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All free summaries — page 838
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 838 of 920.
Life's Enthusiasms
David Starr Jordan
A vital life requires storing up pure passions early, before time and cynicism wear them away.
Liliecrona's home
Selma Lagerlöf
A fierce Christmas storm changes the life of a young peasant girl, drawing her into the complex, troubled household of a rural Swedish parsonage where old traditions and harsh new realities collide.
Little Boy
Jerome Bixby
Six years after a devastating atomic blast levels Manhattan, an eleven-year-old feral boy survives by stealth and violence in the overgrown ruins of Central Park until a chance encounter changes everything.
Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan
Madame de Montespan
Within the dazzling and calculating orbit of the Sun King, ambition, secret marriages, and court intrigue dictate every breath.
Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later
Robert P. Multhauf
The history of European deep-mining technology is defined not by static centuries, but by a continuous, overlooked evolution in mechanical drainage devices.
Minos of Sardanes
Charles B. (Charles Billings) Stilson
Amid the volcanic fury of the frozen Antarctic, a lost civilization faces ruin as an ancient king fights for his crown and his love.
Modern Icelandic Plays: Eyvind of the Hills
Jóhann Sigurjónsson
These two plays offer a stark, unsparing window into the remote Icelandic landscape, where human resilience clashes with unforgiving nature and rigid social judgment. They capture the weight of isolation and the intensity of choices made in the shadow of the mountains.
Mona
Sheldon, Georgie, Mrs.
A chance meeting in Chicago and a diamond merchant's search set off a labyrinth of hidden identities, secret captivities, and long-buried hatreds.
Monitress Merle
Angela Brazil
When Mavis steps down from her monitress-ship so her capable sister Merle can channel her fierce energy into saving a reorganized school, a Devonshire term fills with music, mischief, and local legend.
Mr. Carteret and Others
David Gray
Across English country estates and foreign temples, clever expatriates navigate the absurdities of social custom, fox-hunting mishaps, and delayed romances.
My country's part
Mary Synon
Grounded in the memory of the First World War, an aging grandmother passes down a timeless creed of civic duty to her young grandson, framing America as a sanctuary of liberty worth any sacrifice.
Myers' Grand Hippodrome
Anonymous
Step inside a colossal travelling world of trained elephants, soaring acrobats, and fearless lion-tamers that once captivated the capitals of Europe.
Neville Trueman, the Pioneer Preacher
W. H. (William Henry) Withrow
The borders of a young nation fray under the pressures of imperial conflict, testing the resolve of those caught between ancestral loyalties and the immediate demands of faith and home.
Nick Carter Stories No. 143, June 5, 1915: The sultan's pearls
Nicholas (House name) Carter
HOOK A master detective arrives in San Juan to hunt a cunning criminal who has stolen a fortune in jewels and assumed a false identity to evade capture.
Not in the Rules
Mack Reynolds
When a third-rate Terran gladiator is thrust into a lethal interplanetary death match on Mars, his only weapons are antique strategy and a stubborn refusal to die.
Notes and Queries, Number 29, May 18, 1850
Various
This collection serves as a Victorian-era clearinghouse for historical, literary, and folk-tradition curiosities. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual networking of the mid-nineteenth century, where readers traded information with the precision of a scholarly ledger.
Notes and Queries, Vol. III, Number 83, May 31, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century repository serves as a communal clearinghouse for historical, literary, and antiquarian minutiae, inviting readers to document the ephemeral details of their world. It is a mosaic of curiosity, where the profound meets the trivial.
Pattern
Robert H. Rohrer
In the empty void of deep space, a stranded human pilot and a starving, disembodied alien lifeform engage in a silent battle of mutual consumption.
Pelle the Conqueror
Martin Andersen Nexø
From the heavy shadow of a prison gate to the burgeoning life of a workers' cooperative, an ordinary man traces the arduous path toward collective dignity and self-discovery.
Peter Pettigrew's prisoner
Nelson S. Bond
A meek civilian defense volunteer on night watch accidentally captures the mythical Sandman just as real enemy saboteurs infiltrate a vital military armory.
Poppa Needs Shorts
Walt Richmond
Oley, a curious four-year-old, treats the world as a giant laboratory for his developing mind. By misinterpreting adult conversations about electrical "shorts," he accidentally stumbles into a series of dangerous domestic experiments that ultimately save his father's life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-03-31
Various
A sharp, laughing look at post-war Britain, where returning soldiers, overwhelmed husbands, and harassed citizens navigate bureaucratic absurdities, modern technology, and the subtle absurdity of everyday domestic life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920
Various
A quintessential snapshot of British life in 1920, this collection captures the post-war transition through biting satire, whimsical verse, and the weary, sharp-eyed observations of a society finding its footing in a "new world.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, October 22, 1892
Various
A Victorian mirror of shifting wit and social foible, this volume captures the pulse of late-nineteenth-century London through enduring satire, verse, and theatrical absurdities.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, January 17, 1917
Various
In the dark winter of 1917, these pages capture the British spirit at war, balancing biting political satire with the absurd, domestic minutiae of a nation struggling to keep its humor amidst global catastrophe.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870
Various
This seventeenth issue of a late-Victorian satirical weekly captures the frantic, witty, and often biting spirit of Gilded Age New York. It functions as both a literary laboratory and a sharp-eyed mirror held up to the political and social absurdities of 1870.
