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All free summaries — page 839
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 839 of 920.
The Cosmic Deflector
Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur) Coblentz
A brilliant inventor finds his life’s work weaponized by ruthless financiers who drag the Earth off its orbit, forcing his wife to stage a desperate rescue from across the globe.
The Crisis
Winston Churchill
On the eve of the American Civil War, a proud Southern girl clashes fiercely with an unyielding Yankee newcomer against the backdrop of a changing St. Louis.
The Cross and Crown
T. D. (Thomas Day) Curtis
A fierce call to cast off the chains of superstition and embrace reason, T. D. Curtis’s 1886 text views the cross and crown not as sacred honors, but as instruments of tyranny.
The Cruise of the Gyro-Car
Herbert Strang
Two English brothers embark on a high-speed continental journey across turbulent European landscapes, pursued by persistent foreign agents seeking a stolen diplomatic dispatch.
The Dwelling Place of Light
Winston Churchill
A young woman drawn into a bitter textile strike faces profound personal upheaval as her world fractures between industrial turmoil and traditional expectations.
The Dying Indian's Dream: A Poem
Silas Tertius Rand
A humble hunter wastes away in a frigid wigwam, only to experience a magnificent vision of a golden celestial palace before his final breath.
The evolution of worlds from nebulae
Lee Parker Dean
The universe is too vast and ordered to have sprung from mere chance, pointing instead to an intentional Creator who designed every world and atom.
The Exiles and Other Stories
Richard Harding Davis
Men and women flee their pasts, clash over honor and love, and risk everything in strange lands or quiet drawing rooms.
The fascinating Boston
Alfonso Josephs Sheafe
The Boston is a graceful social dance of the early twentieth century that combines the elegance of the waltz with a uniquely modern fluidity and ease.
The Flemmings and "Flash Harry" of Savait: From "The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton, and Other Stories" - 1902
Louis Becke
This collection offers a gritty, firsthand glimpse into the lawless frontier of the late 19th-century Pacific, where survival hinges on grit, navigation, and the shifting loyalties of island life.
The Forfeit
Ridgwell Cullum
On the vast, lawless Canadian prairie, a hardened rancher navigates a web of rustlers, bitter betrayal, and old shames to find an unexpected redemption.
The Girl and Her Religion
Margaret Slattery
Society often expects girlhood to be a golden path of absolute freedom, yet the reality reveals a crushing weight of social handicaps, empty materialism, and spiritual starvation.
The Hammer of Thor
Charles Willard Diffin
When a towering, scarred giant arrives from the stars and begins carving lanes of fire across human cities, a red-haired pilot and a cherubic lookout must find a way to strike back.
The Infant's Skull
Eugène Sue
A stark look at the dawn of the Capetian dynasty in France, this narrative strips away the pageantry of medieval royalty to expose the crushing cycle of serfdom and the desperation born of apocalyptic panic.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 35, February 27, 1841
Various
Open a window into mid-nineteenth-century Ireland through parliamentary reform, eccentric local personalities, ancient Egyptian vaults, and sparkling courtroom wit.
The island of anarchy: A fragment of history in the 20th century
Elizabeth Waterhouse
An imagined 20th-century history of political extremes, Elizabeth Waterhouse’s novella explores an island society founded by exiled anarchists that ultimately transforms into a spiritual theocracy before meeting a cataclysmic end.
The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts
August Wilhelm Iffland
An ambitious son attains high office and moral compromise, but his principled father and resolute fiancée guide him back to integrity and humble peace.
The Legends of San Francisco
George W. (George Walter) Caldwell
This collection of verse reimagines the geography of San Francisco Bay through the eyes of an ancient, invented indigenous mythology, grounding the city’s landmarks in stories of sacrifice, transformation, and divine intervention.
The Little Review, June-July 1916 (Vol. 3, No. 4)
Various
The spirit of 1916 finds its pulse in these pages, capturing the restless, sharp-edged collision between traditional aesthetics and the jarring, modern reality of a world at war. It is a vital, urgent dispatch from the trenches of the avant-garde.
The Man Who Flew
Charles D. Cunningham
A telepathic detective takes on a rare murder case, only to realize the killer possesses a terrifying, physics-defying ability that threatens to consume his own mind.
The Memoirs of Count Grammont
Hamilton, Anthony, Count
At the restless court of Charles II, jealousy, wit, and elaborate romantic intrigues dictate the fortunes of nobles and maids of honour alike.
The Mercurian
Frank Belknap Long
Mining uranium on a molten, steaming planet turns deadly when a routine mission brings back an intelligent creature capable of freezing human beings solid.
The Merry Andrew
Anonymous
Hasty youths learn early that ignoring sound counsel at a bustling country fair brings physical treading, heavy losses, and public disgrace.
