Atlantic and through the shadows of Manhattan.
The Black Hills, Mid-Continent Resort
Albert N. (Albert Nathaniel) Williams
A jagged dome of ancient granite rises above the South Dakota plains, holding centuries of native reverence, frantic gold rushes, and carefully built modern resorts within its shadow.
The Bondwoman
Marah Ellis Ryan
A hidden heritage, a secret espionage mission, and a web of aristocratic deceit collide across European salons and plantation parlors as the American Civil War fractures the nation.
The Broken Sword
D. Worthington
A Southern plantation family struggles to maintain its ancestral home amid the systemic chaos and social upheaval of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
The Camerons of Highboro
Beth Bradford Gilchrist
When her father leaves for wartime duty in France, a self-absorbed city teenager expects to coast through a luxurious year with friends. Instead, she finds herself stranded on a remote Vermont farm, forced to trade her silk gowns for farm chores and learn what real courage looks like.
The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow
Auguste Groner
A trail of blood and broken glass in the snow leads an unassuming Austrian detective to a desperate message from a trapped heiress.
The Centralia Conspiracy
Ralph Chaplin
Industrial loggers in the Pacific Northwest fight back when an armed mob attempts to destroy their union hall, triggering a deadly town raid and a brutal campaign of vigilante retaliation.
The Crucial Moment: 1911
Charles Egbert Craddock
A sudden argument over a flawed levee survey explodes into a fatal gunshot, launching a desperate fugitive across a flooded delta landscape.
The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck: A Scandal of the XVIIth Century
Thomas Longueville
Forced as a young girl into a loveless match by political ambition, an English noblewoman spends decades evading royal decrees, imprisonment, and accusations of sorcery to claim her own life.
The Dove in the Eagle's Nest
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A gentle burgher girl enters a ruthless robber-baron’s fortress, bearing quiet grace into a world ruled by blood, greed, and the law of the fist.
The Fortunes of Oliver Horn
Francis Hopkinson Smith
Youthful ambition, artistic passion, and regional pride collision with old-world traditions as a young Southerner ventures North to pursue his dreams.
The Heads of Apex
George Henry Weiss
Desperate down-and-out veterans in Depression-era New York accept a shadowy job offer that plunges them far beneath the ocean floor into a hidden world of ancient tech and immortal horrors.
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. 7: Quebec, Hurons, Cape Breton, 1634-1635
Unknown
A Jesuit missionary endures freeze, smoke, and hostility while wandering the Canadian winter wilderness with an Indigenous band, fighting for survival and souls in an unyielding landscape.
The Jews among the Greeks and Romans
Max Radin
When the ancient Mediterranean world collided with Jewish monotheism, the resulting encounter shaped the course of Western civilization through centuries of fascination, friction, and intellectual exchange.
The lives of celebrated travellers, Vol. 1. (of 3)
James Augustus St. John
A panoramic, clear-eyed journey across medieval and early modern travel writing, this anthology captures the raw edge of global exploration before the modern era.
The Luck of the Dudley Grahams: As Related in Extracts from Elizabeth Graham's Diary
Alice Calhoun Haines
A fatherless family in turn-of-the-century New York tries to keep their household afloat through a series of chaotic misadventures and unexpected windfalls.
The memoirs of Philip de Commines, Lord of Argenton, Volume 1 (of 2)
Philippe de Commynes
A statesman steps away from the gaming table of European politics to explain how kings really govern, blundering through pride, buying off rivals, and mistaking their own appetites for the will of God.
The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism: A Symphony
D. M. (Dawsonne Melanchthon) Strong
A shared thread of mystical insight binds the founders of Christianity and Buddhism together. Stripping away centuries of rigid dogma reveals an underlying harmony between their core teachings on selfhood, suffering, and the divine.
The Mystery of The Barranca
Herman Whitaker
Two young American engineers battle rugged terrain, native hostility, and deadly floods in turn-of-the-century Mexico, only to find their greatest trial is a dangerous romance across a deep cultural divide.
The Natural History of Chocolate: Being a Distinct and Particular Account of the Cocoa-Tree, its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and Medicinal Vertues of its Fruit
D. Quélus
An eye-witness account written after fifteen years in the Caribbean dismantles colonial myths to map the true biology, cultivation, and medicinal uses of cacao.
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
Charles Dickens
A private marine recalls a tropical island, a treacherous betrayal, and the desperate defense that bound a group of English castaways together forever.
The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 4 (of 5): Poems of mystery and of myth and romance
Madison Julius Cawein
An ancient ruby pulses like a beating heart upon a lover’s hand, drawing its life from mortal blood before dissolving into mist. Across haunted forests and forgotten ruins, spectral figures and ancient gods whisper the secrets of love, decay, and longing.
The postal power of Congress: A study in constitutional expansion
Lindsay Rogers
The constitutional grant empowering Congress to establish post offices and post roads has quietly grown into a vast mechanism of federal power.
The Princess Pocahontas
Virginia Watson
Before history smoothed her life into a single dramatic moment, Pocahontas was a vibrant, restless girl navigating the dense forests and political fault lines of the Powhatan confederacy.
The Story of Sitka: The Historic Outpost of the Northwest Coast
Clarence Leroy Andrews
An isolated timber outpost on the North Pacific rim becomes the tense crossroads where imperial Russia, indigenous Thlingit clans, and early American enterprise collide.
The Swan and Her Crew: or The Adventures of Three Young Naturalists and Sportsmen on the Broads and Rivers of Norfolk
G. Christopher (George Christopher) Davies
Three English schoolboys design and construct a double-hulled wooden craft to explore the interconnected waterways of Norfolk, transforming a summer of outdoor adventure into a lifelong education in natural history.
The Tree of Life
C. L. (Catherine Lucile) Moore
A rogue steps into an ancient Martian shadow and slips into a twilit realm where a beautiful siren serves a unthinkable predator.
The Trial
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A young man stands trial for an uncle’s murder he did not commit, forcing two interconnected families to confront their pride, examine their faith, and rebuild their shattered lives.
The True Citizen: How to Become One
William Fisher Markwick
A structured approach to moral growth helps young people transform personal integrity into active, responsible participation in public life.
The Unclassed
George Gissing
A dark, fierce study of late-Victorian urban life, this novel turns an unsparing eye on the lower-middle class and the outcast, asking how far intellectual independence can survive poverty and moral compromise.
The Visions of England: Lyrics on leading men and events in English History
Francis Turner Palgrave
A sweeping sequence of historical portraits captures the soul of an island nation, tracking its long journey from prehistoric coastal shores to modern imperial power.
The Visions of Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo
A satirical journey through hell, exposing the vices and follies of humanity with wit and moral insight.
The Warfare of Science
Andrew Dickson White
Across centuries of intellectual struggle, human progress has hinged on a persistent contest between open scientific inquiry and rigid theological dogma.
The Words of Jesus
John R. (John Ross) Macduff
A quiet voice reaches through the darkness to remind a weary soul that every trial is measured by a loving hand.
The Young Captives: A Story of Judah and Babylon
Erasmus W. Jones
Two exiled Judean brothers, their sister, and their cousin Daniel navigate moral corruption, courtly intrigue, and spiritual trial in Babylon while preserving their sacred ancestral faith.