Religion and Theology: A Sermon for the Times: Preached in the Parish Church of Crathie, fifth September and in the College Church, St Andrews
John Tulloch
Intellectual uncertainty need not erode the core of one's faith, as the essence of the religious life resides in a simple, personal connection to Christ rather than in the mastery of complex theological systems.
Søren Hjorth: Inventor of the Dynamo-electric Principle
Sigurd Smith
A forgotten pioneer struggles against the limitations of his era to conceptualize the engine that would eventually power the modern world. This biography documents the life of a man whose brilliance was obscured by his own reach.
Shall Turkey Live or Die?
Thomas Carlyle
As a looming European conflict threatens the stability of the continent, observers debate the fate of the Ottoman Empire against a backdrop of religious destiny and shifting political alliances.
She's All the World to Me
Caine, Hall, Sir
HOOK Set on the rugged, mist-shrouded coast of the Isle of Man, this haunting tale follows a broken-hearted boy whose unrequited love and sacrifice lead him into a dark, unfolding tragedy upon the pitiless sea.
Six giants and a griffin, and other stories
Sarah Elizabeth Birdsall Otis
A lonely boy steps through a hollow oak tree into a whimsical underground realm where gnomes prepare for war against giant masters.
Slavery
James L. (James Loring) Baker
Following John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, a conservative legal and social defense of American slavery argues that separate races can never coexist in freedom without the eventual destruction of the inferior group.
Some old masters of Greek architecture
Harry Douglas
Behind the enduring stone of ancient Greece lie the forgotten lives of master architects whose creative genius shaped Western civilization.
Songs from Vagabondia
Bliss Carman
Step away from the counting-house and the city streets to embrace an untamed life of open roads, wind-swept shores, and midnight song.
Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 20, September 4, 1858
Unknown
Imprisoned for the crime of speaking truth to power, a defiant editor issues a fierce weekly sheet from the heart of nineteenth-century New York.
The Abandoned of Yan
Donald F. Daley
A woman faces the terrifying, clinical reality of state-enforced abandonment after her husband casts her aside, only to find that survival requires a final, cold reclamation of her own agency.
The adventures of Dora Bell, detective
Corbett, George, Mrs.
The inquisitive Dora Bell navigates the gaslit streets of 1890s London, proving that a sharp mind and a talent for disguise are the ultimate tools for unmasking scoundrels.
The age of the Earth
Arthur Holmes
How old is the world beneath our feet? This inquiry into geological time navigates the clash between traditional earth-science measurements and the radical new discoveries of radioactivity.
The American Missionary
Various
This collection of reports and correspondence offers a direct, unvarnished window into the educational and religious efforts undertaken in the American South, the West, and abroad during the late nineteenth century.
The Armenians
C. F. Dixon-Johnson
British diplomacy traded Turkish friendship for perilous shadows, inviting disaster through unthinking moral outrage while revolutionary agitation forced a bloody reckoning in Anatolia.
The Blood Ship
Norman Springer
A hunted man seeks vengeance on a brutal sea captain, only to find redemption and love amid mutiny on a floating hell.
The Book
Michael Shaara
Beyond the edge of a dust-filled cosmic void, a veteran space explorer and a young linguist discover a world battered by meteors where people possess a profound, unshakeable peace.
The boys in white
Julia S. (Julia Susan) Wheelock
The story of a woman who finds purpose in the shadow of personal tragedy, this memoir chronicles the gritty, daily labor of caring for the broken bodies of the American Civil War.
The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler
Francis Worcester Doughty
When a frustrated Custom House collector brings in the Secret Service, two seasoned detectives match wits with a cunning international smuggling ring.
The Christmas Holly
Marion Harland
A singular, frost-bitten walk on a lonely Christmas Eve transforms into a journey of the heart, reminding a weary soul that the capacity for wonder is not a burden to be outgrown, but a grace to be nurtured.
The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey
Donald Ferguson
A spirited cold-weather tale of high school athletics, reformed delinquents, and long-lost family ties.
The Coast of Bohemia
Thomas Nelson Page
A veteran prose writer ventures into verse, navigating the unknown seas of poetry to catch fleeting snatches of an inner day and timeless music.
The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer
Charles Lever
A military officer stumbles through disastrous romantic wagers, mistaken identities, and madcap escapades across Ireland and England, leaving a trail of cheerful chaos in his wake.