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All free summaries — page 909
44,127 public-domain books, summarised. Page 909 of 920.
A District Messenger Boy, and A Necktie Party
James Otis
A young boy’s dedication to his work and family is tested by a series of bewildering, high-stakes misadventures.
A Doctor of the Old School
Ian Maclaren
A stubborn Scottish physician spends forty years riding through storm and snow to tend his rural parish, asking no reward beyond the quiet knowledge of a lifetime spent in service.
A Leaf from the Old Forest
John D. Cossar
The Old Forest is a sanctuary of song, a place where nature’s rhythms and the echoes of departed friendships converge to offer the weary traveler a respite from the world’s clamorous indifference.
A letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the nature and interpretation of unsoundness of mind, and imbecility of intellect
John Haslam
This professional inquiry challenges the legal definition of "unsoundness of mind," arguing that current judicial ambiguity creates dangerous confusion for both medical practitioners and the juries who must decide a person’s capacity.
A motley jest
Oscar Fay Adams
Classic dramatic figures drift ashore onto a mysterious island and into unfamiliar Venetian streets, blending timeless tragedies and comedies into an imaginative afterlife.
A Night Out
Edward Peple
A pampered Persian cat discovers the thrill of the wild after befriending a scarred street cat, leading to a transformative night of adventure, theft, and a brutal brawl. This lighthearted tale celebrates the untamable spirit that persists even beneath the finest silks and collars.
A Port Said miscellany
William McFee
The vast, humid theater of the First World War serves as the backdrop for this meditation on the lives of those who sustain the machinery of conflict, often far from the glory of the front lines.
A True Hero: A Story of the Days of William Penn
William Henry Giles Kingston
The quest for religious freedom drives a young man across the Atlantic, where the courage of his convictions is tested against the harsh realities of a new world.
Amy Herbert
Elizabeth Missing Sewell
A girl raised in quiet, godly contentment must learn to navigate the envy and social hierarchies of her wealthy cousins. Her journey toward maturity demands a faith that survives both luxury and profound personal loss.
Armenia immolata
Edward Strieby Steele
The world watches a tragedy unfold, yet the nations of the West stand idle, trading their humanity for the comforts of status quo. This is an urgent plea for moral intervention in the face of systemic slaughter.
Back home
J. Frank (James Francis) Davis
A fugitive returns home after decades in exile, only to discover that the daughter he left behind is on the eve of her wedding.
Beauchamp's Career
George Meredith
A young naval officer’s uncompromising idealism collides with the rigid social machinery of Victorian England, forcing him to choose between his radical political convictions and the expectations of his aristocratic family.
Black-out
Joseph Farrell
As a dying Martian civilization pins its final hopes on an advanced race across the void, a last astronomer discovers a devastating truth about the people he desperately seeks to contact.
Bolanyo
Opie Percival Read
Caught in the blast of a riverboat explosion, a traveling actor washes ashore in small-town Mississippi and finds himself drawn into a tangle of regional politics, local eccentrics, and an impossible love.
Carlyon Sahib: A Drama in Four Acts
Gilbert Murray
A fallen colonial administrator fights to preserve his legacy, only to be dismantled by the daughter who once worshiped him. This is a study of power, moral rot, and the crushing weight of hidden sins.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 128, vol. III, June 12, 1886
Various
This issue of a Victorian-era miscellany offers a panoramic view of late 19th-century intellectual curiosity, blending serious scientific inquiry with colonial-era fiction and social commentary.
Clerical Subscription and the Act of Uniformity
Edward Hoare
This urgent ecclesiastical treatise argues that the Church of England must reclaim its internal autonomy by reforming the rigid, state-imposed mandates governing its clergy.
Conscience
Hector Malot
This is a somber, psychological study of a man who commits a crime of necessity only to find himself trapped by the very conscience he believed he had outgrown. It is a taut, claustrophobic portrait of moral disintegration set against the backdrop of the Parisian legal system.
Don Strong, Patrol Leader
William Heyliger
A young scout unexpectedly finds himself in a position of authority, only to discover that the hardest part of leading is winning the respect of a volatile, rebellious patrol mate.
Eight days in New-Orleans in February, 1847
Albert James Pickett
A traveler’s vibrant, mid-19th-century window into a burgeoning American metropolis, capturing the frenetic energy, architectural grandeur, and social complexities of a city defined by the Mississippi River.
Eugene Aram
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
HOOK A scholar hides a dark secret in a quiet village, struggling to balance his love for a gentle woman with the haunting weight of his own past.
Everybody knows Joe
C. M. (Cyril M.) Kornbluth
At least two persons live in each of us, and one of them is Joe, a swaggering free-lance writer whose internal critic tags along to witness his grand delusions and elaborate evasions.
Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859
Edward Feild
A bishop traverses the rugged, isolated coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador by ship to bring religious structure to remote, struggling fishing communities. This travelogue serves as a rare, intimate record of mid-19th-century colonial life.
Harper's Round Table, August 27, 1895
Various
This collection of late nineteenth-century youth literature offers a vivid window into the past, capturing the earnest, instructional, and adventurous spirit of a bygone era. It serves as a fascinating repository of period sensibilities, hobbies, and moral guidance.
