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All free summaries — page 837
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 837 of 920.
An Autumn Sowing
E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
A prosperous merchant discovers late in life that thirty years of unyielding commercial success and rigid piety have left his inner self entirely uncultivated.
An essay on the influence of tobacco upon life and health
R. D. (Reuben Dimond) Mussey
Man is the only creature that deliberately poisons his own instincts, choosing a narcotic weed that defies nature and slowly wrecks both body and mind.
Arne and the Christmas star: A story of Norway
Alta Halverson Seymour
A red-headed boy navigates mountain trails, strict schoolteachers, and fierce winter storms along the Norwegian coast, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Christmas ship.
At the Sign of the Fox: A Romance
Mabel Osgood Wright
When financial ruin shatters a wealthy New York family's elite life, they retreat to a remote hill country homestead where hard work, nature, and unexpected romance reshape their world.
Battery D First Rhode Island Light Artillery in the Civil War
George C. (George Cady) Sumner
Dragged into the crucible of the American Civil War, a dedicated Rhode Island artillery battery marches, freezes, and fights across four grueling years to preserve a fractured nation.
Beast of prey
Jay Williams
A strange paralysis claims the outpost's men one by one, driving a seasoned ecologist to hunt a phantom predator in an alien forest where beauty masks a silent, fatal design.
Boarding party
Robert F. Young
A stranded pilot discovers that the smallest inhabitants of a forbidden planet possess a terrifying and unexpected capacity for violence. This brief account serves as a cautionary report from an interstellar traveler whose routine mission takes a sharp, harrowing turn.
Boy Scouts in California
G. Harvey (George Harvey) Ralphson
High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, a group of New York Boy Scouts on a routine vacation stumble into a high-stakes corporate conspiracy involving a hidden mother lode of gold, outlaw half-breeds, and ancient mountain secrets.
Brandon Coyle's wife
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A web of deception and cold-blooded murder entangles a noble heir in a race against the gallows. When an innocent man is found beside a corpse on a train, only his friends can unravel the dark truth behind the tragedy.
Brought out of peril
Emma Leslie
A headstrong young domestic worker learns the hard way that vanity and restless ambition carry a heavy price, only to find redemption after a staggering brush with tragedy.
Catherine's coquetries
Camille Debans
In this rural drama, a restless young wife’s pride and penchant for provocation tear through the social fabric of her village, leading her admirers toward ruin and her husband toward a fatal encounter.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440: Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852
Various
From the scars of a northern flood to the vanished dodo and the rigorous waters of the Cam, this Victorian periodical maps a changing world.
Christmas at McCarthy's
Elizabeth F. (Elizabeth Frances) Guptill
A poor tenement community rallies around an orphaned girl's wish for a traditional holiday, discovering that shared joy transcends cultural and financial divides.
Cream of the jug
Unknown
An anthology of American humor from the mid-1920s, this collection gathers short, character-driven yarns that capture the quirks, social anxieties, and vernacular wit of a bygone era.
Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), Essay 10: Auguste Comte
John Morley
Auguste Comte emerges as a figure of singular intellectual intensity, a man whose ambition to reorganize society through scientific rigor led him from brilliant sociological insights to the creation of a rigid, secular religion.
Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles
Ruth McEnery Stuart
A wise, elderly man shares his observations on the natural world and human nature, using rhythmic verse to offer guidance to the children gathered at his feet.**
Devereux
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Amidst the glittering and perilous intrigue of Queen Anne's London, a young aristocrat navigates the consuming fires of political plotting, profound philosophical musings, and a dangerous, star-crossed romance.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Amid political intrigue and naval administration, a seventeenth-century official records his daily rounds of theater, music, and domestic disputes in Restoration London.
Digging for Gold: Adventures in California
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
Cast adrift by a callous uncle, a young artist trades his brushes for a perilous journey to the Californian goldfields, discovering that a fortune can cost far too much.
Discourses on Various Subjects, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Jacob Duché
An eighteenth-century Philadelphia pulpit echoes with a single demand: strip away hollow religious forms, meet the living Christ within, and turn every earthly trial into spiritual sovereignty.
Dorian
Nephi Anderson
A young Utah farmer navigates the quiet rhythms of rural life, intellectual awakenings, and the quiet emotional trials of love, faith, and responsibility.
Dot ... dot ... dash ... dot—"Fire!"
Clarice Detzer
A resilient coast guard girl overcomes self-doubt and camp misunderstandings to raise the alarm during a dramatic lakeside hotel fire.
Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador
William Wood
The rugged, often-overlooked coast of the Canadian Labrador stands at a precarious crossroads, where the relentless exploitation of its natural life threatens to transform a vibrant wilderness into a desolate, barren landscape.
Eneas Africanus
Harry Stillwell Edwards
A man disappears into the chaos of the Civil War with a trunk of family silver, only to spend years wandering the South, convinced he is still running an errand for his master.
