The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 816
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 816 of 920.
The Dancing Faun
Florence Farr
In a world where society demands rigid falsehoods, a cynical charmer weaves a web of secret shames, card-sharping, and unrequited desires that ends in a fatal gunshot.
The Day of Doom
Michael Wigglesworth
Faced with the terrifying reality of divine judgment, humanity stands utterly undone before an impartial Christ who separates the trembling sheep from the weeping goats.
The deadly ones
F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace
An immortal predator feeds on human fear, but a desperate interstellar journey leads him to discover he is merely prey to something far worse.
The End of Her Honeymoon
Marie Belloc Lowndes
On the final evening of a joyous Parisian honeymoon, a young artist vanishes into the night, leaving his bewildered bride stranded in a strange city where even her hotel hosts deny he ever existed.
The Feather Bed
Robert Graves
Trapped in a misty upland, a weary traveler wrestles with a failed romance and a procession of religious ghosts.
The Further Adventures of O'Neill in Holland
J. Irwin (John Irwin) Brown
The linguistic blunders of an Irishman abroad serve as the catalyst for an unlikely romance, proving that even the most disastrous grasp of a foreign tongue can lead to unexpected, life-altering connections.
The Future of English Poetry
Edmund Gosse
Poetry will endure, yet future bards must navigate the exhaustion of simple language through increasing symbolic subtlety and isolation.
The Iron Rule
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
Rigid moralism and unyielding parental severity forge a harsh domestic prison, but the quiet resilience of love and the promise of forgiveness ultimately pierce even the coldest home.
The Iron Star
John Preston True
HOOK A fallen meteorite acts as a silent witness to the evolution of human civilization, traveling from the dawn of the Stone Age to the technological marvels of the nineteenth century.
The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War
Stephen Crane
Through mud, fog, and shattered Southern towns, ordinary soldiers and civilians grapple with the unvarnished terror and strange intimacy of the American Civil War.
The Little Review, March 1917 (Vol. 3, No. 9)
Various
Modern art demands new ears and an unwavering devotion to beauty, casting aside the heavy shackles of utilitarian propaganda to seek the pure, unyielding essence of creative power.
The long way
Mary Imlay Taylor
A brilliant woman sacrifices her happiness to shield her selfish sister from social ruin, binding herself to a loveless marriage that traps them all in a web of scandal and quiet desperation.
The Making of Mona
Mabel Quiller-Couch
A young girl learns that character is built in the quiet, unglamorous moments of daily duty, not in the daydreams of a storybook life.
The man who won
Reynolds, Baillie, Mrs.
An orphaned young woman leaves the harsh landscapes of South Africa for rigid English society, where a persistent suitor works in disguise to build her future and win her heart.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 347, December 20, 1828
Various
Step into the vibrant cultural landscape of late-Regency Britain through a rich miscellany of travel, history, and human folly.
The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing)
E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
Beneath a brilliant spring sky, the quiet lives of women in a tight-knit English community mask complex currents of longing, duty, and quiet rebellion.
The Monster That Threatened the Universe
R. R. (Russell Robert) Winterbotham
In a society flattened by a forced conformity, a petty criminal's secret antidote reintroduces individuality and sends him on a collision course with an immortal, planetary-scale cosmic monster.
The Moral Picture Book
Anonymous
A simple stroll through the woods transforms a child's momentary disobedience into a lifelong lesson on conscience, duty, and divine forgiveness.
The Old Way
Stephen Marlowe
Stranded on a tiny, jagged asteroid with dwindling air and armed claim jumpers closing in, a young pilot deploys the most devastating weapon in the universe: pure, unadulterated propaganda.
The poor Count's Christmas
Frank R. Stockton
An impoverished nobleman and his wife prepare to sacrifice their last heirloom to keep a holiday tradition alive for local children, unaware that a giant and a fairy are plotting a miraculous intervention.
The Red Rat's Daughter
Guy Boothby
A fabulously wealthy cynic finds his ordered world upended when he rescues a mysterious young woman in Norway, sparking a perilous quest to liberate her convict father from the icy depths of Siberia.
The Rise of the Dutch Republic
John Lothrop Motley
The birth of the Dutch Republic amidst war, rebellion, and political intrigue.
The Story of a Lamb on Wheels
Laura Lee Hope
When human eyes look away, the toys in the department store come to life, setting off a chain of remarkable adventures for a gentle woolly lamb.
The Substitute Millionaire
Hulbert Footner
When a murdered miser’s multi-million-dollar fortune makes a humble factory worker rich overnight, he stumbles into a treacherous anarchist plot and must outwit a mastermind to survive his sudden wealth.
