Free summaries
Adventure — page 72
3,840 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 72 of 80.
The Princess Elopes
Harold MacGrath
An adventurous princess, desperate to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man, finds her fate unexpectedly intertwined with an American traveler. Their collision results in a high-stakes, comedic chase across a fictional European duchy.
The Prose Marmion: A Tale of the Scottish Border
Walter Scott
A proud knight maneuvers through the political volatility of the Scottish border, only to find his own web of past betrayals closing in as a catastrophic battle looms.
The quest of the Silver Swan: A land and sea tale for boys
W. Bert (Walter Bertram) Foster
A boy’s quest for his missing family legacy leads him into a web of maritime mystery, corporate greed, and the dangerous pursuit of a drifting derelict ship.
The Rover Boys Down East
Edward Stratemeyer
Three brothers chase a stolen fortune and a kidnapped friend through the rugged Maine coastline. Their journey balances athletic bravado with the high-stakes pursuit of justice.
Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, Volume 1 (of 3)
Stanhope, Hester, Lady
An English noblewoman rejects the constraints of Victorian life, crossing the Syrian desert at the head of Arab tribes to carve out a singular, defiant existence in the East.
Troubled Waters: Sandy Steele Adventures #6
Robert Leckie
HOOK Two teenage friends embark on a routine sailing trip, only to discover their sloop is packed with counterfeit money and their path is blocked by desperate criminals.
With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
The harrowing survival of three men trapped behind enemy lines evolves into a desperate stand for the heart of France at the Verdun front.
A Year in a Yawl: A True Tale of the Adventures of Four Boys in a Thirty-foot Yawl
Russell Doubleday
Four young Michigan men build a thirty-foot sailboat and navigate a six-thousand-mile circuit of Eastern North America's inland and coastal waters over twelve grueling months.
Bessie on Her Travels
Joanna H. (Joanna Hooe) Mathews
A journey through the nineteenth-century American South and East Coast becomes a gentle masterclass in childhood empathy, faith, and quiet resilience.
Camping
Alexandra Agusta Guttman Lockwine
A practical, big-hearted account of a Maine summer camp for young boys, written by a resident nurse with an sharp eye for juvenile energy and human nature.
Dave Darrin and the German Submarines
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
A solitary destroyer cut through the dark, hunting periscopes on the North Atlantic while torpedoes sliced the icy swells.
Dorothy Dixon and the Mystery Plane
Dorothy Wayne
High-flying aerial chases and coastal ambushes collide on the Long Island Sound when a courageous teenage aviator stumbles into an international diamond-smuggling ring.
Falling in with Fortune
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
An honest youth faces false accusations, entitled rivals, and dangerous conspirators as he works his way up from penniless uncertainty to life-changing security.
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.
Little Sky-High
Hezekiah Butterworth
A young Chinese boy arrives in a Boston household to learn about American life, only to reveal through his gentle grace and hidden identity that kindness toward a stranger is its own form of royalty.
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 Hilltop Boys on Lost Island
Cyril Burleigh
A group of prep school students on an educational yacht tour finds themselves marooned in a hidden, uncharted bay, only to discover their island sanctuary is being used as a staging ground for dangerous smugglers.
The Iron Star
John Preston True
HOOK A fallen meteorite acts as a silent witness to the evolution of human civilization, traveling from the dawn of the Stone Age to the technological marvels of the nineteenth century.
The Last of the Chiefs: A Story of the Great Sioux War
Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
Two brothers orphaned and bound by a solemn promise seek a new life in the West, only to find themselves cast into the heart of the Great Sioux War. Their survival depends on shifting from the roles of tenderfoot travelers to masters of a hidden, untamed wilderness.
The moving picture boys on the war front
Victor Appleton
Young cameramen find themselves at the center of espionage and combat while filming the front lines of the Great War. This adventure blends the technical novelty of early cinema with the high-stakes tension of international intrigue.
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.
Army Boys on the Firing Line
Homer Randall
Courage, friendship, and quick thinking collide on the Western Front as four young American soldiers face the desperate final offensive of the First World War.
Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A late-nineteenth-century child’s magazine offers a window into an era that balanced stern moral instruction with innocent, high-spirited play.
In the Rocky Mountains: A Tale of Adventure
William Henry Giles Kingston
Driven across the American wilderness by calamity, a resilient pioneer family and a handful of soldiers struggle against hostile raiders, unforgiving terrain, and surprising mountain hazards in a quest to survive and rebuild their frontier home.
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.
Narrative of a Voyage to India
W. B. Cramp
A young British mariner's record of standard shipboard routines collapses into a high-seas struggle for survival, leading to an extraordinary trek across the Indian interior.
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.