England Over Seas
Lloyd Roberts
A collection of evocative verse, Lloyd Roberts's collection captures the rugged beauty of Canadian wilderness, the ache of exile, and the eternal pull of the English countryside.
Fast-Day Cookery
Grace Johnson
Transforming simple abstinence into an art of flavor, this guide proves that meals without meat can be both satisfying and imaginative.
Flight Into the Unknown
Tom W. Harris
Space flight is no Sunday outing, but a harrowing trial of isolation and fear designed to test the limits of human endurance before the first true rocket ever leaves the ground.
For Gold or Soul? The Story of a Great Department Store
Lurana Sheldon
Behind the gleaming facade of a massive city department store, youthful ideals clash with the crushing realities of industrial labor and human frailty.
Frank Allen and his motor boat
Graham B. Forbes
The Rocket cuts a sharp path through the Harrapin River, but its young captain soon finds himself navigating more than just water as he races to clear his name and save a life.
Gay life in Paris: how life is enjoyed by the people of that great metropolis
Anonymous
Paris is often romanticized as a city of light, but beneath its polished surface lies a shadow world of indulgence and decay. This volume explores the contrasts between the city's celebrated grandeur and its hidden, illicit underbelly, offering a grim tour of the spaces where pleasure becomes ruin.
Gene Stratton Porter, Best-Seller
Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
A prolific Indiana writer transformed her deep, lifelong obsession with the natural world into a series of bestselling novels that captivated fifty million readers across the globe.
George Helm
David Graham Phillips
An unpolished country lawyer enters the ruthless arena of state politics, challenging entrenched party bosses and winning the heart of a senator's independent daughter.
Grounded
William Sambrot
The desert holds more than heat and mystery; for those who fly too close to the truth, the landscape itself can become an instrument of silence.
Happy Jack, and Other Tales of the Sea
William Henry Giles Kingston
A young boy trades a comfortable home for the coal-dusted decks of a nineteenth-century brig, beginning a lifetime of perilous maritime adventures, shipwrecks, and miraculous survivals across the globe.
Harper's Round Table, October 22, 1895
Various
When a shattered sloop grounds on a desolate shore and a midnight bicycle race through a torrential rainstorm halts a runaway train, a vibrant window into late-nineteenth-century youth culture opens wide.
Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This weekly children's periodical offers a vibrant snapshot of late-nineteenth-century youth culture through stories, historical sketches, and letters.
Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A charming weekly compendium of illustrated stories, practical crafts, and global curiosities that invites young readers of the late nineteenth century to explore the wider world.
History of Farming in Ontario
C. C. (Charles Canniff) James
This account traces the transformation of Ontario’s landscape from a vast, wooded wilderness into a sophisticated agricultural powerhouse. It details the steady evolution of farming methods, the impact of shifting political boundaries, and the rise of organized rural communities.
In the Year Ten Thousand
Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben
In the year 10,000, an elderly man and his young son traverse a utopian world where humanity has achieved telepathic unity, refined physical beauty, and total transcendence of past barbarisms like war, meat consumption, and religious strife.
Indirection
Everett B. Cole
The most effective way to bury a truth is to dress it in the impossible, letting fiction act as a shield against a reality the world is not yet prepared to handle.
Interference and Other Football Stories
Harold M. (Harold Morrow) Sherman
The game of football is more than a contest of muscle; it is a crucible where character, loyalty, and nerves are tested against the backdrop of collegiate pride. This collection of short stories captures the high-stakes drama of the gridiron, exploring the internal and external pressures faced by young athletes…
Jackanapes
Juliana Horatia Ewing
A boy raised on an English village green grows into a brave cavalry officer who gives his life to rescue a childhood friend on the battlefield.
John de Lancaster: a novel
Richard Cumberland
A young man of noble spirit navigates the heavy expectations of his heritage while defending the innocent against a cruel and calculating rival. Set against the rugged backdrop of North Wales, the narrative explores the clash between traditional honor and the corruption of status.
John Enderby
Gilbert Parker
The unwavering integrity of an English squire faces the capricious demands of a King and the bitter malice of a rival in this historical drama of loyalty and loss.
Josiah's Alarm, and Abel Perry's Funeral
Marietta Holley
A frantic winter of heating alarms and a lavish, ruinous funeral reveal the absurdities of human anxiety and social pretension.
Kings in Adversity
Edward S. (Edward Sims) Van Zile
A young prince in exile finds himself caught between the democratic ideals of the New World and the heavy, inescapable crown of his ancestors.
Larry Barlow's ambition
Edward Stratemeyer
Larry Barlow is a small-town youth with a singular dream: to leave his village and join the professional ranks of the New York City Fire Department. Through a mixture of mechanical ingenuity and physical bravery, he discovers that his path to success is obstructed by a duplicitous man who has stolen his father’s…
Letters of Major Jack Downing, of the Downingville Militia
Seba Smith
An aging rustic militia major arrives in Civil War Washington to straighten out a beleaguered president through homespun tales, heavy drafts of Old Rye, and stubborn Democratic common sense.