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All free summaries — page 97
5,112 public-domain books, summarised. Page 97 of 107.
The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians
Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir
This collection serves as a foundational bridge into the intellectual landscape of ancient Egypt, revealing how a civilization defined its existence through myth, prayer, and administrative record. It offers a glimpse into the enduring concerns of a people who looked to their gods and their history to secure order…
The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan, Volume 1
Omar Khayyam
Persian literature invites readers into a world of ancient chivalry, lush rose-gardens, and the profound, shifting struggle between human ambition and the inevitable passage of time.
Italian Hours
Henry James
The beauty of the Italian landscape, when filtered through a keen and lingering eye, reveals a history that is as much a personal meditation as it is a physical journey.
Studies in Classic American Literature
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
A provocative, irreverent re-examination of American literature, this collection of essays strips away academic pretense to confront the raw, often unsettling spirit behind the nation’s foundational myths.
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
Daniel Defoe
Born in the shadow of the gallows and surviving by her wits, a woman navigates a lifetime of marriages, thievery, and narrow escapes. This is the chronicle of a survivor who defies every social expectation.
The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans
W. Warde (William Warde) Fowler
The pulse of ancient Rome beats not in the speeches of its senators, but in the rhythm of its sacred calendar. By tracing the year from the first of January to the final days of December, the religious life of a civilization reveals its deepest origins.
Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics: Second Series
James Williams
A lighthearted yet learned collection of verse, this book finds the intersection between the rigid, often absurd world of the law and the fluid, emotive realm of poetry.
Carry On, Jeeves
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
A supreme gentleman’s gentleman quietly engineers the salvation of his employer, a well-meaning but hopelessly dim-witted bachelor, from a series of social and romantic entanglements.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Havelock Ellis
Sensory perception serves as the primary gateway for human attraction, transforming biological stimuli into the complex, often unconscious, experience of falling in love.
The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter
These stories dwell in the quiet corners of the countryside, where small creatures navigate the perils of a world designed for giants. Through sharp observation and gentle wit, these tales capture the intimate, often mischievous lives of animals who possess all the flaws and charms of human neighbors.
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume I, Alabama Narratives
United States. Work Projects Administration
These testimonies preserve the fading voices of individuals who lived through the final years of American chattel slavery, offering a direct, unvarnished look at a world now lost to time. They serve as an essential, harrowing archive of human endurance under the totalizing weight of bondage.
The Boy Electrician
Alfred Powell Morgan
This manual serves as a comprehensive guide for the curious young builder, transforming the mysteries of electrical theory into tangible, working inventions for the home workshop.
Short story classics (Foreign), Vol. 5, French II
Unknown
This collection gathers diverse French voices into a single volume, offering a panoramic view of human nature through narratives of social pretense, military life, and provincial life.
A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art
Thomas Wright
A comprehensive survey of the comic impulse, this volume traces the evolution of visual and literary satire from antiquity through the nineteenth century. It serves as a scholarly yet accessible roadmap for understanding how societies have used laughter and distortion to confront power, morality, and the absurd.
Path Flower, and Other Verses
Olive Tilford Dargan
The landscape of the soul is vast, and this collection maps its highest peaks and deepest, most shadowed valleys with unflinching grace. It asks what remains of us when the world’s weight presses down—and finds that beauty is the only thing capable of pushing back.
Sketches by Seymour
Robert Seymour
A collection of caricatures and sketches from the 1830s, this work captures the absurdity of London life through the misadventures of cockney sportsmen, bungling travelers, and the socially ambitious.
A Popular History of the Art of Music: From the Earliest Times Until the Present
W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock) Mathews
This historical survey traces the evolution of Western music from its prehistoric origins to the late nineteenth century. It aims to bridge the gap between academic musicology and the general listener through a chronological, biographical narrative.
Charlotte Temple
Mrs. Rowson
A young girl’s impetuous choice to abandon her home and family leads to a devastating journey of betrayal, isolation, and eventual ruin in a foreign land. This cautionary tale remains a poignant exploration of the consequences of youthful indiscretion and the enduring power of forgiveness.
In our time
Ernest Hemingway
In this collection of vignettes and short stories, the trauma of the Great War and the brutality of the bullring converge to reveal a world stripped of its illusions. Life is rendered in spare, unsparing prose that cuts through the noise of the early twentieth century to find the singular, often jagged, truth of…
Maxims for Revolutionists
Bernard Shaw
This collection of aphorisms serves as a sharp-edged toolkit for those who wish to dismantle convention, challenge authority, and rethink the foundations of social existence. It is not a narrative, but a radical examination of the illusions—political, moral, and personal—that sustain the status quo.
The political novel
Joseph Blotner
Exploring how literature captures the machinery of power, this study examines the political novel as a unique instrument for interpreting human behavior, historical crisis, and the complex struggle between individual conscience and institutional mandates.
The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870
W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois
This scholarly work provides a definitive, sobering account of how the African slave trade persisted in the United States long after it was ostensibly outlawed. It traces the tangled history of American law, commerce, and moral failure from the colonial era through the outbreak of the Civil War.
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12)
Edmund Burke
This collection gathers the oratorical output of a prominent 18th-century statesman, tracking his attempts to reconcile imperial authority with the principles of liberty and fiscal accountability. It serves as a masterclass in political rhetoric and the complexities of governance during the British Empire’s expansion.
U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1961 July - December
Library of Congress. Copyright Office
This catalog serves as a formal, historical record of the creative works that regained their legal protection during the latter half of 1961. It maps the literary landscape of a generation through the lens of copyright law.