The Middy and the Moors: An Algerine Story
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A young British midshipman plunges from the deck of a pirate-hunted ship into the brutal slave markets of Algiers, where extraordinary bonds of loyalty and faith alone offer a path back to freedom.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 281, November 3, 1827
Various
Step inside an 1827 weekly periodical where African bodyguards, medieval Scandinavian legends of Hamlet, Parisian gaming salons, and Roman market prices meet in a rich mosaic of Victorian popular culture.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 377, June 27, 1829
Various
This compendium of nineteenth-century curiosity serves as a sprawling, Victorian-era cabinet of wonders, blending travelogues, historical anecdotes, and scientific observations into a single, eclectic periodical snapshot.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 390, September 19, 1829
Various
Step into an 1829 periodical where elegant English landscapes, nocturnal nightmares, and the comic adventures of an Irish boxing champion sit side by side.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831
Various
Eccentric historical sketches, satirical commentary, and scientific oddities converge in this vivid mid-nineteenth-century miscellany.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 572, October 20, 1832
Various
This periodical captures the intellectual pulse of early nineteenth-century England, curating a blend of historical reflection, natural science, and cultural observation. It offers a window into the varied curiosities and refined pastimes of a bygone reading public.
The Mistletoe Bough
Anthony Trollope
Bound by rigid principles and deep affection, Elizabeth Garrow wrestles with her own heart when her broken engagement faces a Christmas reconciliation.
The Motormaniacs
Lloyd Osbourne
Fast motors, fragile egos, and meddling matchmakers collide as affluent Americans navigate high-speed country lanes, reluctant courtships, and the absurd social friction of the early automotive age.
The Nursery, July 1877, XXII. No. 1: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers
Various
Over wild woods, sunny pastures, and roaring ocean waves, a gentle world unfolds where children feed great oxen from little pails and wild birds sing of daily work.
The Parisians
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A brilliant, troubled youth torn between an hollow intellectualism and the brutal chaos of a burning Paris seeks his own path while history shatters around him.
The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 34, October 13, 1832
Unknown
This periodical serves as a Victorian-era bridge between scholarly inquiry and the common reader, offering a wide array of scientific, historical, and linguistic curiosities. It reflects the earnest, encyclopedic spirit of nineteenth-century public education.
The Phantom Herd
B. M. Bower
In the waning days of the open range, a visionary film director and a band of displaced cowboys set out to preserve a dying way of life on celluloid.
The Pilgrim, and the American of Today—(1892)
Charles Dudley Warner
Across a vast and prosperous continent, a nation risks trading its moral soul for mere material splendor unless its citizens reclaim their civic duty.
The Pirate
Frederick Marryat
A water-logged hull drifts in the Bay of Biscay, setting in motion a sweeping tale of pirates, hidden parentage, and long-lost brothers.
The Problem Club
Barry Pain
The Problem Club is a collection of linked humorous stories following a group of idle, clever English gentlemen who compete in elaborate monthly challenges. It serves as a gentle, witty satire of the lengths to which the bored will go for sport.
The Prospector, and The Silver Queen
Cy Warman
Through hardship, silver strikes, and untamed border towns, the West was shaped by the rugged prospector whose quiet endurance unlocked a continent’s hidden wealth.
The Queen of the Swamp, and other plain Americans
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
A secluded Ohio valley holds secret heartbreaks and quiet lives, where plain neighbors love deeply, struggle with pride, and find unexpected grace in the shadow of the tall trees.
The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment
George Meredith
An ambitious barber enters a hair-obsessed city to confront a mighty clothier, entangling his fate with ancient curses, serpents, and tragic royalty.
The Silver Arrow
Elbert Hubbard
A fragile golden chain binds a courtier's fate to a mythical white deer, bridging Elizabethan London and the untamed Carolina wilderness through tragedy, love, and untamed sovereignty.
The Status of the Jews in Egypt: The Fifth Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture
W. M. Flinders (William Matthew Flinders) Petrie
Tracing millennia of migration, trade, and shifting political fortunes, this lecture explores the evolving position of the Jewish people within Egypt from prehistoric times to the Islamic era.
The Substitute Prisoner
Max Marcin
A man’s mysterious death sets off a frantic, high-stakes game of shadows, pitting a dogged detective against a circle of suspects bound by secrets, love, and a desperate, dying man's final, elaborate deception.
The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
Washington Allston
The visionary power of the imagination is the true subject of these verses, which navigate the shifting landscapes of the human heart and the divine nature of artistic creation.
The warriors
Tom Purdom
In a world where physical violence triggers global annihilation, nations wage high-stakes territorial and diplomatic wars using psychological warfare, bagpipe-playing mercenaries, and agonizing endurance duels.
The Welsh Pony, Described in two letters to a friend
Olive Tilford Dargan
This elegant, dual-letter correspondence celebrates the enduring spirit and historical pedigree of the Welsh mountain pony. It serves as both a scholarly appreciation of equine evolution and a personal tribute to an unforgettable companion.
Timid Hare: The Little Captive
Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade
A stolen childhood on the prairie finds unexpected belonging, until a hidden talisman restores a lost family from across a bitter divide.