The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 57
3,125 public-domain books, summarised. Page 57 of 66.
On the Sublime
active 1st century Longinus
This inquiry into the nature of literary greatness explores the elusive quality that elevates writing from mere competence to the sublime. It remains a foundational text for understanding how language can transcend the rational to stir the human spirit.
G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study
Julius West
A vigorous, contemporary appraisal of a literary provocateur who defied the cynicism of his era through paradox, pugnacity, and a staunch, often maddening, defense of tradition.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
This collection of works serves as a comprehensive gateway into the mind of a Victorian wit, gathering the plays, essays, fables, and poetry that defined his turbulent literary legacy.
My Life and Work
Henry Ford
The future belongs to those who view industry as a mechanism for public service rather than a theater for private greed. This account outlines the philosophy behind an industrial revolution that fundamentally reshaped modern life.
A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London
Daniel Defoe
A haunting, granular account of life under lockdown, this narrative captures the chilling stillness and sudden terror of a city trapped by an invisible, lethal enemy.
God's Plan with Men
T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
The path to understanding the divine lies in recognizing the necessity of both justice and love, a balance that offers the only viable hope for the human soul.
The eternal moment, and other stories
E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster
The modern world threatens to swallow the individual, yet beneath the surface of our rigid conventions, the spirit occasionally breaks through into a moment of perfect, terrifying clarity.
Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I
Xueqin Cao
A gilded household in Qing-dynasty China unravels from within as its spoiled heir retreats into a world of poetry, dreams, and doomed youthful attachments.
The sound and the fury
William Faulkner
The decline of a once-proud Southern family unfolds through the fractured, subjective memories of its surviving members. It is a haunting exploration of how the past exerts a relentless, destructive gravity upon the present.
The Song of Hiawatha
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
HOOK A visionary leader rises from the Great Lakes to unite his people, master the natural world, and eventually witness the inevitable twilight of his own culture.
A sailor's lass
Emma Leslie
A rough-hewn fisherman pulls a mysterious, water-logged bundle from the sea during a violent storm, discovering a young child who will eventually change the course of his struggling family’s life.
Alice's Adventures Under Ground: Being a facsimile of the original Ms. book afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Lewis Carroll
A curious, dreamlike descent into a world of shifting logic and unpredictable transformations, this manuscript captures the essential, raw spirit of a classic tale before its final polish. It remains a foundational piece of nonsense literature, preserving the singular voice and hand-drawn charm of its creator.
The Book of Mormon
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
An ancient family flees Jerusalem on the eve of destruction, sailing across the ocean to found competing civilizations whose thousand-year epic of faith, war, and divine visitation is engraved upon golden plates.
"The Kingdom of God Is Within You": Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
A spiritual wake-up call, this work argues that true Christianity demands an absolute renunciation of violence and a refusal to participate in the machinery of the modern state.
Mysticism and its results
John Delafield
The study of secrecy reveals a recurring pattern: organizations that shroud their inner workings in mystery often seek to consolidate political power, frequently at the expense of individual liberty.
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting: Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952
Unknown
This record captures a dedicated group of mid-century horticulturalists gathering to refine the art of nut cultivation. It serves as both a technical manual for orchard management and a historical portrait of a specialized American agricultural community.
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee
Jane Burr
A woman retreats to the South Dakota plains to untangle her life, only to find that the landscape of the heart is far more treacherous than the laws of the land.
London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1
Henry Mayhew
Beneath the commercial bustle of Victorian London lies an immense, self-contained society of street traders, hustlers, and impoverished laborers surviving at the razor edge of subsistence through sheer ingenuity and relentless daily struggle.
Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge
Pemberton Ginther
A young singer discovers the difficult path toward artistic maturity, navigating the pressures of ambition and social hierarchy while learning that true success requires more than just a beautiful voice.
The Lusiad
Luís de Camões
A sweeping epic of discovery, this work charts the legendary voyage of Vasco da Gama, blending the harsh realities of seafaring exploration with the majestic interference of the Olympian gods.
Friendship Village
Zona Gale
Friendship Village portrays a small town where neighbors are inextricably linked, finding deep meaning in the quiet, humble acts of service that hold their community together.
New Vegetarian Dishes
Mrs. Bowdich
Providing thoughtful alternatives to meat, this collection of original recipes seeks to elevate vegetarian dining beyond mere deprivation. It offers a practical guide for the late Victorian kitchen, emphasizing nourishment and palate-pleasing preparation.
The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines
George Husmann
The promise of a new, prosperous American landscape begins with the humble vine. This work serves as both a practical manual for the aspiring vintner and a patriotic vision for an emerging national industry.
Sound Military Decision
Naval War College (U.S.)
