The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 861
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 861 of 920.

Under Fire For Servia
James Fiske
The shadow of the Great War looms over a young American’s quest for justice, as he traverses the volatile Balkan border to confront a swindling merchant while the world descends into conflict.

Unhappy Far-Off Things
Lord Dunsany
The shattered cathedrals and ruined gardens of France bear witness to a devastation so absolute that it transcends the scale of human conflict, leaving behind only the haunting relics of a vanished, peaceful world.

Vampires of Space
Sewell Peaslee Wright
A seasoned space commander reflects on a long-buried encounter with predatory entities that nearly destroyed his ship. This harrowing tale of survival in the deep void pits human ingenuity against a threat that defies conventional warfare.

Walda: A Novel
Mary Holland Kinkaid
A stranger’s arrival at a secluded religious commune ignites a forbidden, transformative passion that forces a young prophetess to choose between her community’s rigid devotion and the call of her own heart.

What's Mine's Mine
George MacDonald
A story of the Scottish Highlands, this novel explores the collision between an ancient, land-rooted way of life and the encroaching, money-driven values of a changing world. It follows two brothers who strive to live by a higher spiritual calling, eventually finding their paths inextricably intertwined with the…

Which Shall Live—Men or Animals?
Ernest Harold Baynes
Humanity remains under constant siege by invisible armies of disease, and our only defense is the cold, calculated science of animal experimentation. To favor the comfort of the few over the survival of the many is a choice with lethal consequences.

Wild volatile-oil plants and their economic importance : I.—Black sage
Frank Rabak
This technical bulletin examines the untapped potential of American flora, specifically evaluating whether native wild plants could replace expensive imported ingredients in the volatile-oil industry. It provides a methodical scientific assessment of three aromatic species.

Womanhood
Gloria Goddard
Knowledge serves as the only true protection against the perils of ignorance, particularly when navigating the complex social and biological realities of modern womanhood.

Z
Charles L. Fontenay
A man discovers a woman and her husband in a park, only to realize their lives are caught in a terrifying, recursive loop of time. This story explores the possibility that our past and future are not fluid choices, but a rigid, circular design.

A Confession of Evangelical Principles: in a letter to a friend
J. (John) Church
A minister writes to a friend to defend his theological reputation, explicitly rejecting the label of "Antinomian" while firmly anchoring his ministry in the doctrines of sovereign grace and divine election.

A Little Hero
H. Musgrave
The story of a young boy navigating the painful separation from his mother, the rigid indifference of his relatives, and the heavy burden of being "brave" despite the heartaches of childhood.

A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Vol. 3
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
This sprawling, sentimental Victorian narrative centers on a young woman’s long, agonizing wait for the return of her missing fiancé and the recovery of a lost inheritance. It is a story of endurance, where personal grief is inextricably bound to the discovery of hidden documents and the eventual, dramatic…

A Virginia Cousin, & Bar Harbor Tales
Harrison, Burton, Mrs.
A young man adrift in the social expectations of old New York finds his true direction only when he wanders into the unfamiliar warmth of the American South.

Arachne
Georg Ebers
The ancient world’s obsession with beauty and the heavy cost of pride collide when a sculptor’s pursuit of artistic perfection destroys his moral compass. This drama of obsession follows a brilliant but volatile Greek artist whose betrayal of a local woman triggers a spiral of vengeance and personal ruin.

Belgium, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Tennent, James Emerson, Sir
A cautionary observation of a fledgling nation, this account serves as a stern warning against the folly of political upheaval and the fragility of economic independence.

Birth control and the state
C. P. (Charles Paton) Blacker
HOOK This work presents a dispassionate, early-twentieth-century case for state-sponsored contraception, arguing that population management is essential for preventing war and ensuring the long-term health of the modern nation.

Bungay Castle: A Novel. v. 1/2
Mrs. (Elizabeth) Bonhote
A long-buried captive, a stern patriarch, and a mysterious dog lead two young lovers through dark subterranean vaults into the light of unexpected joy.

Cancer World
Harry Warner
In a future where cancer-prone citizens are legally exiled to Mars, a man desperately schemes to reunite his family after his wife is deported. His search for a loophole leads him into a shadow world of interstellar smuggling.

Carmen's Messenger
Harold Bindloss
The forest outposts of northern Canada seem worlds away from the ancient, rain-swept Border country of Scotland, yet a single mysterious packet proves capable of tangling lives across both hemispheres.

Cause of Death
Max Tadlock
The struggle to bridge the gap between life and the beyond is fraught with peril. When one seeks to master the ultimate silence, the cost may be the very self one hopes to save.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 40, Vol. I, October 4, 1884
Various
This collection offers a window into the Victorian appetite for discovery, mapping everything from the mechanics of electric light to the habits of elephants in the East. It captures a society balancing rapid innovation with a deep, traditional morality.

Chasing the Sun
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
A weary young Liverpool manager trades his desk for the open sea, taking two friends on a high-spirited yachting voyage to the Arctic waters of Norway.

Christmas at Punkin Holler
Elizabeth F. (Elizabeth Frances) Guptill
A rural schoolteacher struggles to maintain order during a chaotic rehearsal for a Christmas program, where stubborn students and eccentric townspeople threaten to derail the entire production.

Christmas Holidays
Anonymous
This story of two brothers returning home for the winter break serves as a gentle exploration of faith, family duty, and the cultivation of a compassionate heart. It illustrates the Victorian ideal of childhood as a formative period for moral character.

