The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 573
34,239 public-domain books, summarised. Page 573 of 714.
Sober by Act of Parliament
Fred A. (Fred Arthur) McKenzie
In a world grappling with the persistent social fallout of alcohol consumption, a century-old investigation remains a vital record of how law and public policy attempt to curb human vice.
Squinty the Comical Pig: His Many Adventures
Richard Barnum
Squinty is a pig with a distinctive, permanently squinting eye and a penchant for exploration. He discovers that the world outside his pen is full of wonder, danger, and unexpected aerial transport.
Starvecrow Farm
Stanley John Weyman
In the wake of Waterloo, a young woman’s impulsive elopement descends into a desperate nightmare of crime and kidnapping. She finds herself trapped in a remote farmhouse, fighting for survival against those who would use her as a pawn.
State of the Union Addresses
William McKinley
These annual reports document a pivotal transformation in American life, tracing the nation’s rapid transition from an inward-looking republic to a global power at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Stories of Romance
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
This collection gathers five distinct narratives that explore the intensity of human desire, the pull of the mysterious, and the fragility of romantic bonds. It captures the atmosphere of nineteenth-century storytelling, where the stakes of the heart are often measured against life-or-death circumstances.
Syd Belton: The Boy Who Would Not Go to Sea
George Manville Fenn
A young boy resists his family’s naval legacy, only to discover that his true calling—and his survival—depends on the very skills he once sought to avoid.
The Adventurers of England on Hudson Bay: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North
Agnes C. Laut
The quest for the North-West Passage inadvertently birthed a vast, rugged empire defined by the relentless pursuit of beaver pelts. This chronicle traces the rise of the Hudson’s Bay Company as it transformed from a speculative venture into a dominant, often ruthless, feudal power in the North.
The art of glass-blowing
T.-P. Danger
Mastering the art of shaped glass requires only patience, a steady flame, and an understanding of physical principles.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This volume captures the intellectual and political pulse of 1863, blending immediate commentary on the American Civil War with literary essays, travel sketches, and historical inquiries. It serves as a vivid time capsule of mid-nineteenth-century thought.
The Barrier
Rex Beach
This adventure story follows the lives of inhabitants in a remote Yukon trading post, where the discovery of gold disrupts a fragile, isolated peace and forces characters to confront long-buried secrets. It is a tale of love, race, and the moral boundaries defining a frontier society.
The Bellman Book of Fiction, 1906-1919
Unknown
This collection serves as a preserved window into the sensibilities of an era, gathering diverse voices from the pages of a defunct but once-beloved literary magazine. It offers a mosaic of human experience, ranging from the domestic struggles of the impoverished to the stark realities of maritime life and the…
The book of topiary
Charles H. Curtis
The art of topiary is a testament to the human desire to impose order and imagination upon the natural world, transforming living foliage into enduring, sculptural forms.
The Boy Fortune Hunters in China
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A group of young adventurers travels into the heart of a remote Chinese province to fulfill a dying prince's final wish, only to become entangled in a lethal struggle for ancient, hidden wealth.
The Brown Study
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
A man chooses to exchange the comforts of an elite urban parish for a life of modest service, only to find that his true challenge lies in remaining faithful to his own sense of purpose.
The Cabman's Story: The Mysteries of a London 'Growler'
Arthur Conan Doyle
A veteran London cabman shares his dark, hidden history with a passenger during a holiday outing. These tales reveal the city’s shadows from the unique, mobile perspective of a driver who has seen it all.
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, January 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This document serves as a window into the late 19th-century American commitment to self-improvement, offering a structured curriculum of history, literature, theology, and science designed to cultivate the mind and elevate the spirit.
The Child Wife
Mayne Reid
This romantic adventure follows an American soldier’s pursuit of love and political freedom across two continents, ending in the quiet sanctuary of a hard-won marriage.
The Common Objects of the Country
J. G. (John George) Wood
The natural world is not a distant spectacle but a vibrant, living neighbor, waiting to be understood by anyone who takes the time to truly look.
The fate of Fenella
Unknown
An estranged couple’s volatile past ignites a trail of jealousy, suspicion, and near-fatal misadventures spanning the Atlantic, leaving their fragile reconciliation dangling by a thread.
The Five Nations, Volume I
Rudyard Kipling
The world is a vast, dangerous, and exhilarating stage where the strength of human character is measured against the indifference of nature and the heavy weight of duty. This collection of verse captures the pulse of an expanding global empire at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Garret and the Garden
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A rugged Scottish traveler descends into London’s urban wilderness, where he discovers a hidden sanctuary on a rooftop and a web of intrigue involving an elderly nurse, a streetwise orphan, and a corrupt lawyer.
The Geological History of Fossil Butte National Monument and Fossil Basin
Paul O. (Paul Orman) McGrew
Fifty million years ago, a subtropical lake system covered southwestern Wyoming, creating a fossil-rich landscape that reveals the dramatic transformation of the American West.
The Golden Rock
Ernest Glanville
The legacy of an old hunter leads two companions into the heart of Africa, where they confront shifting loyalties, tribal warfare, and the heavy toll of obsession.
The Guns of Europe
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
The outbreak of the First World War signals the end of an era, forcing a young man into a sudden, perilous transition from a spectator of history to a participant in its most violent chapter.