Our Deportment: Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society
John H. Young
To navigate the intricacies of Victorian-era social life, one must master the subtle arts of etiquette, personal presentation, and the precise management of home and business affairs.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
The mid-Civil War period was marked by an urgent, intellectual reckoning with the American experiment; this collection captures that volatile moment by blending political manifesto, literary critique, and personal narrative.
The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years: Fifth Edition
Aylmer Maude
This biography charts the formative half-century of a literary giant, tracing how an aristocratic youth evolved into the searching, conflicted moralist who would eventually challenge the foundations of church, state, and society.
Aurora Leigh
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This verse novel tracks a woman’s struggle to claim her vocation as an artist, arguing that true creation requires a fusion of the natural world and the spiritual soul. It serves as both a manifesto for female autonomy and a panoramic critique of Victorian social divisions.
McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader
William Holmes McGuffey
This foundational collection of lessons for young students uses simple, rhythmic stories and poetry to teach reading while cultivating character, diligence, and empathy.
The Princess
Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron
This narrative poem unfolds as a playful, multi-layered frame story that explores the collision of Victorian gender roles, intellectual ambition, and the enduring pull of romantic love. It is a work of sophisticated artifice, blending archaic courtly romance with a sharp, nineteenth-century debate over women’s…
Esther's triumph
Emma Leslie
A girl’s prideful misunderstanding leads to a desperate, wandering flight from home, while a maligned neighbor proves that true character is often found in the most humble of places.
Justice
John Galsworthy
A man commits a desperate, singular crime to save the woman he loves, only to find that the machinery of the law—once set in motion—cannot be halted by mercy. This play serves as a harrowing indictment of a judicial system that prioritizes abstract justice over human reality.
Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine
William Carew Hazlitt
From the medieval spit to the elaborate puddings of the seventeenth century, the evolution of the English kitchen mirrors the shifting habits, manners, and social aspirations of a nation defining itself through its table.
Rembrandt and His Works: Comprising a Short Account of His Life
John Burnet
The master of light and shadow, Rembrandt lives on through his etchings, a body of work that reveals the artist’s profound ability to find truth in both the grandest historical scenes and the simplest human gestures.
The history of fashion in France
Augustin Challamel
French culture has long been synonymous with the art of the silhouette, and this sweeping chronicle traces the evolution of that obsession from ancient Gaul to the late nineteenth century. It is a detailed, era-by-era survey that connects the shifting textures of French dress to the political and social pulse of…
The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I
Euripides
These ancient dramas strip away the veneer of heroic legend to expose the raw, turbulent hearts of figures caught in the grinding machinery of fate. They remain the foundational blueprints for every tragedy that followed.
Her Royal Highness Woman
Max O'Rell
This collection of observations serves as a witty, opinionated, and unapologetically traditional guide to the roles, charms, and domestic responsibilities of women in the late nineteenth century.
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Unknown
This rigorous, encyclopedic study of ancient sexuality functions as a clinical survey of the erotic customs, anatomy, and social perversions that characterized the classical world. It presents a systematic, detached classification of human desire as recorded in the literature of Greece and Rome.
Mountain Meditations, and some subjects of the day and the war
L. (Lizzy) Lind-af-Hageby
This collection of essays offers a contemplative look at the intersection of spiritual inquiry, social reform, and the enduring human search for meaning amidst the backdrop of the First World War.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A patchwork girl stitched from scraps and brought to life by magic embarks on a whimsical, high-stakes journey across a vibrant, enchanted landscape to save her friends from a permanent, stone-like fate.
Vera
Oscar Wilde
A young woman caught between a vow of political vengeance and the stirrings of forbidden love must decide the fate of an empire. In this high-stakes drama, the personal and the political collide with fatal consequences.
Benjamin Franklin: A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
This biography serves as a detailed chronicle of Benjamin Franklin’s life, framing his personal evolution alongside the slow, inevitable birth of the American nation. It balances his scientific curiosity and diplomatic triumphs with a candid acknowledgement of his early spiritual doubts and moral failings.
The American
Henry James
A self-made American millionaire ventures to Paris seeking the finest life has to offer, only to discover that Europe’s ancient aristocratic families guard their doors with a ruthlessness his fortune cannot buy. This is a story of collision between the blunt, honest vigor of the New World and the calcified,…
The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon
Thomas Hardy
A panoramic vision of the Napoleonic Wars, this epic drama traces the rise and fall of an empire through the eyes of both historical titans and common observers.
The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age
Donald H. (Donald Howard) Menzel
The skies are not as empty as they appear, but the objects populating them are almost always terrestrial in origin, rooted in the familiar physics of light, atmosphere, and human error.
A House of Pomegranates
Oscar Wilde
These four fairy tales explore the heavy cost of pride and the redemptive power of mercy, weaving ornate, jewel-toned prose into narratives that feel both timeless and deeply melancholic.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
The tragedy of a young woman caught between an uncompromising family and a brilliant, predatory suitor, this monumental work explores the devastating cost of a daughter’s resistance. It is a profound study of character, cruelty, and the power of the written word.
The Book of Khalid
Ameen Fares Rihani
The story of a young Lebanese immigrant navigating the chaotic, materialist landscape of early twentieth-century New York, this philosophical narrative tracks a restless soul’s search for identity across two worlds. It is a lyrical, unconventional meditation on the struggle to reconcile ancient spiritual roots with…