Free summaries
Adventure — page 65
5,516 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 65 of 115.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 6, December 1841
Various
A mid-nineteenth-century literary miscellany captures the vibrant, evolving voice of young American letters through historical romance, sharp criticism, and high gothic melodrama.
In African Forest and Jungle
Paul B. (Paul Belloni) Du Chaillu
Deep in the equatorial canopy, an explorer and his native companion march into a green twilight where every step risks an ambush by leopards, rogue elephants, or sudden witchcraft.
Journal of Voyages: Containing an Account of the Author's being Twice Captured by the English and Once by Gibbs the Pirate
Jacob Dunham
A seasoned mariner recounts a life of precarious trade, including repeated captures by warships, a harrowing encounter with a notorious pirate, and long, formative months living among the Musquitto Indians.
Lost in the Backwoods: A Tale of the Canadian Forest
Catharine Parr Strickland Traill
Three children venture into the Canadian wilderness and must rely on their wits, faith, and the kindness of a young indigenous captive to survive the unforgiving forest.
On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the Tigris
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
A young Indian Army officer uses his specialized knowledge of Mesopotamia to lead high-stakes scouting missions, escape enemy capture, and rescue his beloved mentor behind Turkish lines.
Puss Junior and Robinson Crusoe
David Cory
A wandering feline in tall red boots travels through the familiar landscapes of nursery rhymes and classic literature, seeking his legendary father. This episodic adventure blends whimsical encounters with a gentle, timeless search for family.
Second to None: A Military Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
James Grant
Stripped of romantic illusion, war is a sequence of cold maneuvers and sudden, arbitrary violence.
The Automobile Girls at Newport
Laura Dent Crane
Young women navigate the golden age of motoring, blending high-society galas with amateur sleuthing to expose a dangerous criminal in the seaside playground of Newport.
The Firebug
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
When a serial arsonist strikes the city, a sharp young inspector and his circle of allies must unravel a network of mechanical traps, hidden identities, and criminal underworlds before more lives go up in smoke.
The Phantom Death, etc
William Clark Russell
<Image alt="A classic 19th-century sailing ship riding high waves under dark storm clouds" caption="Tales of high-seas mystery and peril" src="imageagenttag1"/ --- Tales of mysterious deaths, hidden gold, and desperate stowaways unfold across the expanse of the ocean.
The time-raider
Edmond Hamilton
An investigator steps through a rift in time, only to be swept into a prehistoric war for the future of humanity.
The Travelling Thirds
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
Bound by familial obligation and an unyielding coat, a young Californian woman blazes her own path through the historic landscapes of turn-of-the-century Spain.
The Wandering Jew
Eugène Sue
HOOK A sprawling, multi-generational conspiracy pits the shadowy influence of the Jesuit order against a scattered family desperate to claim a life-altering inheritance by a specific February deadline.
The White Shield
Bertram Mitford
An aged veteran recounts the harrowing rise of a legendary African kingdom, where survival hinges on iron discipline, shifting loyalties, and the mystical protection of a sacred, snow-white shield.
Two sailor lads
Gordon Stables
Bound by a childhood vow of eternal friendship, two brave boys brave shipwreck, mutinous whalers, and cannibal islands on the high seas.
A Desperate Voyage
E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight
Driven to the brink of ruin by his own misdeeds, a desperate London solicitor flees across the open sea on a stolen yacht, binding his fate to a crew of dangerous outlaws.
Jack Archer: A Tale of the Crimea
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
Boys caught in the great game of European empire find that courage matters less than luck when the big guns open.
Kate Meredith, Financier
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
Courage, enterprise, and red hair collide in the West African bush, where trade and love are both fought for with equal ferocity.
Mappo, the Merry Monkey: His Many Adventures
Richard Barnum
A wild monkey leaves the safety of the jungle canopy and ends up on a long, globe-trotting journey into the human world.
Mary Jane Down South
Clara Ingram Judson
A family journeying south for winter warmth discovers that the true magic of travel lies in seeing ordinary wonders through a young child's eyes.
Messer Marco Polo
Donn Byrne
An old Ulster storyteller sits by a fire in New York and spins a romantic fable of young Marco Polo’s voyage across the medieval world to win the heart and soul of an emperor’s daughter.
North of 36
Emerson Hough
Desperate Texas cattle raisers make a perilous, historical herd drive north across unmapped Indian territory to reach the newly built railroad at Abilene, Kansas.
Sinopah, the Indian Boy
James Willard Schultz
Born under the June sun along the Two Medicine River, a Blackfoot boy begins the long, steady training that will turn a toddler into a warrior.
Stranded in Arcady
Francis Lynde
Two strangers wake up on a remote Canadian beach with no idea how they arrived, only to find themselves cast away in a wilderness that demands every ounce of their resourcefulness to survive.
Ted Strong in Montana
Edward C. Taylor
A young wrangler fights to protect his independent outfit from encroaching outlaws and corrupt officials in the rugged Montana wilderness. Driven by a code of fair play, he survives betrayal and ambush to secure his future.
