Free summaries
Adventure — page 47
4,170 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 47 of 87.
The North Pacific: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War
Willis Boyd Allen
The Russo-Japanese War serves as the backdrop for this brisk, turn-of-the-century maritime adventure, which captures the era’s fascination with naval technology and the shifting tides of global power.
The Ship of Coral
H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole
A castaway finds a fortune in Spanish gold, only to be drawn into the web of a cunning, heartless captain whose obsession with a sunken wreck leads them toward a devastating volcanic eruption.
The Whelps of the Wolf
George Marsh
The vast, frozen wilderness of the Canadian north tests the bond between a man and his dog. In this story, loyalty and instinct survive even the harshest winters and the deepest human betrayals.
A Man to His Mate
Dunn, J. Allan, (Joseph Allan)
A sightless seaman with a mountain of a body leads a desperate expedition into the Bering Strait to claim a fortune in beach gold, indifferent to mutiny, ice, or foreign gunboats.
A Volunteer with Pike: The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois
Robert Ames Bennet
A young American physician treks into uncharted western territory, crosses Spanish borders to claim the woman he loves, and survives wilderness frosts and British sea-scoundrels.
Bernard Brooks' Adventures: The Experience of a Plucky Boy
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A spunky, clear-eyed fifteen-year-old takes on the world with wits, courage, and an utter refusal to be bullied by scheming adults.
Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures
S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
A street urchin in nineteenth-century Edinburgh navigates poverty, abusive adults, and dangerous misadventures while fiercely guarding a crew of vulnerable friends.
Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains
Amy Brooks
A privileged girl’s summer getaway becomes a gentle lesson in kindness when a spoiled companion’s malice, an unexpected inheritance, and small daily courtesies reshape a mountain resort's social world.
First in the Field: A Story of New South Wales
George Manville Fenn
In the Australian bush of the early nineteenth century, an exiled English schoolboy and an unfairly condemned convict forge a quiet alliance to protect a frontier farm.
Freaks of Fortune
Oliver Optic
A young skipper must navigate local malice, stolen gold, and a high-seas kidnapping to protect his family and clear his name.
Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio
Marguerite Henry
A country boy's unbreakable bond with a nervous, half-bred mare transforms them both into unlikely legends on the treacherous cobblestones of Siena's most famous horse race.
Gypsy Flight: A Mystery Story for Girls
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
A stolen bag on a transcontinental flight plunges an air stewardess and her friends into an industrial espionage plot threatening a peaceful town.
Hira Singh
Talbot Mundy
An Indian cavalry unit marches across two continents, outwitting two empires to fight their way back home.
It Pays to Smile
Nina Wilcox Putnam
A Boston chaperon of flawless lineage discovers that life outside Beacon Hill is a wild, hilarious game of high-stakes art, Western nerve, and unpredictable romance.
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.
Roy Blakeley, Pathfinder
Percy Keese Fitzhugh
A energetic scout leader leads his troop off the beaten path, where stray exotic beasts, mysterious circus sideshows, and forest fires turn a simple trek home into an unpredictable adventure.
Salvage in Space
Jack Williamson
Alone in the deep silence of the meteor belt, a weary space miner nets a drifting, pitch-black derelict rocket-flier and unwittingly climbs aboard a vessel haunted by invisible death.
The Airship Boys' Ocean Flyer
H. L. (Harry Lincoln) Sayler
Three young aeronauts race across the Atlantic to deliver news matrices, proving that human ingenuity can conquer high-altitude flight.
The Armourer's Prentices
Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge
A forest upbringing breaks against sixteenth-century London, where two orphaned brothers must forge new lives through sword-steel, printing presses, and courtly danger.
The Boys of Crawford's Basin: The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado
Sidford F. (Sidford Frederick) Hamp
Two hardworking young men face backbreaking labor, local villainy, and mountain hazards to carve out a secure future in 1870s Colorado.
The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains
R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
Bitter cold, human malice, and a harsh frontier test a fledgling Canadian settlement to its absolute limits. Only resilience and cross-cultural camaraderie can save the community from total collapse.
The Fall of the Grand Sarrasin: Being a Chronicle of Sir Nigel de Bessin, Knight, of Things that Happed in Guernsey Island, in the Norman Seas, in and about the Year One Thousand and Fifty-Seven
William John Ferrar
Out of the sea mists of eleventh-century Guernsey comes a forgotten tale of Norman iron, pirate fortresses, and a young man's leap into the medieval world.
The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War
Gustave Aimard
Out in the unforgiving borderlands, loyalty is pledged in blood, secret identities conceal desperate motives, and the battle for Texas turns every wilderness path into a potential death trap.
The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship
Margaret Burnham
High above Long Island Sound, a quick-witted teenager and her brother race their home-built monoplane against saboteurs, financial ruin, and the elements.
