Free summaries
Adventure — page 40
5,964 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 40 of 125.
Saved at sea
Walton, O. F., Mrs.
The lighthouse on a lonely Scottish island is a place of storms and sudden rescues. This narrative follows a young boy’s spiritual awakening as he and his grandfather navigate the profound changes brought by the sea.
The Captive in Patagonia
Benjamin Franklin Bourne
A harrowing account of survival among the Tehuelche people of Patagonia, this narrative details a traveler's desperate ingenuity and psychological warfare to escape a three-month captivity in a harsh, unforgiving wilderness.
The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley
Mayne Reid
This is a high-stakes tale of political intrigue, border-crossing conflict, and romance, set against the backdrop of a volatile Mexico ruled by a tyrant. It follows a band of volunteers who navigate prison escapes, guerilla warfare, and personal betrayals to secure their freedom and their futures.
The Gaunt Gray Wolf: A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob
Dillon Wallace
The wilderness is a place of immense beauty and quiet danger, where survival demands both quick wit and a humble reliance on one’s companions. This story follows two young men into the heart of the Labrador interior, capturing the stark reality of life on the trapping trail.
The Golden Fleece: A Romance
Julian Hawthorne
The arid, golden expanse of Southern California hides secrets older than the American West, where the line between history and hallucination dissolves in the shimmering desert heat.
With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
A young sailor and his loyal companion navigate the perilous jungles and pirate-infested rivers of Borneo to aid a local tribe and confront a ruthless criminal mastermind.
Now or Never
Oliver Optic
A young boy leaves home to support his struggling mother, discovering that true success is found not in wealth, but in the unwavering strength of one's own principles.
Rancho Del Muerto, and Other Stories of Adventure: by Various Authors, from "Outing"
Charles King
A lone mule's sudden recovery leads a paymaster into ambush, uncovering secret betrayals in the Arizona canyon long before the morning light reveals the truth.
The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess
An ingenious, albeit frequently hungry, opossum must outwit a persistent boy and a forest full of rivals to reunite with his family during a long, harsh winter.
The Bride of the Sun
Gaston Leroux
A young English engineer travels to Peru and discovers that his beloved is being hunted by an ancient, fanatical sect determined to sacrifice her as a bride to the sun.
The Devil's Own: A Romance of the Black Hawk War
Randall Parrish
A soldier and an imperiled woman navigate a treacherous frontier, bound together by the violence of a shifting war and the secrets of a ruined family.
The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly
Margaret Burnham
A group of daring young friends takes to the skies for a summer of aerial exploration, only to find that their greatest challenges lie in the perils of the earth below.
The Knight of Malta
Eugène Sue
This historical romance, set in 17th-century Provence, follows the turbulent lives of the nobility and the common folk as they struggle against the encroaching shadow of Barbary pirates. It is a tale of clashing loyalties, religious devotion, and the weight of long-hidden secrets.
The story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith
E. Boyd (Elmer Boyd) Smith
A young girl’s courage bridges two worlds, while a restless soldier’s ambition carves a path for a nation. Their lives become an enduring American legend.
The Willoughby Captains
Talbot Baines Reed
A boarding school captain finds his mettle tested when the pride of his institution is jeopardized by internal rivalries and a mysterious act of sabotage. This story explores how a school’s honor transcends petty factionalism.
Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 1
Parry, William Edward, Sir
The Arctic is a realm of shifting ice and long nights, where the endurance of men is tested against a landscape that refuses to be known.
A Romance of the West Indies
Eugène Sue
This is a spirited historical swashbuckler, set in the Caribbean during the late 17th century, that follows a boastful but ultimately noble-hearted Gascon adventurer who finds himself entangled in the dangerous intrigues of a colonial "Blue Beard." It balances high-seas tension with a surprising, transformative…
Aladdin O'Brien
Gouverneur Morris
A spirited, lyrical chronicle of youth interrupted by the fires of the American Civil War, this narrative follows two lifelong friends whose bond is tested by their shared love for the same woman.
Happy House
Jane Abbott
Two college graduates orchestrate a swap that sends an impostor to an isolated Vermont estate, where warm-hearted impulse upends decades of family silence.
Honey-Sweet
Edna Henry Lee Turpin
This gentle, early 20th-century narrative follows a young girl separated from her guardian and her beloved doll, exploring the quiet resilience of childhood in the face of adult uncertainty and institutional life.
Kazan
James Oliver Curwood
A fierce wolf-dog torn between the comforts of human love and the brutal, beckoning freedom of the northern wilderness struggles to reconcile his two natures.
King Olaf's Kinsman: A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in the Days of Ironside and Cnut
Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler
Caught in the twilight of the Saxon era, a young warrior serves a hopeless crown while forging an unlikely alliance with a legendary Norse king.
Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the Mast
James Fenimore Cooper
This account offers an unvarnished, firsthand look at the brutal realities of life before the mast, tracing a common sailor’s journey through war, imprisonment, and the relentless pull of the sea. It serves as a gritty testament to the hardships faced by those who lived entirely on the fringes of the maritime world.
The Boy Tar
Mayne Reid
Trapped in absolute darkness deep within a ship’s hold, a tiny four-foot runaway must claw his way through endless layers of ocean cargo to survive.
The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit
Hildegard G. Frey
Patriotic fervor and personal growth collide for a group of young women navigating the uncertainties of wartime America. A chance encounter on a train sets off a summer of mystery, military drills, and hard-won maturity.
The Winning of Barbara Worth
Harold Bell Wright
A young engineer confronts the relentless power of the Colorado Desert and the complexities of his own heart. This classic tale explores the struggle to transform a desolate wilderness into a thriving home.
The woman with a stone heart
O. W. (Oscar William) Coursey
A woman's quest for revenge against Spanish rule twists into a relentless campaign of guerrilla warfare and espionage against American forces in the Philippines.
Who Goes There!
Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
War descends across Europe, and a captive man faces execution unless he agrees to cross enemy lines on an impossible errand of rescue.
With the Persian Expedition
Martin Henry Donohoe
An army marches on its stomach, but an expedition into the forgotten corners of Persia relies just as heavily on steady nerves, quick cunning, and pure improvised fortune.
A Maker of History
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
An accidental spy stumbles onto an imperial secret, setting off a hunt across Paris and the English countryside that threatens to ignite a European war.
Blackbeard
B. (Benjamin) Barker
Across a isolated, uncharted Atlantic isle, a labyrinth of secret identities and dark piratical designs pulls a group of shipwrecked nobles and star-crossed lovers into an inescapable web of intrigue.
Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion
G. Hamilton-Browne
A seasoned veteran recounts the visceral realities of frontier warfare, blending tactical maneuvers with the coarse, candid humor of men living on the precarious edges of colonial expansion.
Half A Chance
Frederic Stewart Isham
A convicted man escapes a watery grave to rebuild his life in London society, only to find his past closing in as he falls for an aristocratic woman.
Harper's Round Table, November 12, 1895
Various
Two young brothers leap into a swollen river after a fishing rod, setting in motion a broad tableau of turn-of-the-century American youth.
In Clive's Command: A Story of the Fight for India
Herbert Strang
A young Shropshire boy runs away to sea, falls into the hands of a smooth-talking villain, and fights his way through the eighteenth-century conquest of India.
My Lady of the North
Randall Parrish
A Confederate captain carrying vital dispatches through mountain passes finds his duty upended when a Union woman, trapped between warring armies, forces him to choose between military honor and an impossible love.
Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy
Frank R. Stockton
A wanderer through icy forests, subterranean ruins, and sky-high clouds discovers that the world is far larger and stranger than it appears at home.
She Blows! And Sparm at That!
William John Hopkins
Young Tim leaves his home port to spend four years aboard a whaling vessel, growing into a seasoned seaman through the sheer discipline of high-seas survival.
Tarzan and the lost empire
Edgar Rice Burroughs
A legendary hero of the jungle ventures deep into the African interior to solve a mysterious disappearance, only to stumble upon a lost world of ancient Roman soldiers clinging to life in the wilderness.
The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Jr
David Cory
A brave young cat puts on red-topped boots and sets out across a landscape of nursery rhymes to find his legendary father.
The Caves of Fear: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story
Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin
High in the mountains of Asia, an ancient cave conceals a rare natural phenomenon—and a ruthless criminal network that will kill to keep it secret.
The Dark Frigate
Charles Boardman Hawes
A boy raised on the high seas returns to seventeenth-century England, only to be swept back out to sea aboard a treacherous frigate where mutiny, murder, and piracy wait in the shadow of the sails.
The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian antarctic expedition in the "Fram," 1910-1912
Roald Amundsen
A white, frozen plain stretches to the horizon, broken only by towering blue glaciers, yawning crevasses, and a tiny line of men and dogs moving steadily toward the southernmost point on Earth.
Crusoe in New York, and other tales
Edward Everett Hale
A solitary man builds a secret homestead on a hidden New York lot, carving out an island of self-reliance inside the bustling city.
French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America
Evelyn Everett-Green
The wilderness of North America becomes a crucible for two young men caught between the rival ambitions of empires. Their journey reflects the violent, transformative struggle that eventually redraws the map of a continent.
Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco
Mayne Reid
This Victorian adventure follows a courageous band of companions through the mysterious, untamed wilderness of the Gran Chaco as they struggle to rescue a kidnapped young woman.
Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches
Frank Thomas Bullen
The sea is an infinite theatre of tooth and claw, where majestic leviathans descend into ink-black depths to battle ancient, tentacled horrors.
Kid Scanlan
H. C. (Harry Charles) Witwer
A fighter's left hook proves far more effective than high-minded intellect in navigating the chaotic, fledgling world of early Hollywood silent filmmaking.