The Affair of the Brains
Anthony Gilmore
A high-octane space-pulp yarn of cold feuds, rogue science, and nerve-shredding suspense, where the hunter turns prey inside a villain's invisible lair.
The Argus Pheasant
John Charles Beecham
Sent by the governor-general of the Netherlands East Indies to break up a pirate league and restore order in Borneo, a stalwart American adventurer plunges into a treacherous world of betrayal, native uprisings, and a dangerous, enigmatic beauty known as the Argus Pheasant.
The Cruise of a Schooner
Albert W. (Albert Wadsworth) Harris
A boyhood dream of open country transforms into a grueling, cross-country trek when a banker leaves behind urban comfort to drive a horse-drawn wagon across the American West.
The pearl lagoon
Charles Nordhoff
The call of the Pacific Ocean acts as a siren song for a restless youth, leading him from a quiet California valley to the perilous, sun-drenched depths of a remote pearl lagoon.
The Privateersman
Frederick Marryat
A sailor recounts a turbulent life defined by capture, survival, and the blurred lines between legal privateering and the desperation of the high seas.
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 131, February, 1909
Various
A lone bull whale flees as a pack of thresher sharks tears his mate to pieces in the open ocean; thousands of miles away, an English gentleman perches atop a bookcase in the dead of night to escape twenty squirming coral snakes flung through his bedroom window. Across the globe, high-altitude Lakeland mountaineers…
Through Apache Land
Edward Sylvester Ellis
Across the sun-baked bluffs of the Rio Gila, two seasoned scouts and a high-spirited boy wage a desperate battle for survival against a relentless Apache war party.
An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids
Anthony Trollope
A formidable single woman tests the patience of a British family during a tour of the Egyptian Pyramids, pursuing free travel while romance quietly blossoms around her.
Friend Island
Francis Stevens
In a matriarchal future where women command the seas, a hardened old mariner spins a yarn of shipwreck, a sentient island, and a courtship ruined by bad manners.
Lightning Jo, the Terror of the Santa Fe Trail: A Tale of the Present Day
Edward Sylvester Ellis
A desperate courier, a besieged pioneer train, and a bare-knuckled prairie scout collision in a whirlwind of frontier peril.
Motor Boat Boys on the Great Lakes
Louis Arundel
A summer voyage across unpredictable Great Lakes waters tests a crew of teenage boys as they navigate sudden storms, wild animal encounters, and rival boaters.
Motor Boat Boys' River Chase
Louis Arundel
A spring cruise down the Mississippi River turns into a high-stakes pursuit when six teenage chums cross paths with a pair of fugitive bank robbers.
Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's. Vol. 1 (of 2)
John Pendleton Kennedy
Tensions rise in colonial Maryland as political rivalries, illicit trade, and local lore collide around the quiet settlement of St. Mary's.
Sophy of Kravonia: A Novel
Anthony Hope
An Essex servant girl rises through chance and magnetic fortune to become queen of a turbulent Balkan kingdom, only to lose everything except her invincible spirit in the flames of revolution.
The Boy Slaves
Mayne Reid
Lost on the unforgiving coast of North Africa after a shipwreck, three young midshipmen and a veteran British tar face capture, starvation, and grueling servitude under rival desert factions.
The daughter of the dawn
William Reginald Hodder
A lost English heiress, a dream-haunted searcher, and a ancient cavern sanctuary converge in the remote wilderness of turn-of-the-century New Zealand.
The four Corners in camp
Amy Ella Blanchard
A warm breeze from the Maine woods, the dip of light paddles, and the buoyant clutter of four sisters growing up together define this affectionate turn-of-the-century story of family and youth.
The High Toby: Being further chapters in the life and fortunes of Dick Ryder, otherwise Galloping Dick, sometime gentleman of the road
H. B. Marriott (Henry Brereton Marriott) Watson
The dark is his element, the saddle his home, and any traveller with a heavy purse his natural prey.
The Night Operator
Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
A high-octane collection of mountain railroading tales, where raw courage, sudden tragedy, and deep professional loyalty collide on the perilous tracks of the Canadian Rockies.
The Pacha of Many Tales
Frederick Marryat
A bored Ottoman ruler and his scheming vizier demand endless yarns from travellers, captives, and rogues, trading lives and gold for high-spirited lies.
The Rover Boys in New York
Edward Stratemeyer
College students racing through the skies in a homemade biplane find themselves dragged into a shadowy world of corporate swindlers, staged jailbreaks, and missing fathers.
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 130, January, 1909
Various
A lone doctor adrift on an offshore ice-floe waves a flagpole crafted from the bones of his slaughtered dogs. In this collection of real-world trials, survival hinges entirely on grit, impulse, and resourcefulness.
The Young Woodsman
J. Macdonald (James Macdonald) Oxley
A young boy faces the deep Canadian forest to support his widowed mother, proving his mettle against bitter winters, human malice, and the wild dangers of a lumber camp.