Free summaries
Adventure — page 24
5,964 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 24 of 125.
Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of The Revolution
Maturin M. (Maturin Murray) Ballou
A young woman trades her quiet life in a coastal hamlet for the high seas, captaining a brig to rescue her beloved from a foreign prison during the American Revolution.
Ruth Fielding In the Saddle
Alice B. Emerson
A resourceful college student swaps her textbooks for a motion picture camera to capture the rugged beauty of the Arizona territory, finding far more adventure than she ever bargained for.
Scouting with Daniel Boone
Everett T. (Everett Titsworth) Tomlinson
A young frontiersman finds his destiny entwined with a legendary pathfinder, navigating the brutal realities of the American wilderness while carving a permanent home out of the Kentucky frontier.
The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A spirited youth navigates the brutal battlefields of the War of the Spanish Succession and the deadly intrigues of the French court to secure his honor and his future.
Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls: Translated from the Scandinavian Languages
Emilie Poulsson
These tales from the far North reveal a world where the line between the everyday and the enchanted is as thin as a winter frost. Through these stories, the wonders of the Scandinavian landscape meet the universal dreams and struggles of childhood.
Wolfville Nights
Alfred Henry Lewis
A weathered cattleman recounts the rugged, often violent, and darkly humorous chronicles of an Arizona frontier camp, where justice is swift and a man’s word is his only currency.
Breton Legends: Translated from the French
Anonymous
HOOK These tales capture the wild, rugged spirit of a coastal land where ancient stone monoliths stand guard over a world deeply anchored in Christian faith.
From Powder Monkey to Admiral: A Story of Naval Adventure
William Henry Giles Kingston
From the grime of the powder magazine to the dignity of the quarterdeck, this tale traces the rise of a common sailor through the crucible of the Napoleonic Wars. It is a classic study of character rewarded by service, written with an earnest focus on duty and the transformative power of integrity.
Kitty's Picnic, and Other Stories
Anonymous
A collection of gentle, moralizing tales from a bygone era, these stories explore the small triumphs and heartaches of childhood. They offer a window into a world where lessons in kindness and responsibility are always close at hand.
Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times
Edward Sylvester Ellis
These chronicles capture the raw, perilous spirit of early American survival, blending the grit of frontier life with the high-stakes drama of the Revolutionary War.
The Pathless Trail
Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
The dense, unforgiving Brazilian wilderness serves as the stage for a desperate rescue mission, where three American adventurers confront both the primal terrors of the jungle and the treachery of their own kind. A gripping tale of grit and survival, this story pits steady discipline against the chaotic, lethal…
The Space Pioneers
Carey Rockwell
Three young space cadets find themselves trapped in a web of interplanetary conspiracy when their mission to a remote colony turns into a desperate fight against a corrupt, power-hungry governor.
Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers
Victor Appleton
An intrepid young inventor stakes his reputation and his aircraft on a journey into the Rocky Mountains to uncover the secret of a mysterious syndicate that produces perfect diamonds from raw, natural forces.
A Virginia Scout
Hugh Pendexter
HOOK A seasoned Virginia scout navigates the brutal, shifting alliances of the 1774 frontier, where the promise of settlement is carved into the wilderness with rifle fire and blood.
Christopher Carson, Familiarly Known as Kit Carson
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
This biographical narrative chronicles the life of an American folk icon, painting a portrait of a man who bridged the gap between untamed wilderness and the encroaching influence of civilization. It captures the rugged essence of the mid-nineteenth-century frontier through the eyes of a legendary scout.
Over the Border: A Novel
Herman Whitaker
Three seasoned outlaws living in the Mexican wilderness find their lawless existence transformed when they adopt a young American woman caught in the chaotic grip of the Mexican Revolution.
Rung Ho! A Novel
Talbot Mundy
HOOK In the high-stakes intrigue of colonial India, a young officer and a brave missionary navigate a web of princely treachery, religious fervor, and shifting loyalties to survive a collapsing political order.
The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg'
Bertha Upton
In the quiet of a frosty Christmas Eve, the wooden inhabitants of a toy shop awaken to claim their one night of liberty. This whimsical chronicle follows two Dutch dolls and their newfound companion as they trade the confines of the counter for a series of high-stakes escapades, from reckless rides on wooden steeds…
The Black Douglas
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A young knight finds his loyalties tested in a dark, sprawling tale of Scottish political intrigue and a terrifying, occult nightmare across the sea in fifteenth-century France.
The Blue Raider: A Tale of Adventure in the Southern Seas
Herbert Strang
Stranded on a hostile coast, a group of survivors must outwit a ruthless band of German pirates to secure their freedom and escape the island.
The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant
George Cupples
High seas adventure, romantic intrigue, and the sharp bite of maritime life converge in this classic story of an undercover midshipman.
The Last of the Flatboats: A Story of the Mississippi and Its Interesting Family of Rivers
George Cary Eggleston
HOOK Five boys embark on a precarious flatboat journey down the Mississippi River, finding that navigating the currents requires as much intellectual rigor and character as it does physical strength.
The Pirate of the Mediterranean: A Tale of the Sea
William Henry Giles Kingston
An elusive outlaw haunts the waters, masking his true identity behind the guise of nobility while a relentless officer pursues him across the Mediterranean.
