The whole shelf
All free summaries — page 871
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 871 of 920.

Effie Ogilvie: the story of a young life
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
A young woman’s romantic ideals collide with the rigid expectations of her family, forcing her to choose between a sense of duty and the awakening of her own heart. This story captures the quiet, often painful, friction between internal integrity and social obligation.

Expelled
Richard Marsh
The transition from the sheltered life of a boarding school to the unpredictable dangers of the adult world serves as the crucible for a group of young men facing an uncertain future. This narrative explores the tension between youthful vanity and the sobering realities of duty, faith, and survival.

Feathers left around
Carolyn Wells
The quiet of a country house is shattered when a guest is found murdered, leaving a trail of cryptic clues for a master detective to unravel.

Fly By Night
Arthur Dekker Savage
Two young pilots, trained from childhood and paired by military command, rocket into the deep black above Earth to accomplish humanity's first lunar flight—and to survive what lies beyond it.

Forever We Die!
Stephen Marlowe
HOOK A captive Earthman discovers that the foundation of an entire alien civilization is built upon a cynical, five-thousand-year-old lie.

French morality, under the regulation system
Julie-Victoire Daubié
A scathing, meticulously researched indictment of the mid-nineteenth-century French "regulation system," this work exposes how state-sanctioned policies protected male vice while systematically dehumanizing women.

Geographic Variation in Red-backed Mice (Genus Clethrionomys) of the Southern Rocky Mountain Region
E. Lendell Cockrum
The red-backed mice of the Southern Rocky Mountains are examined through a lens of systematic biology to clarify their complex geographic distribution and taxonomic classification.

Girls of the Morning-Glory Camp Fire
Isabel Hornibrook
A band of spirited young women finds adventure, self-discovery, and a long-lost family fortune while embracing the outdoor traditions of the early twentieth-century Camp Fire movement.

Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, as She Saw it from the Belfry
Oliver Wendell Holmes
A grandmother recounts the harrowing day of the Battle of Bunker Hill, witnessing the clash from a belfry as her own life’s trajectory is irrevocably altered by the violence unfolding across the river.

Harper's Round Table, June 11, 1895
Various
This miscellany captures the Victorian spirit through a blend of maritime adventure, parliamentary observation, amateur photography, and the earnest, inquisitive pastimes of late nineteenth-century youth.

Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A quiet afternoon quickly transforms into a lively demonstration of practical science when a giant homemade kite ascends over a small town.

Harper's Young People, January 24, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
This vibrant 1882 weekly offers a time capsule of childhood, blending earnest moral instruction, whimsical tales, and a lively correspondence column that connects young readers across a rapidly changing America.

Harper's Young People, May 30, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A vibrant window into nineteenth-century youth, this collection gathers stories, articles, and correspondence that capture the curiosity, playfulness, and aspirations of a bygone era.

Home is the Spaceman
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
An experimental pilot returns from an eighteen-month, faster-than-light voyage only to face a bureaucratic nightmare that reveals humanity is not the first, nor the most advanced, civilization in the galaxy.

House Flies
L. O. (Leland Ossian) Howard
A singular, determined effort to rebrand a common household nuisance as a lethal public health threat.

In the Jag-Whiffing Service
David R. Bunch
The inhabitants of a distant, stressed planet rely on a strange, addictive commodity imported from Earth to find happiness. As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, they prepare to abandon their clandestine commerce for a full-scale invasion.

Jack Mason, the Old Sailor
Francis C. (Francis Channing) Woodworth
A pious old sailor recounts his travels across the globe, mixing thrilling sea stories of arctic icebergs and giant whales with gentle moral lessons for young listeners.

Jane Allen, Junior
Edith Bancroft
A vibrant, spirited junior at an elite women’s college navigates academic pressures, mysterious campus hauntings, and the secret lives of incoming freshmen.

Janet's college career
Amy Ella Blanchard
A spirited, ambitious young woman navigates the social rivalries, shifting loyalties, and growing pains of her undergraduate years. This story captures the quintessentially collegiate blend of lighthearted pranks, deepening friendships, and the bittersweet transition toward adulthood.

John, A Love Story
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
A young man finds his idealism tested by the grinding reality of a banking career and a complicated, passionate courtship. Love proves to be a force that both disrupts his purpose and ultimately restores it.

Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat: His Many Adventures
Richard Barnum
This story follows a spirited goat who leaves his rocky hillside home to explore the wider world, ultimately finding his place in a loving family. It is a gentle, episodic tale of animal wonder, hardship, and reunion.

Little Robins' Love One to Another
Madeline Leslie
HOOK Follow the intertwined lives of a family of robins and the children who cherish them, exploring the profound importance of kindness and the natural world in a gentle, instructional tale.

Louisa Pallant
Henry James
A world-weary bachelor watches his nephew fall for a mesmerizing young heiress, only to be confronted by the girl’s mother, who makes a startling, desperate sacrifice to protect the boy from her own daughter.

Love's Comedy
Henrik Ibsen
A young poet challenges the hollow, performative romance of his social circle, only to discover that preserving the purity of love may require an impossible sacrifice.

