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All free summaries — page 455
32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 455 of 670.
The March to Magdala
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A seasoned correspondent’s boots-on-the-ground account of the 1868 British expedition to rescue captives from the mountain fortress of King Theodore.
The Mormon puzzle, and how to solve it
R. W. Beers
This 1887 analysis examines the cultural and political tensions between the United States government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, seeking a peaceful resolution to what the author calls a national puzzle.
The Motor Boys Over the Rockies
Clarence Young
Three courageous young friends take to the skies in their airship to settle a score with a rival and rescue a group of long-lost captives hidden deep in the Rocky Mountains.
The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914
Henry George Stebbins Noble
When the outbreak of World War I threatened a global financial collapse, the New York Stock Exchange took the unprecedented step of shutting its doors for months to save the American economy from ruin.
The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 1
R. H. (Robert Henry) Newell
A satirical correspondent observes the absurdities of the American Civil War through the lens of a bumbling, self-important military unit known as the Mackerel Brigade.
The Palace of Darkened Windows
Mary Hastings Bradley
A naive American tourist is lured into a trap in Cairo, where she must outwit a dangerous, obsessed nobleman to survive the solitude of a sequestered palace. This suspenseful adventure follows her desperate race for freedom and the young engineer who risks everything to find her.
The Path of Duty, and Other Stories
Harriet S. (Harriet Sophia) Caswell
This collection of tales explores the quiet moral architecture of 19th-century life, where personal integrity, the weight of family expectation, and the pursuit of duty serve as the primary engines of human character.
The Ring of Amethyst
Alice Wellington Rollins
A quiet, domestic devotion transforms standard lyric conventions into a deep personal sanctuary.
The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns
Henry Charles Adams
The sea is vast, but the waste of a growing town is concentrated; this manual provides the precise engineering bridge between the two.
The Son of his Father
Ridgwell Cullum
A young man attempts to escape his reputation as a profligate heir, only to find himself entangled in a cutthroat railroad land grab that tests his mettle against his own iron-willed father.
The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 2
Ármin Vámbéry
The life of a world-renowned traveler often concludes in a quiet study, yet for one man, the true struggle began only after he returned home to a country that did not understand his transformation.
The telephone
Alexander Graham Bell
This lecture provides a foundational look at the birth of telephonic technology, tracing the evolution from crude musical telegraphy to the transmission of the human voice. It serves as both a historical record and a technical roadmap of an invention that forever altered human communication.
The Theology of Holiness
Dougan Clark
Holiness is not merely a conduct to be practiced, but a profound transformation to be received. This work explores the doctrine of entire sanctification as a vital, instantaneous, and obtainable experience for the believer.
The Third Massachusetts Regiment Volunteer Militia in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1863
Unknown
A quiet determination echoes through this chronicle of everyday citizens who left their farms, shops, and classrooms to preserve a union, recording their duty from marshy southern battlefields to the post-war reunions of aging comrades.
The Thirsty Sword: A Story of the Norse Invasion of Scotland (1262-1263)
Robert Leighton
A young lord defends his island home against Viking invaders during the final, desperate struggle for Scotland’s sovereignty in the thirteenth century.
The true story of Humpty Dumpty
Anna Alice Chapin
A discontented trio of siblings smashes their tea eggs and scoffs at nursery rhymes, only to be whisked away to mend the very story land they disdained.
The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A restless youth leaves his settlement to find adventure in the Rocky Mountains, only to encounter a mysterious, legendary recluse whose true nature challenges every rumor he has ever heard.
There Are Crimes and Crimes
August Strindberg
The line between an innocent thought and a criminal act is thinner than we imagine, and once crossed, it can unravel a man’s world with terrifying speed.
Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures: A Sequel to The Fairyland of Science
Arabella B. (Arabella Burton) Buckley
The universe is an immense, interconnected laboratory, and even the smallest moss-covered stone holds keys to understanding the stars. By looking closely at the world, one discovers that the laws governing a garden are the same laws governing the heavens.
Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2
James Athearn Jones
These collected narratives preserve the foundational myths and oral traditions of various North American tribes, offering a window into a world where the spiritual and natural realms are perpetually intertwined.
Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910: The Site of the Terminal Station. Paper No. 1157
George C. Clarke
This technical account documents the massive civil engineering feat required to clear the site for Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Terminal in the early 20th century. It is a precise, unsentimental record of industrial transformation.
Vera Nevill
Cameron, H. Lovett, Mrs.
A lingering ache defines the lives of those caught in the orbit of a beauty they cannot possess or a past they cannot escape. It is a story of quiet, devastating choices made in the shadow of social expectation.
Way of the Lawless
Max Brand
The life of a young man shaped for violence hinges on the pursuit of freedom and the unexpected loyalty of outcasts. In this classic Western, a protégé of a hard-bitten outlaw must navigate a landscape of danger to prove that his character is not defined by his mentor’s grim design.
