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All free summaries — page 73
47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 73 of 988.
Killykinick
Mary T. (Mary Theresa) Waggaman
The summer holiday at an old shipwreck-turned-home brings together a disparate band of boys, each grappling with the weight of his own future and the hidden scars of the past.
Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
Emile Coué
This practical manual outlines a method for achieving health and self-improvement by consciously directing the imagination, arguing that our unconscious thoughts serve as the primary drivers of our physical and moral well-being.
Emily of New Moon
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
HOOK An orphan with a vivid imagination and a stubborn spirit arrives at a strict, tradition-bound household, where she must fight to preserve her identity while discovering her voice as a writer.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827
Edgar Allan Poe
An impulsive stowaway’s obsession with the sea leads to a harrowing descent into mutiny, cannibalism, and the discovery of terrifying, inexplicable secrets hidden at the very edge of the world.
A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
Ainsworth Rand Spofford
This guide provides a comprehensive roadmap for the stewardship, organization, and appreciation of literature, serving as both a practical manual and a thoughtful meditation on the essential role of books in a civilized society.
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
Oscar Wilde
A young aristocrat attempts to commit a murder to fulfill a palm-reader’s prophecy, setting off a sequence of darkly comedic misfortunes in this collection of quintessential tales.
Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving
John Ruskin
The artisan’s hand serves as the bridge between divine inspiration and human craft. By examining the furrow of the engraver’s tool, one discovers how the soul of an artist is carved into history.
The Case of Wagner: Complete Works, Volume 8
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
A brilliant, vitriolic dismantling of a cultural icon, this work redefines the act of criticism as a surgical strike against the decadence and artistic deception of the late nineteenth century.
Geographical etymology: a dictionary of place-names giving their derivations
Christina Blackie
Uncovering the hidden history of the landscape, this work reveals how ancient languages are fossilized in the names of our towns, rivers, and mountains. It serves as a guide to the stories beneath our feet.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878
Various
This collection captures the diverse intellectual currents of late nineteenth-century American life, blending regional history, social commentary, and fiction into a singular, wide-ranging mosaic. It functions as a time capsule, preserving the varied curiosities and literary preoccupations of a sophisticated…
Much Darker Days
Andrew Lang
HOOK This spirited, deadpan satire deconstructs the sensational Victorian "shilling shocker" by following a narrator who is convinced he has committed a murder, despite the fact that the victim is remarkably hard to kill.
The Upanishads
Swami Paramananda
The wisdom of the Vedas finds its purest expression in these ancient dialogues, which guide the seeker toward the realization of the eternal Self. They invite a profound shift in perspective from the fleeting world to the absolute.
The New Life (La Vita Nuova)
Dante Alighieri
A young man navigates the overwhelming, transformative power of love, recording his inner life in a sequence of poems that trace his devotion to a woman he deems angelic. This intimate chronicle bridges the gap between youthful infatuation and spiritual awakening.
History of New Brunswick
Peter Fisher
The resilient spirit of a wilderness colony emerges through this foundational account, documenting the displacement and eventual triumph of families who traded their former lives for a chance to thrive in a northern frontier.
Æsop's Fables: A Version for Young Readers
Aesop
These ancient, enduring tales use the traits of animals to hold a mirror to human behavior, offering timeless wisdom on vanity, greed, and common sense.
History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time
Richard Falckenberg
This history of modern thought maps the intellectual evolution of the Western world from the late Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century. It provides a structured, objective account of how humanity’s understanding of existence, reason, and morality has shifted over four hundred years.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Mark Twain
A teenage girl rises from an obscure village to lead a nation’s armies, claiming divine guidance in a brutal struggle for the French crown. This narrative reimagines the life of a national hero through the eyes of her loyal secretary.
Sailing Alone Around the World
Joshua Slocum
The solitary navigator proves that the vast, intimidating oceans are navigable by a single, steady hand. This narrative serves as the definitive blueprint for self-reliance and quiet endurance on the high seas.
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards
The divine majesty, the frailty of the human soul, and the terrifying reality of eternal consequences form the core of these urgent, intellectually rigorous meditations on the nature of God and the necessity of salvation.
The New Machiavelli
H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
This searching, sprawling novel follows a brilliant political climber as he dismantles his carefully constructed life to pursue an illicit passion, forcing a confrontation between his grand ambitions for the state and his own unruly humanity.
The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings: With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency
John Trusler
This collection acts as a moral and social mirror to eighteenth-century London, documenting the inevitable trajectories of virtue and vice through the sharp, satirical eye of an artist who captured both the high-minded and the grotesque.
Nine Little Goslings
Susan Coolidge
These nine whimsical tales weave threads of classic nursery rhymes into the lives of children, finding magic and moral growth in the quiet corners of the nineteenth-century home.
Crystallizing Public Opinion
Edward L. Bernays
Modern society functions not through simple consensus, but through the deliberate, strategic management of the collective mind. This foundational text argues that public opinion is not a natural occurrence, but a manufactured landscape shaped by those who understand the mechanics of human instinct.
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Mind is not merely a collection of biological functions, but the active, evolving process by which the universe achieves self-consciousness. This foundational philosophical inquiry charts the journey of human thought from its simplest beginnings to its most complex expressions.
At the Deathbed of Darwinism: A Series of Papers
Eberhard Dennert
This collection of essays documents the perceived decline of Darwinian theory at the turn of the 20th century, capturing a moment when scientific consensus began to question the sufficiency of natural selection.