Mam' Lyddy's Recognition: 1908
Thomas Nelson Page
A fiercely loyal, aristocratic domestic servant discovers that the "recognition" promised to her by a smooth-talking urban preacher is a trap designed to steal her life’s savings.

Memoirs of the Marchioness of Pompadour (vol. 2 of 2)
Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de
A royal favorite recounts the inner workings of an eighteenth-century court, revealing how the private whims of a monarch and the maneuvering of ministers shaped the trajectory of a fading superpower.

Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln: Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America
George Bancroft
A solemn, expansive tribute, this oration frames the life of a fallen leader as the inevitable, providential climax of the American struggle for freedom.

Mère Giraud's Little Daughter
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A mother’s relentless pride in her daughter’s beauty blinds her to a tragic reality, leading to a journey that uncovers a secret sacrifice. This haunting narrative explores the devastating cost of vanity and the lengths to which love will go to protect a life that has already been lost.

Mountain killers
Thomas Barclay Thomson
A man waits in the high mountains to exact lethal revenge, only to find that nature has set a violent trap for both the hunter and the hunted.

Nelka: Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch
Michael Moukhanoff
Living across two continents and through a century of sudden, total collapse, one woman searches relentlessly for an inner peace equal to her exterior courage.

Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This volume serves as a digital window into the mid-Victorian intellectual landscape, functioning as a lively, collaborative exchange of curiosities, historical puzzles, and scholarly inquiries between the curious minds of 1853.

Notes and Queries, Number 228, March 11, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
The pursuit of obscure knowledge thrives in this collection of Victorian correspondence, where scholars and enthusiasts trade fragments of history, language, and science. It serves as a persistent, curious record of human inquisitiveness.

Oscar the Detective
Old Sleuth
A master of the quick change and the sharp observation, a gentleman detective navigates the seedy underbelly of New York to untangle a web of international theft and hidden lineage.

Our Elizabeth: A Humour Novel
Florence A. (Florence Antoinette) Kilpatrick
A resourceful, fatalistic housemaid takes charge of her employers’ domestic and romantic lives, proving that a little superstition and a lot of nerve can fix even the most complicated marital entanglements.

Paul Clifford
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
A charming rogue finds himself torn between his life of crime and a sudden, unexpected romance. It is a story of how society’s harsh judgments can push a person toward the very life they might have otherwise avoided.

Paying Off: Deep Waters, Part 2
W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs
A self-important London night-watchman gets tricked into paying off the petty financial losses of a schooner's crew under the guise of an elaborate stolen-money scheme.

Peace Theories and the Balkan War
Norman Angell
The enduring dream of a world governed by reason instead of the sword often crashes against the hard, cold reality of the battlefield.

Poems
Carr, John, Sir
This collection captures the fleeting moods of a gentleman traveler in the early nineteenth century, blending light social observation with sincere, often melancholy, reflections on love, art, and the volatility of European politics.

Poems
Jennie Earngey Hill
The world is a tapestry of small, transient wonders, and this collection serves as a gentle lens through which to view the natural rhythms of life, love, and faith.

Possession
Mazo De la Roche
A young farmer stakes his future on a rugged stretch of Canadian soil, only to find his life tethered to a woman from the fringe of society and the heavy burden of his own choices. This is a story of the land, the price of ambition, and the irony of ownership.

Preferred Position
Dave Dryfoos
In a world where technology has eliminated hardship, a couple finds that the only thing more dangerous than a life of total ease is the crushing boredom that comes with it.

Preserving Louisiana's Legacy: Everyone Can Help
Nancy W. Hawkins
This practical guide illuminates how ordinary citizens, landowners, and industries can safeguard Louisiana’s fragile archaeological history from the dual threats of modern development and intentional looting.

Primrose Hill Park, Regent's Park, and Hampstead Heath
William Ray Smee
A persistent citizen attempts to persuade the British government to preserve open space for urban recreation, finding that the machinery of state moves with frustrating deliberation when faced with the needs of the public.

Princess
M. G. (Mary Greenway) McClelland
A quiet study of the clash between long-held social codes and the fierce demands of individual desire, this narrative follows a young woman’s struggle to reconcile her conscience with a forbidden love.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105, August 12th 1893
Various
A family faces a travel impasse, a bishop lands in hot water over orange peel, and the House of Commons descends into a squabble over dining tables. This collection offers a singular window into the anxieties, absurdities, and domestic rhythms of late Victorian life.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-02-25
Various
This snapshot of early twentieth-century British life captures the nervous, witty, and cynical pulse of a nation grappling with the immediate aftermath of the Great War. It serves as a time capsule of post-armistice social anxiety, blending sharp political satire with the absurdities of daily existence.

Punch, or the London Charivari. Volume 1, July 31, 1841
Various
The inaugural volume of this legendary periodical serves as a satirical mirror held up to the Victorian establishment, exposing the vanity, bureaucracy, and absurdity of the age through sharp wit and irreverent commentary.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, October 23, 1841
Various
This collection captures the frantic, biting energy of a new voice in early Victorian London, blending absurd theatrical farce with sharp-edged political commentary. It serves as a time capsule for the year 1841, when satire was the primary weapon against the pomposity of the ruling class.