What Every Girl Should Know
Margaret Sanger
This foundational work provides a candid, systematic guide to female biology and sexual health, arguing that knowledge is the essential antidote to the dangers of ignorance and social silence.
With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia
John Ward
This is a firsthand account of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, written by a British officer who observes the disintegration of a society from the chaotic front lines of Siberia. It captures a singular moment of geopolitical uncertainty through the eyes of a man caught between his duty as a soldier…
A Calendar of Scottish Saints
Michael Barrett
Across the mist-shrouded landscapes of northern Britain, centuries of quiet devotion left behind a map written in stone, holy wells, and parish names.
A Japanese Nightingale
Onoto Watanna
A young Japanese woman marries a wealthy American to secretly finance her brother's Western education, leading to heartbreak, hidden identity, and a desperate search across Japan.
A Life For a Love: A Novel
L. T. Meade
A high-society courtship turns into a nightmarish trap when a young woman learns that her marriage is the key to a massive financial fraud.
A Voice from Jerusalem
Orson Hyde
A missionary travels across continents to dedicate the land of Palestine for the return of the Jewish people, chronicling his solitary journey through the heart of the nineteenth-century Middle East.
A Voyage round the World: A book for boys
William Henry Giles Kingston
Framed by the dark gables and velvety lawn of an English manor, a boy bids farewell to his family and boards a ship, initiating a globe-spanning trek filled with shipwrecks, wild animals, dangerous reefs, and unexpected encounters across distant oceans.
Aces Up
Covington Clarke
War narrows a young man’s focus to the roar of a motor and the line of the horizon, until the ground drops away and survival becomes a matter of reflex, camaraderie, and sheer nerve.
An Experimental Translocation of the Eastern Timber Wolf
Thomas F. Weise
The eastern timber wolf is a creature of the wilderness, yet this report reveals how human encroachment and hostility can turn even the most carefully planned restoration project into a tragic, cautionary lesson.
—And Devious the Line of Duty
Tom Godwin
When a young Space Patrol officer is thrown into a web of galactic diplomacy, he learns that saving Earth requires more than blazing blasters—it takes a master manipulator who knows how to let others fall into their own traps.
Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
John McElroy
A boy's direct encounter with total war ends in the world's most infamous prison camp.
Astronomical Lore in Chaucer
Florence M. (Florence Marie) Grimm
Celestial phenomena and planetary alignments shape the inner lives, fatalistic choices, and narrative pacing of medieval literature, revealing how deeply integrated sky-lore was within fourteenth-century poetry.
Bayonet Training Manual Used by the British Forces
Anonymous
A stark wartime manual lays bare the mechanical reality of hand-to-hand combat, transforming the bayonet into a disciplined science of survival and aggression.
Beyond the Horizon
Eugene O'Neill
Two brothers exchange their true callings for love and pride, trapping each other in lives meant for the other and watching their family farm collapse into bitter regret.
Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887: Volume 1, Number 5
Unknown
An earnest nineteenth-century thinker attempts to dismantle rigid academic dogma by merging emerging psychological phenomena, brain anatomy, and moral education into a single reformative science.
Chinese recipes
Nellie C. (Nellie Choy) Wong
Simple home cooking bridges cultures through a precise, welcoming guide to domestic Chinese cuisine written for twentieth-century Western kitchens.
Clerambault: The Story of an Independent Spirit During the War
Romain Rolland
A mind swept away by the collective madness of wartime patriotism finds its way back to solitary conscience, only to face the furious intolerance of a mob that demands total conformity.
Diana
Emil Ludwig
A young, sun-bronzed woman travels Europe to inspire men, outwit aristocrats, and live beyond conventional boundaries before yielding to the responsibilities of power and quiet devotion.
Dramatized Rhythm Plays: Mother Goose and Traditional
John N. Richards
Playful routines turn classroom desks and open floor spaces into active stages for early childhood physical education.
Dynamite Stories, and Some Interesting Facts About Explosives
Hudson Maxim
A stick of dynamite is just inert clay until someone forgets where they put it, thaws it on a stove, or hits it with a hammer.
Essays in Liberalism: Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the
Various
A post-war vision for national renewal emerges through rigorous debate, turning away from imperial bluster and towards domestic reform, sound finance, and global cooperation.
Family Pride
Mary Jane Holmes
When a gentle New England girl marries into a haughty urban family, the clashes of class, secrets, and pride threaten to shatter every heart involved.
Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America
Susan Fenimore Cooper
A defense of traditional female roles argues that true social elevation stems from moral influence and Christian duty rather than the political ballot.
Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours: With a Discussion of Aircraft in Commerce and Transportation
Brown, Arthur Whitten, Sir
Crossing the vast expanse of the North Atlantic by air was once a perilous leap into the unknown, executed inside a drafty cockpit above freezing ocean waves.
Foods
Susanna Cocroft
Susanna Cocroft frames physical vitality as a personal duty, arguing that a clear understanding of digestives and food chemistry grants complete control over human health.