The Home Medical Library, Volume 1 (of 6)
Unknown
HOOK This guide serves as a bridge between the turn-of-the-century household and the physician, offering pragmatic, life-saving protocols for an age before universal access to hospital care.
The spoon
Thomas Ewbank
The humble spoon, often dismissed as a triviality, serves as the unlikely key to unlocking the history of human civilization and the ingenuity of the common artificer.
The death of a millionaire
G. D. H. (George Douglas Howard) Cole
The mystery of a missing millionaire and a seemingly impossible crime unravels through a labyrinth of international finance, Russian revolution, and the shifting loyalties of those desperate for a fortune.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Karl Marx
A study of political collapse, this work dissects how a republic systematically dismantled its own democracy, clearing the path for an autocrat to seize power through the illusion of stability and popular will.
The reason why
Robert Kemp Philp
This encyclopedic guide decodes the wonders of the natural world through a series of accessible, structured questions and answers. It serves as a bridge between scientific curiosity and the simple observation of everyday phenomena.
Human Traits and their Social Significance
Irwin Edman
The human experience is a complex tapestry woven from primitive, inborn impulses and the sophisticated, reflective activities we use to make sense of our lives. By grounding our nature in biological reality, we can better understand the possibilities and limits of our social world.
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: From the Quarto of 1616
Christopher Marlowe
A brilliant scholar turns to forbidden dark arts, trading his eternal soul for twenty-four years of absolute power and earthly pleasure. This foundational drama explores the harrowing intersection of human ambition, divine grace, and the crushing weight of finality.
Aristotle's History of Animals: In Ten Books
Aristotle
Aristotle’s foundational biological treatise provides an exhaustive, ancient catalog of animal life, meticulously detailing the anatomy, reproductive habits, and behaviors of creatures from the smallest insects to the largest mammals. It stands as one of the most significant early efforts to categorize the natural…
At the Little Brown House
Ruth Brown MacArthur
HOOK A headstrong young orphan girl in a small town navigates the challenges of poverty and family loyalty, finding her own unique, often hilarious way to provide for her sisters.
The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria
W. (William) Scott-Elliot
Ancient cataclysms swallowed entire continents, leaving behind only echoes of lost civilizations that once shaped the destiny of the human race. These chronicles reveal the hidden geography and spiritual evolution of peoples long forgotten by modern history.
The Augsburg Confession: The confession of faith, which was submitted to His Imperial Majesty Charles V at the diet of Augsburg in the year 1530
Philipp Melanchthon
This foundational text functions as a formal legal and theological brief, presenting the core tenets of the emerging Lutheran movement. It seeks to reconcile deep doctrinal disagreements through a structured, scholarly defense of faith, aiming for unity within the Holy Roman Empire at a moment of significant…
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1.: The Exploration of the World
Jules Verne
The map of the known world is not a fixed thing, but a vast, unfolding canvas painted by centuries of ambition, curiosity, and sometimes profound cruelty. This sweeping chronicle tracks the human impulse to see what lies beyond the horizon.
The Shame of the Cities
Lincoln Steffens
The American municipal system is not a tragedy of bad men, but a comedy of errors maintained by the voters themselves. It is a mirror held up to a nation that prefers the comforts of corruption to the labor of self-government.
Nietzsche and Art
Anthony M. (Anthony Mario) Ludovici
Great art is not a reflection of the world, but a command that shapes it; it is the necessary tonic for a civilization otherwise destined to drift into chaos.
Practical English Composition: Book II.: For the Second Year of the High School
Edwin L. (Edwin Lillie) Miller
This collection of lessons transforms the daunting task of writing into a structured, journalistic craft. It provides a clear, methodical bridge between the foundational skills of a second-year student and the practical demands of professional communication.
Second Variety
Philip K. Dick
A long, grinding war between humanity and its own creations leads to a terrifying realization: the machines are no longer mere weapons, but a self-evolving species that has learned to mimic their makers.
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803
Unknown
This archival collection offers an unfiltered window into the late sixteenth-century Philippines, capturing the friction between colonial administration and the realities of life in the archipelago. It serves as a foundational record for understanding the early mechanisms of Spanish rule.
History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2)
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
An inquiry into the shifting ideals of Western conduct, this study explores how virtues like courage, charity, and chastity have evolved from the collapse of the Roman Republic to the dawn of the Middle Ages.
The Making of a Soul
Kathlyn Rhodes
The story of Toni, a young woman struggling to find her footing in an upscale marriage, unfolds as a quiet exploration of self-worth and the weight of unspoken expectations. It is a portrait of a heart learning to define itself beyond the projections of others.
Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 2: Turgot
John Morley
A portrait of an Enlightenment reformer who sought to modernize a crumbling monarchy, only to be undone by the very system he tried to save.
The Book of the Epic: The World's Great Epics Told in Story
H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber
These narratives capture the elemental power of the world’s oldest stories, distilling sprawling heroic poems into accessible, evocative prose. They serve as a foundational guide to the myths and legends that have shaped global culture.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Robert Louis Stevenson
This collection gathers the roving observations and philosophical meditations of a restless, brilliant mind chronicling a journey from the Old World to the New and the quiet corners of the American West. It captures the transition from a nineteenth-century immigrant’s struggle to the contemplative life of an author…
Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm
Jacob Grimm
This collection captures the enduring, unsettling, and often darkly humorous essence of German folklore, preserved in a classic nineteenth-century translation. These tales function as a fundamental blueprint for the Western fairy tale, mapping out a world where moral clarity and supernatural caprice collide.