The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 510
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 510 of 988.
Lady Eureka
Robert Folkestone Williams
In a sprawling 19th-century speculative adventure, a high-minded young merchant sails across uncharted seas to escape heartbreak, only to encounter fraudulent traders, sea fires, and treacherous pirates.
Landscape in History, and Other Essays
Archibald Geikie
Earth’s surface acts as a vast historical archive where natural forces and human history leave their quiet, indelible marks.
Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery: As Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States, with the Duties of Masters to Slaves
William A. (William Andrew) Smith
A Southern college president delivers a rigorous defense of domestic servitude, grounding human inequality in natural law, scriptural decree, and the conservative preservation of the American republic.
Leon Roch: A Romance, vol. 2 (of 2)
Benito Pérez Galdós
Dogmatic piety and social hypocrisy collide in the closing chapter of a broken marriage, leaving two lovers to weigh personal happiness against moral order.
Lessons in Life
J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) Holland
A collection of calm, sensible essays offers a practical guide to everyday human behavior, urging readers to choose self-awareness over pride and balance over ideological extremes.
Library Ideals
Henry Eduard Legler
A vision of universal access to books unfolds across early twentieth-century America, proposing that public libraries serve as essential tools for self-education, social equality, and democratic progress.
Little Folded Hands: Prayers for Children
Anonymous
A delicate, timeless collection of child-sized petitions frames the whole of a young life, transforming everyday moments—from waking and eating to falling asleep—into simple, heartfelt acts of communion with God.
Lowestoft in olden times
Francis Davy Longe
A stubborn fishing village perched on the Suffolk cliffs fights for centuries against its larger neighbour to secure its right to the sea.
Madge Morton's Secret
Amy D. V. Chalmers
Four young women spend a autumn getaway aboard a converted canal-boat, only to find themselves cast adrift on the Chesapeake, marooned, and entangled in naval secrets.
Marion: The Story of an Artist's Model
Onoto Watanna
A spirited girl leaves a cramped home in Montreal for the independence of the American art world, discovering that survival requires as much grit as grace.
Modern Street Ballads
Unknown
Anonymous broadsides gave nineteenth-century Britain its daily news, low comedy, and public protests long before music halls took over the streets.
Mrs. Siddons
Nina H. Kennard
A girl born to a troupe of wandering actors climbs through poverty, harsh rejections, and punishing tours to become the undisputed queen of English tragedy.
My Private Menagerie: from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19
Théophile Gautier
When the young French Romantic writer Théophile Gautier took in his first pets, he could not have anticipated that his Paris home would eventually harbor generations of cats, performing dogs, and carriage horses.
Notes and Queries, Number 169, January 22, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
An obscure phrase or forgotten historical detail leads to an immediate exchange of letters, theories, and corrections among curious readers. Through thousands of short entries, a vibrant network of nineteenth-century researchers brings forgotten literature, folk customs, and local history to life.
Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere
John Willis Clark
Behind the solemn facades of nineteenth-century Cambridge, brilliant minds bickered over college rules, mapped the stars, translated ancient texts, and built the intellectual foundations of the modern world.
Old New Zealand: Being Incidents of Native Customs and Character in the Old Times
Frederick Edward Maning
A young Irishman steps ashore into a nineteenth-century tribal world where every stranger is either a prized guest, a target for extortion, or a future meal.
Old Plantation Days: Being Recollections of Southern Life Before the Civil War
N. B. (Nancy Bostick) De Saussure
A quiet home, a vast network of fields, and an entire social order dissolve almost overnight into flight, smoke, and memory.
Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
The deepest yearnings of the human heart cannot be satisfied by cold intellectual logic alone; true spiritual liberation requires breaking down the cursed barriers of egoism to unlock universal sympathy.
Paste Jewels
John Kendrick Bangs
Young, hopelessly sweet, and completely outmatched by their own domestic staff, a suburban couple learns that running a household requires far more than good intentions.
Phronsie Pepper
Margaret Sidney
The final chapter of a beloved family saga, this volume follows the youngest Pepper sibling as she blossoms into adulthood, navigates a whirlwind romance, and brings her childhood story to a graceful, definitive close.
Prince Charlie
Burford Delannoy
A small seaside town, a web of silent assumptions, and a writer who mistake a child's devoted mother for a woman of loose morals.
Roger Williams, Prophet and Pioneer of Soul-Liberty
Arthur Barsazou Strickland
A stubborn Puritan minister is banished into a freezing wilderness, only to transform his exile into the founding vision of American religious freedom.
Roma beata
Maud Howe Elliott
A vibrant mosaic of daily life and quiet wonders unfolds through an artist's eyes across the light-drenched squares of turn-of-the-century Italy.
Sand and Canvas: Narrative of adventures in Egypt with a sojourn among the artists in Rome
Samuel Bevan
A sudden leap from London’s yellow fog to the desert air of Egypt begins an unpretentious journey across the Mediterranean. This volume balances the practical scramble of transit work with informal rambles through Italian studios.
