The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 866
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 866 of 920.

Raw men
Frank Richardson Pierce
In the unforgiving expanse of the Arctic, a sheltered young man and an elderly native face a trial of survival that forces them to choose between their conflicting moral codes. Through this brutal encounter, the boundaries of civilization and savagery are tested and ultimately rewritten.

Reasonableness of Catholic Ceremonies and Practices
John J. (John James) Burke
Sacred acts lose their mystery when their logic remains hidden, yet simple explanations can restore purpose to ancient traditions.

Red Fleece
Will Levington Comfort
A war correspondent and a mysterious woman navigate the shifting front lines of the First World War, where the brutal machinery of conflict collides with the fragile, transcendent power of human connection.

Rogue psi
James H. Schmitz
This thriller of intellectual cat-and-mouse explores the high-stakes confrontation between the human race and an immortal, malevolent telepath who has surreptitiously steered the course of history for centuries.

Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp
Alice B. Emerson
A run-in with a furious pasture bull sets a winter vacation in motion, launching a group of boarding school friends into a high-stakes northern wilderness adventure.

Sappers and Miners: The Flood beneath the Sea
George Manville Fenn
Two boys and their fathers face a life-or-death struggle when a flooded Cornish tin mine threatens to collapse beneath the sea.

Sixty-Year Extension
Alan Edward Nourse
HOOK A man undergoes a miraculous medical procedure to extend his life, only to discover that the "rebirth" he bought comes with a terrifying, hidden price tag he never agreed to pay.

Sketches New and Old, Part 3
Mark Twain
This collection captures the sharp, irreverent wit of a writer navigating the absurdity of American life, from the moral contradictions of the frontier to the hollow pretensions of bureaucrats and self-styled intellectuals.

Space Blackout
Sam Carson
HOOK Two Earthmen travel to a distant planet to rescue a lost colony from an encroaching cosmic void, only to find the inhabitants choose their home over survival.

Sparing the family tree
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The dusty trails of the American West offer a strange refuge for two wanderers who find themselves caught in a farcical web of mistaken identities and matrimonial schemes.

Star of Panadur
Henry Hasse
Two stranded men, a desperate quest for survival, and a telepathic alien species collide on the freezing surface of Europa, leading to a profound moral reckoning that only one man survives.

Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 06, May 29, 1858
Unknown
This is a vitriolic, self-published chronicle of mid-nineteenth-century New York, functioning as both a personal memoir and an aggressive political broadside. It serves as a raw, unfiltered window into the city’s complex history of corruption and social upheaval.

Striking Hard: Deep Waters, Part 10
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
The domestic battlefield becomes a mirror of the industrial picket line in this dry, observant comedy of marital power dynamics. It offers a sharp look at how quickly the politics of the workplace can collide with the realities of the kitchen.

Survival Tactics
Al Sevcik
A lone scout must outwit an army of autonomous, mind-tracking machines before his wife’s ship lands on a lethal, alien jungle world. He fights not just to survive, but to save the woman he loves.

The African Trader
William Henry Giles Kingston
After his father’s sudden death, a young boy seeks his fortune at sea, only to face the perils of the African coast, a deadly fever, and a harrowing encounter with a slave trader.

The Altar at Midnight
C. M. (Cyril M.) Kornbluth
A young spacer whose body is ruined by the drive that makes space travel possible seeks human warmth in a Skid Row dive bar, accompanied by an older drunk who shares a secret connection to his plight.

The Arizona Callahan
H. (Henry) Bedford-Jones
The rugged beauty of Michigan’s island frontier meets the grit of an Arizona wanderer in this fast-paced tale of justice and romance.

The assistant self
F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace
An empathetic man’s curse of feeling exactly what others feel becomes a life-altering weapon when he is forced to assume the identity of a dying executive to solve a corporate murder.

The Auto Boys' Quest
James A. (James Andrew) Braden
Four friends embark on an automotive journey to find a mysterious, long-hidden landmark, only to be dogged by a group of jealous, scheming rivals.

The Barbarians
Algis Budrys
A post-apocalyptic feudal tale of tank battles and altered loyalties, exploring what happens when civilization falls apart and reconstitutes itself around smaller, rougher codes.

The Bee Keeper's Guide, Fourth Edition: Containing concise practical directions for the management of bees, upon the depriving system
J. H. Payne
This practical manual offers a humane, nineteenth-century approach to apiary management, prioritizing the survival of the colony over the traditional practice of destroying bees to harvest their honey.

The Blue Peter: Sea comedies
Morley Roberts
A seasoned ship’s master finds himself trapped in a life of stagnant indignity, nursing a desperate, secret hunger to finally settle the score with the callous owners who built their fortune on the ruins of his career.

The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World
Margaret Vandercook
A young woman carrying three unlit silver candles down a cold hallway must decide whether to give up her family home on Thanksgiving Day.

The Changing Numbers: Odd Craft, Part 8
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
A harmless, hungover sailor finds himself in a pickle with a local policeman, leading to a comedic sequence of mistaken identities, petty revenge, and questionable craftsmanship in a quiet English village.

The Children of Cupa
Mary Ellen Mannix
An American family’s summer camping trip in the California mountains becomes a poignant witness to the forced displacement of the Cupeño people from their ancestral hot springs.