The Illustrated Works of Gordon Home: A Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions
Gordon Home
This comprehensive index serves as a foundational roadmap to the illustrated travel and historical writings of a dedicated chronicler of the English landscape and the neighboring Norman coast. It provides a structured entry point into a body of work that captures the architectural, geological, and cultural heritage…
The Jumble Book of Rhymes: Recited by the Jumbler
Frank R. Heine
This collection of lighthearted, occasional verse captures the spirit of a man navigating the joys and absurdities of early 20th-century American life. It is an unpretentious, conversational work that treats its own lack of high-mindedness as its primary virtue.
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844: Volume 23, Number 2
Various
This volume is a vibrant, eclectic mosaic of 1840s American intellectual life, capturing the era’s restless curiosity through travelogues, literary criticism, and sharp social commentary. It offers a rare, immersive window into the preoccupations of the antebellum public.
The Lake
George Moore
A restless Irish priest grapples with the suffocating silence of his vocation, eventually finding that the only way to save his soul is to abandon the life he spent decades building.
The Memoirs of Charles-Lewis, Baron de Pollnitz, Volume IV: Being the Observations He Made in His Late Travels from Prussia thro' Germany, Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England, &C. in Letters to His Friend. Discovering Not Only the Present State of the Chief Cities and Towns
Pöllnitz, Karl Ludwig, Freiherr von
A restless nobleman wanders across early eighteenth-century Europe, documenting the shifting alliances of kings and the hidden lives of cities in a series of candid, observant letters.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 288, Supplementary Number
Various
This volume serves as a curated anthology and critical digest of the burgeoning "Annual" literature of 1828. It offers a cross-section of British intellectual life, blending poetry, moral fables, and lighthearted commentary on contemporary habits.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 341, November 15, 1828
Various
This curated miscellany captures the restless intellectual curiosity of 1828, blending antiquarian discovery with the era’s burgeoning fascination for fine art, social philosophy, and the rapid pace of change.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832
Various
This collection offers a vibrant, eclectic window into the nineteenth-century world, blending historical reflection, travel discovery, and high-seas adventure into a singular, kaleidoscopic portrait of a vanished era.
The Motor Boys in the Clouds
Clarence Young
Three inseparable friends trade their motorcars and boats for a daring flight into the clouds, encountering mechanical peril, hostile rivals, and the unpredictable mysteries of the early age of aviation.
The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825
Gordon Sellar
This account captures the raw, arduous reality of early nineteenth-century emigration, tracing a journey from the loss of a father at Waterloo to the quiet, back-breaking labor of carving a home from the Canadian wilderness. It is a testament to the resilience of those who traded the injustices of the Old World for…
The Pansy Magazine, April 1886
Various
This collection of short stories, educational sketches, and correspondence captures the moral instruction and domestic life of Victorian-era American youth. It functions as both a literary miscellany and a cultural mirror of 1880s Sunday school pedagogy.
The Princess Galva: A Romance
David Whitelaw
HOOK A bored London clerk trades his humdrum existence for a high-stakes conspiracy, finding himself the unlikely guardian of a princess and a kingdom’s fractured future.
The rocky island, and other similitudes
Samuel Wilberforce
The soul’s journey through a dangerous world is depicted here as a perilous voyage, where faith serves as the only compass against the crashing storms of temptation and the encroaching darkness of the unknown.
The Servant Problem
Robert F. Young
A small-town real estate appraiser discovers that a quiet, abandoned village has become a literal gateway to a distant alien utopia.
The Sherrods
George Barr McCutcheon
A gifted country boy leaves his childhood sweetheart for the city, only to find himself trapped in a web of deceit, bigamy, and the crushing weight of two competing lives.
The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America
Nathaniel Ward
A self-appointed cobbler from the American wilderness attempts to mend his fractured native country, offering sharp, stinging advice on religious purity, political stability, and the vanity of fashion.
The Spread Eagle and Other Stories
Gouverneur Morris
The lives of the wealthy, the desperate, and the eccentric collide in a series of sharp, observant sketches that capture the restless spirit of early twentieth-century American high society.
The Story of Joan of Arc the Witch-Saint
M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch) Mangasarian
A martyr to dogma, a girl of nineteen, and the shifting tides of historical memory form the center of this piercing examination of institutional power.
The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
A young man of mysterious origins navigates the final, decisive struggle for North America, caught between colonial loyalties and the shifting tides of the French and Indian War.
The Trials of the Soldier's Wife: A Tale of the Second American Revolution
Alex. St. Clair (Alexander St. Clair) Abrams
This somber narrative serves as a moral plea from the heart of the Confederacy, illustrating the tragic plight of those left behind when the machinery of war strips away all security and support.
The Verse-Book of a Homely Woman
Fay Inchfawn
This collection of verses serves as a quiet, rhythmic companion for anyone navigating the relentless, repetitive labor of domestic life. It offers a gentle mirror to the housewife, validating the sanctity found within the smallest, most taxing chores.
The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century
Gerald Stanley Lee
Can a machine age possess a soul? This inquiry serves as the heartbeat of a meditation on the twentieth century, bridging the gap between cold steel and the human spirit.
The Voodoo Gold Trail
Walter Walden
The search for a lost gold mine leads a group of young men into the heart of a perilous island, where they must outwit a ruthless criminal and his voodoo-practicing allies. It is a tale of calculated risks and narrow escapes that tests the bonds of brotherhood against the allure of wealth.
The Winter's Tale
William Shakespeare
A king’s groundless jealousy shatters his family, leading to a long, redemptive journey through loss and winter before grace can be restored.