Scott Burton on the Range
Edward G. (Edward Gheen) Cheyney
A young greenhorn from Massachusetts takes a Forest Service posting in the Southwest, where he must outsmart a ring of timber thieves and sheep rustlers without losing his moral compass.
Secresy
E. (Eliza) Fenwick
Isolation and forced compliance turn love into a weapon, destroying the very independence a headstrong young woman attempts to claim.
Security Risk
Ed M. Clinton
A cold war between Earth and its rebellious off-world colonies turns desperate when a bureaucrat tries to recruit the banished genius who holds the key to survival.
Short story classics (Foreign), Vol. 2, Italian and Scandinavian
Unknown
In a world where choices echo past their moment, a single decision can rewrite a life entirely.
Six Plays
Darwin, Florence Henrietta Fisher, Lady
A quiet world of English village life comes to light through gentle domestic comedy, lingering romantic longings, and the stubborn realities of rural poverty.
Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume II)
William Black
A young man's desperate love for an enigmatic woman collides with social prejudice, hidden shame, and the dubious reputation of her grandfather.
Stirring Incidents in the Life of a British Soldier: An Autobiography
Faughnan, Thomas, active 1835-1883
Enlisting into the ranks of the British Army, a working-class Irishman leaves behind rural hardship to spend decades marching, sailing, and fighting across the globe in service of the Empire.
Stories and ballads for young folks
Ellen Tracy Alden
Youthful innocence, historical hardship, and gentle moral wisdom intertwine when quiet domestic moments give way to sweeping tales of courage, duty, and resilience.
Stormy, Misty's Foal
Marguerite Henry
A devastating storm threatens a low-lying barrier island, testing a resilient family as their beloved, pregnant pony readies to bring new life into a bruised world.
Tales from the German. Volume I
C. F. van der (Carl Franz) Velde
The tragic death of King Charles XII of Sweden casts a long shadow across a nation torn between royal succession, bitter political betrayals, and the quiet resilience of true love.
The Adventures of the U-202: An Actual Narrative
Spiegel, E. (Edgar), Freiherr von
A tense, high-stakes sea voyage told from the heart of early submarine warfare, where technical ingenuity meets constant mortal peril.
The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia
William James Miller
A practical guide to the vocabulary and traditions of the Episcopal Church, designed to help everyday readers understand the historical roots, rituals, and internal life of the faith.
The Automaton Ear, and Other Sketches
Florence McLandburgh
A scientist constructs a listening trumpet that captures every sound ever uttered in human history, only to find the overwhelming din of the past driving him to the brink of madness.
The Believing Years
Edmund Lester Pearson
Childhood summers in an old New England town unfold through small rebellions, imaginary wars, and the quiet magic of a vanishing world.
The best man
Grace Livingston Hill
Trapped by a mistaken identity at a stranger's altar, a Secret Service agent must protect a vital government secret—and the unwitting bride who accidentally married him.
The book of The Cheese
Unknown
Tucked down a narrow Fleet Street alley, an ancient London tavern preserves the ghost of Samuel Johnson through sizzling steaks, long clay pipes, and a massive sixty-pound lark-and-kidney pudding.
The Border Rifles: A Tale of the Texan War
Gustave Aimard
A hunter buys a runaway slave’s freedom on the trail, setting off a chain of frontier conflicts where private honor collides with the gathering storm of Texan revolution.
The Boys' Book of Model Aeroplanes: How to Build and Fly Them: With the Story of the Evolution of the Flying Machine
Francis A. (Francis Arnold) Collins
Hands-on craftsmanship meets the dawn of aviation in a book that transforms the sky from a distant spectator sport into an open-air workshop for young minds.
The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz
Frank Fowler
Stepping straight into the shadow of the 1914 Vera Cruz occupation, three American teenagers navigate Mexican revolutionists, lost gold, and wartime chaotic intrigue across a landscape of runaway railroad cars and hidden mountain fortresses.
The Cave in the Mountain: A Sequel to In the Pecos Country
Edward Sylvester Ellis
Trapped in subterranean darkness with hostile Apaches watching the surface, two companions must outwit an unforgiving landscape to reach safety.
The Celtic Magazine, Vol. I, No. VI, April 1876: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad
Various
Voices of historic grief, cultural pride, and linguistic advocacy echo across the centuries to defend a living Highland heritage.
The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine Building
W. R. (William Richard) Lethaby
A soaring dome hangs above light-flooded marbles to create the supreme monument of the Christian world, preserving its structural brilliance through centuries of transformation.
The crisis
Various
A vital historical document captures the early twentieth-century struggle for Black civil rights through journalism, critical essays, political reports, and community announcements.
The Daughter of the Storage: And Other Things in Prose and Verse
William Dean Howells
A young woman stands inside a Manhattan storage facility, trying to recall a long-forgotten childhood encounter while her mother obsessively sorts through old household trunks.