Christmas Outside of Eden
Coningsby Dawson
The first laugh ever heard on earth or in heaven was not a divine decree, but the involuntary joy of a newborn child in a cold, lonely cave.

Color Blind
Charles A. Stearns
The pursuit of artificial beauty on a dangerous frontier takes a chilling turn when a desperate socialite and a lovestruck pilot collide in the mysterious rainbow gardens of Venus.

Daisy
Susan Warner
A young girl navigates the moral complexities of a divided nation and her own faith, seeking to bridge the vast distance between her aristocratic upbringing and the lived reality of those around her.

Diana of the Crossways
George Meredith
A woman of brilliant mind and independent spirit navigates a society that demands the masquerade of a traditional wife, finding that the price of honesty is often the loss of everything she holds dear.

Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A candid window into the Restoration, this record captures the monumental shift of a nation alongside the minute, restless details of a single human life. It remains an unparalleled document of seventeenth-century English identity.

Dorothy's Double. Volume 2 (of 3)
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A high-stakes drama of reputation and redemption, this narrative tracks the pursuit of two elusive swindlers across continents while exploring the complexities of social standing and true character in the Victorian era.

Double-Cross
Frederik Pohl
A revolutionary leader on a colonized Venus plots to destroy an Earth-ship, but his obsession with betrayal leads him to engineer his own downfall in a dark, ironic turn of fate.

Emmanuel Appadocca
Maxwell Philip
A son returns from Europe to the Caribbean to exact a cold, calculated vengeance upon the father who abandoned him to poverty. This story traverses the violent divide between the law of the sea and the cruelties of the plantation.

Eric, a waif
Emma Leslie
HOOK Abandoned in a xenophobic village, an orphaned boy’s journey from a life of servitude to redemption unfolds through the lens of faith and the grace of unexpected mentors.

Evan Harrington
George Meredith
A young man struggles to reconcile his love for an aristocrat with the stain of his trade, while his sisters desperately attempt to mask their origins through social performance and artifice.

Excitement for sale
Stephen Marlowe
A bored housewife’s yearning for a life of glamour is answered by a mysterious peddler, who offers a transformation that turns her humdrum existence into a high-stakes, breathless adventure. She soon discovers that the thrill of the extraordinary is inseparable from the peril of the unknown.

Fifty years with the Revere Copper Co.: A Paper Read at the Stockholders' Meeting held on Monday 24 March 1890
S. T. (Samuel Thomas) Snow
This commemorative address chronicles the half-century evolution of a pivotal American manufacturing institution, documenting its transition from early artisanal roots to the industrial maturity of the late nineteenth century.

Fruits of enterprize exhibited in the adventures of Belzoni in Egypt and Nubia
Lucy Sarah Atkins Wilson
This narrative captures the early nineteenth-century race to uncover Egypt’s buried past, framed as an educational dialogue between an observant mother and her curious children.

Gleanings in Europe
James Fenimore Cooper
An American observer navigates the complex social codes and political turbulence of 1830s Paris, offering a sharp, candid assessment of a world where tradition and revolution collide.

Great Lent: A School of Repentance. Its Meaning for Orthodox Christians
Alexander Schmemann
This guide offers a profound meditation on the season of Great Lent, framing it not as a list of ascetic prohibitions, but as a transformative school of repentance and a pilgrimage toward spiritual renewal.

Greycliff Wings
Harriet Pyne Grove
The girls of Greycliff embrace the fleeting joys of their final school year, navigating romantic entanglements and spirited rivalries as they prepare to leave their sanctuary for an uncertain, fast-changing world.

Harper's Young People, May 9, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This volume captures the vibrant, eclectic spirit of late nineteenth-century youth literature, weaving together serialized fiction, scientific curiosity, and the intimate correspondence of its young readers. It serves as a time capsule of a more earnest, inquisitive era.

Helena's Path
Anthony Hope
A spirited, aristocratic game of cat-and-mouse begins when a defiant nobleman demands access to a private path, sparking a battle of wits that mirrors a far more profound pursuit.

Homesick
Lyn Venable
The universe offers no welcome to those who have outlived their own era. An aging crew finds that returning home after a thirty-year voyage is not a triumph, but a fatal alienation.

Ice Planet
Carl Selwyn
A cynical journalist follows a notorious murderess into the deep reaches of space, only to uncover a conspiracy that threatens the entire solar system. Suspicion and high-stakes maneuvering collide beneath the frozen surface of a forbidden planet.

Intercession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, B.A
B. N. Michelson
In a moment of national devastation, a wartime sermon calls for moral balance, unity across faiths, and self-sacrifice grounded in eternal duty.

Klondyke Nuggets: A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest
Joseph Ladue
A cold wind blows through every page of this urgent guide, written by the man who built the first house in Dawson City just as the Klondike gold rush began to explode.

Little Bear at Work and at Play
Frances Margaret Fox
This collection of tales follows a young, inquisitive cub as he navigates the moral landscape of the forest, learning that chores, obedience, and kindness are the foundations of a happy life. It is a gentle, rhythmic exploration of growing up under the watchful, patient eyes of parents who balance firm discipline…

Lost Art
G. K. Hawk
This story explores the terrifying fragility of a society that has surrendered its survival to automated technology. When a cargo ship crashes in a frozen wilderness, two men discover that their reliance on machines has rendered them helpless in the face of nature.