The Consul
Richard Harding Davis
The long, loyal career of an aging diplomat comes to a quiet end—or a dramatic beginning—in a fever-ridden port. This story of principle, political patronage, and the weight of one’s own conscience remains a poignant reflection on public service.

The Daughter of a Republican
Bernie Babcock
A young woman awakens to the moral rot of her era, turning against her father’s political allegiances to battle the liquor industry and the human misery it fosters.

The Delinquent, Vol. IV, No. 6, June, 1914
Various
This volume serves as a primary record of the early twentieth-century movement to reform American penal institutions through scientific observation, humanitarian oversight, and the implementation of the "honor system.

The Diamond Master
Jacques Futrelle
An impossibly perfect diamond arrives in the mail for New York's leading jeweler, sparking a high-stakes conspiracy that threatens to collapse the global economy. This is a battle of wits between the titans of the gem trade and a brilliant, enigmatic man who claims to hold the power to manufacture diamonds at will.

"The Fotygraft Album": Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters Aged Eleven
Francis Marion Wing
A young girl’s earnest tour through a family photo album reveals the absurdities of small-town life, filtered through the irreverent, biting commentary of her father.

The Four Canadian Highwaymen
J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Collins
The story of a young man trapped in a den of outlaws, this rugged adventure pits personal honor against the dark, lawless sprawl of the Markham Swamp.

The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1005, April 1, 1899
Various
This collection offers a window into the late Victorian ideal of womanhood, blending practical instruction with the moralizing fiction and historical sketches that shaped the era’s domestic life. It is a rare, authentic artifact of a time when magazines served as both companion and conscience for the young.

The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
The world of 1897 is a volatile tapestry of empires, civil wars, and shifting borders, all captured in the urgent, breathless prose of a weekly digest for the young. It offers a window into how an era viewed its own unfolding history.

The Great Victory—Its Cost and Its Value: Address delivered at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, July 4th, 1865
M. Russell (Martin Russell) Thayer
This Fourth of July address from 1865 captures the somber, triumphant spirit of a nation emerging from civil war, reflecting on the immense human and material costs of preserving the American Union.

The Heir of Kilfinnan: A Tale of the Shore and Ocean
William Henry Giles Kingston
A fisher-boy’s quiet life on the Irish coast transforms into a storied naval career, eventually revealing a hidden legacy that bridges the divide between poverty and nobility.

The Henchman
Mark Lee Luther
Ambition and moral compromise collide in the cutthroat world of New York politics, where a rising star must decide if the price of power is worth the loss of his own integrity.

The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 10
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
A wandering knight-errant’s quest for glory ignites a series of tangled, real-world entanglements, where the line between noble illusion and harsh reality constantly blurs.

The Lament of the Mormon Wife: A Poem
Marietta Holley
This narrative poem explores the quiet, devastating erosion of a marriage under the pressure of polygamy, tracing a woman’s journey from a cherished wife to a forgotten, solitary figure residing in her own home.

The Last of the Barons
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
The Wars of the Roses serve as a brutal backdrop for this historical drama, where the shifting loyalties of the nobility collide with the personal obsessions of a king. It is a story of shifting power, where the ambition of the few threatens to unravel the fabric of a nation.

The life, trial and conversations of Robert Emmet, Esq., leader of the Irish insurrection of 1803
Anonymous
The life of a young idealist culminates in a failed insurrection and a final, defiant speech that echoes through Irish history. This account preserves the legacy of a man whose dream of liberty outlived his execution.

The Little Black Princess: A True Tale of Life in the Never-Never Land
Jeannie Gunn
A young girl of the Australian bush learns to bridge the divide between two worlds, guided by the wisdom of the land and the kindness of a stranger.

The Mammals of Washtenaw County, Michigan: Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology, No. 123
Norman Asa Wood
The wilderness that once defined the Michigan landscape did not vanish overnight; it receded through the quiet, incremental labor of the settlers who reshaped the land and displaced its original inhabitants.

The Man Higher Up
William MacHarg
A brilliant psychologist employs cutting-edge physiological testing to dismantle a corrupt shipping empire, proving that the human body cannot lie even when the mind is masterfully deceptive.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 263, Supplementary Number (1827)
Various
This historical chronicle charts the meteoric rise and inevitable fall of a singular emperor, capturing both the brutality of his revolutionary origins and the profound solitude of his final exile.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 266, July 28, 1827
Various
A bustling cityscape of early nineteenth-century print culture opens up through brief histories, travel sketches, theatrical anecdotes, and scientific notes.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 271, September 1, 1827
Various
This periodical captures a singular snapshot of 1827, blending architectural blueprints for a city gaol with the meditative poetry of Quaker writers and the curious, eclectic observations of a rapidly expanding world.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831
Various
A collection of nineteenth-century miscellany, this volume captures the intellectual curiosities, moral concerns, and cultural preoccupations of early 1830s Britain. Through a mosaic of essays, historical anecdotes, poetry, and social commentary, it serves as a preserved snapshot of a world transitioning into…

The motion picture chums at the fair
Victor Appleton
This brisk, optimistic tale follows a group of young entrepreneurs as they navigate the burgeoning world of early cinema, seeking glory and profit at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.