Success in the most critical of human endeavors rests not on sudden inspiration, but on the relentless application of disciplined, analytical thought to the chaos of the battlefield.
The Man in the Iron Mask
Alexandre Dumas
A secret royal twin sits locked in a damp stone dungeon while his brother wears the crown of France. When ambitious men scheme to trade the captive for the king, empires, friendships, and loyalties collapse.
Fibble, D.D
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
The Rev. Roscoe Titmarsh Fibble, D.D., is a man whose earnest, unshakeable self-regard is matched only by his uncanny ability to attract catastrophe. He stumbles through life with the misplaced confidence of the perpetually oblivious.
Secret societies and subversive movements
Nesta Helen Webster
Behind major historical upheavals lies a centuries-old underground network dedicated to dismantling religious faith, traditional governance, and the foundational institutions of Western society through secret societies and organized subversion.
The Iliad
Homer
A proud king’s arrogance strips an elite warrior of his prize, triggering a devastating feud that nearly dooms the Greek forces at Troy.
Sons and Lovers
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
Caught between a fiercely possessive mother and two vastly different lovers, a sensitive young man navigates art, intimacy, and grief in an English mining village, struggling to claim an independent soul before the darkness swallows him whole.
The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
A fierce critique of intellectual vanity exposes how rare genuine thought remains in a world obsessed with superficial chatter and immediate fame. True mastery demands independent vision, unyielding discipline, and complete indifference to contemporary approval.
Novum organum
Francis Bacon
A sweeping critique of human intellectual complacency lays out a disciplined framework for testing reality through systematically organized observation, experiment, and inductive reasoning.
Jessie Carlton: The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the
Daniel Wise
A bright young girl struggles against her own fickle impulses, learning that true character is built through small, persistent choices.
Patty's Social Season
Carolyn Wells
In 1910s New York society, a vibrant young debutante balances high-society balls, charitable schemes, and the affectionate rivalries of several swooning suitors.
The Christmas Story from David Harum
Edward Noyes Westcott
Generosity wears a rough coat in a small upstate town, where a sharp-witted banker turned horse-trader uses a quiet Christmas morning to settle an old score and rewrite a widow's desperate future.
Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
A philosophical inquiry into art reveals that human freedom requires an aesthetic mediator to bridge the raw demands of physical nature and the strict laws of reason.
Latin for Beginners
Benjamin L. (Benjamin Leonard) D'Ooge
A clear, highly structured gateway to classical antiquity, this text transforms the daunting mechanics of Latin into a logical, step-by-step ladder for beginning students.
Little By Little
Oliver Optic
A working-class boy in a coastal Massachusetts town uses his nautical skill, steady nerves, and Christian principles to lift his family out of poverty.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)
Songling Pu
Whispers of ghosts, foxes, and shape-shifters illuminate the hidden moral landscape and everyday passions of Qing Dynasty China.
Isis unveiled, Volume 1 (of 2), Science
H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky
A bold nineteenth-century challenge to materialist orthodoxy claims that modern scientific discoveries merely retrace the forgotten spiritual sciences of ancient antiquity.
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
A dark, restless imagination transforms everyday anxieties into haunting visions of mortality, retribution, and cosmic decay.
Rollo at Work
Jacob Abbott
Early American children’s literature often paired narrative with direct moral instruction, using everyday domestic friction as a classroom for character formation.
Dorothy's Triumph
Evelyn Raymond
The music of a violin serves as the bridge between a young woman’s uncertain past and her future on the concert stage. Through persistent practice and the support of a devoted guardian, she discovers that her talent is not just a personal gift, but a means to secure the home she loves.
Mind and Motion and Monism
George John Romanes
A rigorous inquiry into human consciousness asks whether the inner world of thought and the physical motion of the brain are two sides of a single, unified reality.
The handbook of soap manufacture
W. H. (William Herbert) Simmons
A rigorous technical guide turns simple oils, tallows, and alkalis into precise industrial formulas. It bridges the gap between raw chemical theory and practical factory manufacturing.
The tale of Jolly Robin
Arthur Scott Bailey
A cheerful young bird learns to fly, navigate his neighbors, and navigate the world without ever losing his inclination to laugh.
The Poetical Works of John Milton
John Milton
A sweeping arc of spiritual warfare, human fragility, and divine reconciliation moves through intricate classic verse, mapping the fall of angels, the loss of Eden, and the quiet endurance of faith.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847
Various
A ambitious Scottish periodical scans the map of global empire, weighing the costs of expansion, the pull of poetry, and the strange mechanics of human behavior.
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
Mark Twain
A famous frontier saga collapses under ruthless scrutiny, revealing how cherished literary classics can fail every test of basic logic and craft.