The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 593
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 593 of 988.
The Attack on the Mill, and Other Sketches of War
Émile Zola
War is a destructive, unintelligible force that shatters the quiet lives of ordinary people. These sketches strip away the pomp of patriotism to reveal the raw, human cost of conflict.
The Babbington case
Nicholas (House name) Carter
The master detective faces his most elusive adversary yet, unmasking a conspiracy of impersonation, murder, and sudden, desperate transformations of heart. In this high-stakes game of shadows, the truth proves as treacherous as the villains.
The Banner Boy Scouts Mystery
George A. Warren
HOOK Three friends transition from childhood games to high-stakes detective work, tracking a mysterious counterfeiting ring through their small town. Their journey reveals that the most dangerous puzzles are often hidden in plain sight.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 26: Ecclesiasticus: The Challoner Revision
Unknown
A profound collection of ancient moral guidance, these teachings weigh the heavy cost of human pride against the enduring, quiet strength of wisdom and fear of the Lord.
The Big-Town Round-Up
William MacLeod Raine
A rugged Arizona cowpuncher arrives in New York City, only to find that the "big town" requires a different kind of courage than the frontier. He soon trades his lasso for a life of high-stakes rescues, courtroom drama, and a complicated romance that challenges his Western code of honor.
The clue of the silver key
Edgar Wallace
A master of disguise and a relentless detective clash in a high-stakes hunt through the fog-drenched streets of 1930s London. This is a classic cat-and-mouse mystery defined by rapid pacing and a series of lethal surprises.
The Electric Man: Being the One Act Version of the Three Act Farcical Comedy of the Same Name
Charles Hannan
HOOK A frantic inventor tries to hide his failed mechanical double, only to have the automaton come to life and wreak havoc in a chaotic race to save his inheritance.
The Faithful Promiser
John R. (John Ross) Macduff
This daily devotional serves as a meditative companion for those seeking comfort and strength by grounding their personal struggles in the reliability of ancient scriptural promises.
The genetic and the operative evidence relating to secondary sexual characters
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Geneticists and biologists investigate the internal mechanisms that dictate secondary sexual characteristics, using controlled poultry breeding and surgical observation to decode how hormones and heredity shape physical appearance.
The Go Ahead Boys and the Mysterious Old House
Ross Kay
The Meeker House stands derelict at the edge of town, its walls echoing with rumors of Revolutionary-era ghosts and modern-day mysteries. Four resourceful friends set out to peel back the layers of superstition and find the truth hidden within.
The great probability of a North West Passage: deduced from observations on the letter of Admiral de Fonte
Unknown
A determined geographer sifts through the remnants of an obscure Spanish expedition, building a rigorous case for the existence of a navigable route between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The Half-Brothers
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
A child of privilege, sheltered by his father’s wealth and his aunt’s devotion, remains blind to the quiet, selfless love of his older half-brother until a freezing mountain storm forces a final, tragic reckoning.
The haunter of the ring
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A lingering curse from a past life threatens a young couple, until a man with a dark history intervenes to confront the occult architect of their misery.
The Keeper of the Door
Ethel M. (Ethel May) Dell
A young woman’s desperate act of mercy to shield a suffering friend from despair sets in motion a lifelong burden of secrecy and self-reproach.
The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 3 of 3)
Richard Dowling
This narrative explores the precarious intersection of artistic ambition, psychological obsession, and the haunting weight of past regrets. It follows the tumultuous lives of two friends whose bond is tested by professional rivalry, personal tragedy, and a dark, lingering secret.
The Literature of Arabia: With Critical and Biographical Sketches by Epiphanius Wilson
Unknown
This collection serves as a vibrant, panoramic gateway into the classical and medieval literary traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. Through a blend of heroic legend, folklore, and lyrical poetry, it offers a window into the values, passions, and imaginative landscapes of a storied civilization.
The Lonesome Trail
John G. Neihardt
A lonesome wind blows through these stories, where the vast, indifferent beauty of the American plains serves as a stage for human desperation, fleeting dreams, and the quiet tragedy of lives lived on the margins.
The Lord's Coming. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. II
Charles Henry Mackintosh
This collection explores the practical, daily life of faith through the lens of a coming Redeemer, urging readers to align their homes, discipleship, and hearts with an eternal perspective.
The Mandarin's Fan
Fergus Hume
A crumbling estate, a missing Chinese fan, and a string of suspicious deaths pull a young man into a dangerous game of greed and hidden history.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus Restored in Conformity With the Recently Discovered Remains
James Fergusson
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus stands as a singular puzzle of antiquity, a work once ranked among the seven wonders of the world for its peerless design. This analysis attempts to resolve the long-standing architectural mystery of its true form by reconciling ancient textual descriptions with the physical fragments…
The meaning of pictures
John C. Van Dyke
These lectures offer a clear-eyed guide to appreciating the visual language of painting, arguing that a picture’s true value lies in its decorative beauty and the artist’s unique personality rather than its literal subject matter.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 556, July 7, 1832
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, kaleidoscopic window into the intellectual and cultural preoccupations of 1832, blending serious historical reflection with the lighthearted, ephemeral amusements of its day.
The Native Races of East Africa
Wilfrid D. (Wilfrid Dyson) Hambly
Anthropological study of the early twentieth century often relied on travelogue and observation to catalog the distinct customs of distant cultures. This work surveys the traditions, social structures, and daily lives of several major East African groups, aiming to bring an ethnographic perspective to geographical…
The Pansy Magazine, Vol. 15, Dec. 1887
Various
A monthly magazine for the Victorian home, this collection of stories, poems, and lessons reflects the earnest moral instruction and lively domestic interests of a nineteenth-century American childhood.