The Motor Boys on the Pacific
Clarence Young
A wrecked motor boat, a train derailment, and an ocean duel over a floating, abandoned vessel set three American high schoolers on a high-speed chase down the California coast to recover a stolen fortune.
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation
Richard Hakluyt
Centuries of diplomatic friction, high-seas piracy, and imperial negotiation lay the foundation for England's expanding presence across foreign waters and distant courts.
The Sin That Was His
Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
A fugitive in a priest’s cassock discovers that pretending to be a holy man is far easier than escaping the demands of the human heart.
The White Conquerors: A Tale of Toltec and Aztec
Kirk Munroe
A young Toltec noble escapes the Aztec sacrificial stone to guide Spanish steel against his people’s ancient oppressors.
Deep-Sea Plunderings
Frank Thomas Bullen
A collection of twenty-four short stories and sketches of life on the high seas, combining raw maritime violence, weird supernatural occurrences, and deep oceanic natural history.
Harper's Round Table, July 2, 1895
Various
A vibrant snapshot of late-nineteenth-century American youth culture captures a world of patriotic Civil War historical fiction, high-stakes wilderness survival, home-farm comedy, light theatrical satire, and vigorous interscholastic athletics.
Into the Primitive
Robert Ames Bennet
Survival is a raw, stripping process that reveals the fundamental character of those forced into it. This narrative tracks the brutal transition from civilized social roles to the harsh, unforgiving demands of the natural world.
Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah
George Manville Fenn
A boy and his father carve out a home in the young colony of Georgia, facing wilderness hazards and foreign threats alongside an unexpected companion.
P. T. Barnum's Menagerie
P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum
Three curious children walk through a grand menagerie alongside a famous showman, encountering exotic beasts, learning natural history, and marveling at the strange creatures of the world.
The Heads of Apex
George Henry Weiss
Desperate down-and-out veterans in Depression-era New York accept a shadowy job offer that plunges them far beneath the ocean floor into a hidden world of ancient tech and immortal horrors.
The Mystery of The Barranca
Herman Whitaker
Two young American engineers battle rugged terrain, native hostility, and deadly floods in turn-of-the-century Mexico, only to find their greatest trial is a dangerous romance across a deep cultural divide.
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
Charles Dickens
A private marine recalls a tropical island, a treacherous betrayal, and the desperate defense that bound a group of English castaways together forever.
The Swan and Her Crew: or The Adventures of Three Young Naturalists and Sportsmen on the Broads and Rivers of Norfolk
G. Christopher (George Christopher) Davies
Three English schoolboys design and construct a double-hulled wooden craft to explore the interconnected waterways of Norfolk, transforming a summer of outdoor adventure into a lifelong education in natural history.
Wych Hazel
Susan Warner
A vibrant, headstrong heiress and her enigmatic suitor navigate the social whirlpool of nineteenth-century high society, testing the limits of independence, duty, and mutual devotion under the watchful eyes of protective guardians.
A Lively Bit of the Front: A Tale of the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front
Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
A young sheep-farmer leaves New Zealand for the trenches of the Western Front, navigating high-seas sabotage, underground dug-outs, and enemy captivity.
A Modern Aladdin
Howard Pyle
A humble peasant boy is swept into a dark world of alchemical secrets, mental mastery, and high-society deception in pre-revolutionary France.
A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824: And the journal of a residence of two years on the Mulgrave
William Lay
A brutal mutiny off a Pacific whaling ship dissolves into a fight for survival when the teenage survivors are left stranded among the isolated coral atolls of the Marshall Islands.
Air Service Boys in the Big Battle
Charles Amory Beach
Two young American aviators navigate the hazards of World War I aerial combat, determined to locate a missing comrade while proving themselves in the newly formed American air force.
Dick Hamilton's Steam Yacht
Howard Roger Garis
When young millionaire Dick Hamilton buys a steam yacht for a carefree cruise, he unwittingly steers straight into a whirlpool of kidnappers, stolen vessels, and marooned tropical adventures.
Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune: A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan
A. D. (Augustine David) Crake
Brother turns against brother and a young king wages war on the Church in an tenth-century England torn between duty, dark revenge, and sacred vow.
Frank Brown, Sea Apprentice
Frank Thomas Bullen
A young lad enters the merchant service and learns that the sea demands everything a boy can give before it makes him a man.
Frank Merriwell's Backers
Burt L. Standish
A fearless young prospector defends his Arizona gold mine against outlaws, corrupt syndicate agents, and deadly betrayals in the rugged American Southwest.
Glyn Severn's Schooldays
George Manville Fenn
An Indian prince's jewelled heirloom vanishes from an English school. Two friends who know wild beasts and distant lands better than their classmates set out to quiet an escaped elephant and clear an innocent name.
Gold Seekers of '49
Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin
A snowy doorway in St. Louis yields a dying stranger’s secret, launching a boy and his ailing father on a hazardous journey toward the California gold fields.