Alive in the jungle
Eleanor Stredder
A young child is snatched from his home by a wolf, setting off a desperate search across the wild, sun-scorched plains of Bengal. This story follows the harrowing rescue of a lost boy and his reintegration into a world he no longer recognizes.
Honey-Bee: 1911
Anatole France
HOOK A luminous, bittersweet fairy tale where a princess and her noble companion navigate the hidden kingdoms of dwarfs and nixies to rediscover the path back to their own hearts.
My Friends the Savages: Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula)
Giovanni Battista Cerruti
A wanderer abandons the comforts of civilization to live among the indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula, trading the known world for the unpredictable, shadowed depths of the jungle. This account captures the delicate, often perilous boundary between a colonial observer and the remote forest dwellers he calls…
Black Rock: A Tale of the Selkirks
Ralph Connor
A small band of men and women wage a fierce, high-stakes battle for the souls and sanity of rough timber-cutters and miners trapped in the lawless wilderness of Western Canada.
The Boy With the U.S. Census
Francis Rolt-Wheeler
An eager youth tours early twentieth-century America as a census enumerator, discovering that the nation's truest heroes are those facing real hardship in its factory towns, icy frontiers, and crowded tenements.
The Kidnapped President
Guy Boothby
A straightforward British merchant sailor accepts a lucrative, secret assignment in Central America, only to find himself trapped in a high-stakes conspiracy of revolution, kidnapping, and political intrigue.
The Ruined Cities of Zululand
Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley
An imperial expedition turns into a desperate struggle for survival when an army officer and a missionary trek across the uncharted interior of southern Africa in search of ancient ruins.
The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars: Containing his Life, a Dictionary of the Cant Language, and many Entertaining Particulars of that Extraordinary Man
Unknown
A rogue of good family flees his Devonshire school, joins a band of itinerant mendicants, and turns the art of trickery into a lifelong profession.
A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
A young boy in Restoration England loses his father to a Roundhead's bullet, setting off a relentless quest across high seas and shattered battlefields to claim his stolen birthright.
Allan's Wife
H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
A young Englishman wanders deep into the uncharted South African wilderness, finding both catastrophic danger and a love that alters his life forever.
Buried Cities, Volume 1: Pompeii
Jennie Hall
The earth opens up and buries a thriving Roman city under falling ash and rock, leaving a young Greek slave and a sick boy to fight their way toward the sea for freedom.
The Cruise of the Dream Ship
Ralph Stock
A dream of open water and a small wooden ship becomes a twelve-thousand-mile reality across two oceans.
The Little Gingerbread Man
George Haven Putnam
Baked into life by an overworked cook, a mischievous pastry boy leaps from the oven and leads a chaos-filled chase through the garden before meeting a swift, delicious fate.
The Wing-and-Wing
James Fenimore Cooper
Against the sun-drenched waters of the Mediterranean, a brilliant French privateer outmaneuvers British warships while a far more stubborn conflict rages within his own soul—a tragic choice between human devotion and spiritual belief.
Joan of the Sword Hand
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A disguised ruler risks her life and crown to size up a forced suitor, igniting a tempest of political intrigue, dynamic impersonations, and field warfare across medieval Germany and Muscovy.
Lin McLean
Owen Wister
A young Wyoming cow-puncher rides through love, folly, and sudden fatherhood, discovering that growing up in the old West means learning which burdens to carry and which to leave behind.
Tales from the Works of G. A. Henty
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
In a single volume, a master of historic high adventure tests human character across high seas, roaring mine shafts, besieged fortresses, and dark, flood-swept valleys.
The Confessions of a Poacher
Watson, John, F.L.S.
A lifetime spent treading silently through dark woods leaves a man with a rare, detailed intimacy with the natural world.
The house on the cliff
Franklin W. Dixon
High above the crashing surf of Barmet Bay, a sinister, abandoned house hides a treacherous secret beneath its floorboards.
The Hunters' Feast: Conversations Around the Camp Fire
Mayne Reid
A group of gentlemen hunters and seasoned backwoods guides set out into the American wilderness, sharing dramatic true tales of survival around the campfire as they trek across the plains.
The River Motor Boat Boys on the Rio Grande: In Defense of the Rambler
Harry Gordon
Four teenage boys set out down the Rio Grande in an engineered motorboat and find themselves swept into a swift wilderness of border bandits, wild animals, and hidden counterfeiting rings.
The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy"
John MacGregor
A solo sailor guides his tiny four-ton yawl through stormy channels, bustling ports, and river locks, discovering that solitary adventure demands both mechanical resourcefulness and a deep, quiet self-reliance.
Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon
Victor Appleton
An ambitious teenager sets out to safeguard the Panama Canal by engineering an unprecedented long-range weapon, contending with saboteurs, volatile explosives, and the unpredictable physics of extreme artillery.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 11 to 15
Mark Twain
A boy and a runaway slave drift down the Mississippi River on a raft, seeking freedom while dodging trackers, treacherous wrecks, and the shifting dangers of the night.
Captain Kyd
J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham
A proud Irish noble, stripped of his true identity by a dark trade made at his birth, forsakes his honor for a life of piracy on the high seas.