The Pier-Glass
Robert Graves
A collection of verse caught between the haunted stillness of the past and the sharp, bright arrival of a new, unsettling clarity. It navigates the thin partition between the living and the spectral.
The Poetical Works of David Gray: A New and Enlarged Edition
David Gray
A young poet confronts the fragility of his own existence while seeking to immortalize the quiet, rain-washed beauty of his Scottish home. His work remains a haunting testament to the ache of unfulfilled promise and the sanctity of nature.
The Quest
Pío Baroja
A young man arrives in the sprawling, indifferent landscape of Madrid, searching for a place to belong amid the city’s crushing poverty and forgotten corners. He must navigate a life defined by hunger, fleeting ambitions, and the raw struggle for survival.
The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers
Claude A. LaBelle
Three young Maine forest rangers venture to the Canadian border to intercept a dangerous ring of fur and jewel smugglers.
The Rhymer
Allan McAulay
The life of a poet is a tempest, and those pulled into his orbit often find their own quiet paths shattered by the force of his genius and the wreckage of his desires.
The Scarlet Stigma: A Drama in Four Acts
Nathaniel Hawthorne
This stage adaptation transforms a classic meditation on secret guilt into a visceral, gothic drama, where a hidden sin manifests as a physical mark of torment. It maps the internal fracture of a man who preaches righteousness while harboring a ruinous truth.
The Second Violin
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
When a family’s domestic life is disrupted by illness, they discover that their greatest strength lies not in their individual talents, but in the shelter and kindness they offer to those in need.
The Seven Ages of Childhood
Carolyn Wells
HOOK This collection of poems traces the quiet, universal metamorphosis of a human life, following the journey from the wordless curiosity of the cradle to the transformative bloom of first love.
The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence
Eugène Sue
This work explores the moral decay inherent in two distinct vices, tracing how the corrosive influence of secret cravings can shatter lives while testing the limits of human resilience.
The Sisters Rondoli, and Other Stories
Guy de Maupassant
The Sisters Rondoli, and Other Stories offers a sharp, unsentimental window into the private lives and public vanities of nineteenth-century French society. These tales reveal the small, often sordid, dramas that unfold behind the closed doors of the middle class.
The Story of the Two Bulls
John R. (John Rogers) Bolles
A deacon’s hidden pride leads to a Sunday morning catastrophe when his obsession with livestock pits two rival bulls against each other, turning his home into a chaotic battlefield of shattered glass and broken furniture.
The Sweet and Touching Tale of Fleur & Blanchefleur: A Mediæval Legend Translated from the French
Mrs. Leighton
A journey of devotion and daring, this medieval legend follows two children separated by royal decree who traverse the known world to reunite. It is a timeless testament to the persistence of love against the tyranny of circumstance.
The Truth About German Atrocities: Founded on the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages
Anonymous
A grave historical document meticulously examines the conduct of invading forces during the early months of the Great War, seeking to hold a modern power accountable for systematic violations of international law.
The Two Marys
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
HOOK A daughter discovers her late father led a secret life, unraveling a complex web of hidden identities, lost inheritances, and the enduring power of family secrets.
The Valley
Richard Stockham
The silence of a dying, desperate planet finds its only answer in the quiet, fragile persistence of two travelers who refuse to trade their humanity for a lie.
The White Heart of Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert
Edna Brush Perkins
Two women trade the suffocating geometry of city walls for the vast, untamed expanse of the Mojave Desert, finding a haunting, beautiful, and sometimes terrifying clarity within the silence of the American West.
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 132, March, 1909
Various
The world is a stage of unpredictable peril and bizarre discovery, where the boundary between the mundane and the miraculous dissolves at every turn. These collected dispatches map a globe brimming with untamed environments and human eccentricity.
The World Before Them: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)
Susanna Moodie
This nineteenth-century domestic drama follows a resilient young woman navigating the complexities of social class, unrequited love, and the mystery of her own origins. It is a story of personal transformation set against the backdrop of a changing English countryside.
Theism and Humanism: Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1914
Arthur James Balfour
How can we trust our own reason if it is merely the accidental byproduct of blind physical forces? This inquiry examines the fragile foundations of human knowledge, morality, and beauty.
Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution
Thomas Hart Benton
A fiery orator seeks to strike a stain from the record of history, championing the legacy of a embattled president against his congressional detractors.
Three Bright Girls: A Story of Chance and Mischance
Annie E. Armstrong
When a family’s fortune vanishes overnight, three sisters must trade their life of luxury for the quiet, challenging dignity of making their own way in the world.
To Alaska for Gold
Edward Stratemeyer
The Klondike gold rush serves as the stage for a desperate, high-stakes gamble for security. Two brothers leave behind a life of rural struggle to confront the frozen, unforgiving wilderness of the North.
Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons
John C. (John Carsten) Chapin
Through mud, jungle, and relentless enemy fire, Marines carve a strategic foothold into the Solomon Islands, turning a grueling campaign into a definitive victory in the Pacific theater.
True Stories of Girl Heroines
Evelyn Everett-Green
Through desperate sieges, daring prison breaks, and dangerous political intrigues, these young women defy the expectations of their time to secure the safety of those they love.