Harper's Round Table, March 16, 1897
Various
Some boys, like some men, have greatness thrust upon them. Bruce Marvel became one of these boys one day to his own great surprise.
Harper's Young People, October 3, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A window into the Victorian imagination, this weekly miscellany blends adventure fiction, scientific observation, and earnest moral instruction, offering a vibrant portrait of the intellectual and social life of American youth in the late nineteenth century.
Harrison's Amusing Picture and Poetry Book
Unknown
With a turn of the page, a child steps into a bright world of rhyming fables, cautionary tales, and quiet observations on nature.
Heedless Hetty
Annette Lyster
A young housemaid struggles to overcome a chronic lack of focus that threatens the safety of the delicate, invalid child in her care. Can she learn to replace her impulsive whims with a sense of purpose?
Hetty's garden-party, and what came of it
Emma Leslie
An ambitious young girl's desperate attempt to mimic the grand social circles of her wealthy relatives precipitates a cascade of household debt, neighborhood estrangement, and personal humiliation.
In Paths of Peril: A Boy's Adventures in Nova Scotia
J. Macdonald (James Macdonald) Oxley
HOOK A young survivor of the siege of La Rochelle finds a new, perilous life in the Canadian wilderness, where faith and grit meet the challenges of the frontier.
Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Stanley J. Weyman
Stanley John Weyman
These tales of historical adventure trade on the tension between personal honor and the violent, shifting tides of European politics. They explore how ordinary lives are upended by the ambitions of kings, the fervor of revolutions, and the weight of inherited obligation.
Kate's ordeal
Emma Leslie
A young woman seeking independence in the big city discovers that the pursuit of social status and worldly vanity can lead to devastating moral consequences.
Maurice and the bay mare
Henry Herbert Knibbs
A seasoned groom and a spirited mare navigate the delicate trust between human and animal. This quiet narrative explores the hazards of horsemanship and the enduring pride of those who live by it.
Monster of the Asteroid
Ray Cummings
A young inventor and his fiancée are abducted by a monstrous, fragmented alien entity that rules a desolate asteroid with an iron, telepathic grip. They must outwit both the creature and their fellow captives to survive the most harrowing night of their lives.
Monteagle
Pansy
A poor, sickly city girl finds her world transformed when a sudden mountain journey brings her physical health, unexpected friendship, and a deep spiritual awakening.
Mr. Replogle's dream
Evelyn E. Smith
HOOK In a world where mass production has reduced humanity to grey conformity, art stands as the final refuge of the soul—until a gallery discovers its newest "primitive" genius is a machine.
Navy boys to the rescue
Halsey Davidson
Amid the grey waters of World War I, American destroyer sailors battle German submarines, rescue stranded enemies, and race to save a captured merchant ship carrying their own families across the Atlantic.
Northern Lights, Volume 1
Gilbert Parker
This collection of frontier tales captures the rugged, fading spirit of the Canadian West, where men and women live by brutal codes of vengeance, sacrifice, and the relentless pull of the wilderness.
Note for a time capsule
Edward Wellen
A lonely, unassuming accountant discovers he has become the secret, singular arbiter of global pop culture. By answering a deluge of survey calls, he inadvertently dictates the collective taste of the entire world.
Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850
Various
This mid-century repository serves as a communal clearinghouse for the curious, where Victorian scholars and laymen trade obscure facts, solve linguistic mysteries, and preserve the disappearing fragments of local history.
Notes and Queries, Number 242, June 17, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
A mid-Victorian weekly register of shared erudition turns the quiet inquiries of isolated readers into a vibrant, collective archive.
Old Jabe's Marital Experiments: 1908
Thomas Nelson Page
A shrewd and irrepressible man treats marriage with the casual pragmatism of a business transaction, outlasting his many wives while maintaining a humorous, parasitic reliance on his former mistress.
One of Life's Slaves
Jonas Lie
The grip of poverty and the weight of social standing define the tragic arc of a man struggling to escape the circumstances of his birth. This story of a smith’s apprentice maps the quiet, inexorable erosion of a life.
Open Water
Arthur Stringer
HOOK This collection of free verse captures the restless, yearning spirit of a poet finding his own voice in the vast, open spaces of the modern world.
Plain Sermons, Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street
James Galloway Cowan
These sermons offer a direct, uncompromising look at the mid-Victorian conscience, urging readers to weigh their daily lives against the absolute demands of Christian faith.
"Puffing Billy" and the Prize "Rocket"
Helen C. (Helen Cross) Knight
This biographical account traces the rise of the father-and-son engineering team whose locomotives transformed nineteenth-century industry. It is a story of grit, technical ingenuity, and the hard-won triumph of the steam engine over skepticism.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105 December 9, 1893
Various
A Victorian weekly periodical captures the political squabbles, theatrical absurdities, and literary chatter of late-1893 England through biting satire and verse.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-01-14
Various
This volume captures the irreverent, post-war spirit of 1920s London, offering a kaleidoscopic view of a society eager to laugh at its own bureaucracies, fads, and lingering anxieties. It stands as a vivid, witty time capsule of a world trying to recover its equilibrium.