The wanderer in Africa
A. L. O. E.
A desert wanderer learns the heavy cost of pride and self-will, finding true redemption only after trials break his stubborn heart.
The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A haunting pact made over a corpse binds two women to a lifetime of silence, culminating in a spectral reunion decades later.
Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 1 (of 3)
William Davy Watson
A tale of ancient stones, ancestral grudges, and the fragile intersection of two Cornish families, this narrative explores the heavy cost of pride and the persistence of the past.
Trotwood's Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, April, 1906
Various
A vibrant snapshot of early twentieth-century Southern culture, blending agricultural science, pioneer history, and regional literature into a unique monthly periodical.
Venus Has Green Eyes
Carl Selwyn
Marooned in an endless Venusian swamp, a wisecracking Earthling prospector and a ruthless native pirate queen clash over a worthless map hiding a revolutionary secret.
Waiting for sailing orders
Gladstone, George, Mrs.
As a ninety-year-old Cornish veteran awaits his final summons, a tight-knit fishing family navigates daily hardships, local folklore, and the agonizing absence of a runaway son.
When the Mountain Shook
Robert Abernathy
A young couple, fleeing a blood feud into the forbidden heart of a volcanic mountain, accidentally awaken an ancient, malevolent tyrant from a two-millennium sleep.
Who was the Commander at Bunker Hill?: With Remarks on Frothingham's History of the Battle
Samuel Swett
A veteran defends history from distortion, arguing through rigorous evidence that General Israel Putnam commanded the iconic American forces at Bunker Hill.
William Dwight Whitney
Thomas D. (Thomas Day) Seymour
Born into a brilliant New England family, a quiet scholar revolutionized the study of language, leaving an enduring mark on global linguistics and American education.
World Beyond Pluto
Stephen Marlowe
Johnny Mayhem, a bodiless consciousness inhabiting a series of temporary human corpses, races against time to stop a desperate killer from escaping a remote frontier moon. His mission leads him to a deadly, time-warped world where survival is measured in seconds.
A Merry Scout
Edna Payson Brett
Children navigating poverty, duty, and longing discover that small acts of steadfastness unlock unexpected warmth in a changing world.
A tour through North America
Patrick Shirreff
This account of a 19th-century journey through North America offers a sharp, practical assessment of the agricultural potential and social climate of the United States and Canada. It is a guide for the sober-minded settler, prioritizing soil quality and economic reality over romantic travelogue.
Adventures in the Land of Canaan
R. L. (Robert Lee) Berry
The journey from spiritual bondage to complete holiness is mapped as an inner expedition through an allegorical promised land, where faith becomes the ultimate weapon against internal giants of doubt and discouragement.
All that happened in a week
Jane Helen Findlater
Sent to stay with an austere aunt in the country, an imaginative eight-year-old girl manages to fill a single week with an extraordinary series of scrapes, mishaps, and quiet wonders.
Bird in hand
Laurence Housman
When a rigid, science-bound professor is visited by a mischievous green woodland creature, his absolute faith in objective reality undergoes a startling and bewildering test.
Brave Bessie Westland
Emma Leslie
Brave Bessie Westland stands firm as her Quaker family is torn apart by persecution under Charles II, finding refuge and purpose in London before a new life across the Atlantic.
Brief for the higher education of the negro
Kelly Miller
True liberation requires more than the mastery of manual labor; it demands the cultivation of the mind and spirit to bridge centuries of development.
By order of Buck Brady
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
When a sun-baked desert town prepares for a bloody sundown duel between two rival cowboys, an unassuming sheriff relies on a quiet trick to defuse their deadly feud.
Circus
Alan Edward Nourse
A weary traveler from the stars finds himself stranded in a world that mirrors his own, only to discover that the ultimate barrier to his return is his own utter normalcy.
Cobwebs to catch flies
Mrs. Lovechild
A gentle guide for young minds, this eighteenth-century primer uses simple words, household animals, and moral dialogues to teach children obedience, kindness, and the early rudiments of knowledge.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Amidst naval preparations, domestic squabbles, and meticulous financial ledgers, a seventeenth-century official records the vibrant, unfiltered texture of daily life in Restoration London.
Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum
Mary Huestis Pengilly
This 1885 memoir serves as a firsthand account of a woman’s involuntary confinement in a Canadian institution, blending a desperate plea for personal vindication with a sharp, prescriptive critique of asylum management.
Empty churches
Charles Josiah Galpin
Rural Protestant America fragments its own spiritual vitality through competitive overchurching, leaving millions of farm children spiritually unmoored while pastors flee to cities and new community models struggle toward order.
Facts for the People of the Free States
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
A stark compilation of mid-nineteenth-century records exposes the routine violence of human bondage and the systemic political dominance of slaveholders over the American republic.