Free summaries
Adventure — page 73
3,840 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 73 of 80.
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.
Yorke The Adventurer
Louis Becke
In the lawless 1870s Pacific, two traders meet a solitary seaman whose single-handed survival on a reef-broken cutter masks a past as turbulent as the surrounding seas.
Adventures of Buffalo Bill from boyhood to manhood
Prentiss Ingraham
An action-packed dime novel chronicles the early life of William F. Cody, transforming a real frontier scout into an invincible folk hero who faces down outlaws, wild horses, Mormons, and native warriors across the American West.
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.
Bobby of the Labrador
Dillon Wallace
A young boy found adrift in an Eskimo skiff grows into a self-reliant hunter in the unforgiving Canadian Arctic.
Concerning "Bully" Hayes: From "The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton, and Other Stories" - 1902
Louis Becke
A glimpse into the adventurous life of "Bully" Hayes, a notorious yet charismatic figure of the Pacific in the 19th century.
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.
Left on the Labrador: A Tale of Adventure Down North
Dillon Wallace
A young boy's adventure in the rugged wilderness of Labrador, where survival, friendship, and courage shape his journey.
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.
Paul Gerrard, the Cabin Boy
William Henry Giles Kingston
Conscripted by family ruin, an English boy confronts ocean storms, hostile French gunners, mutinous shipmates, and the high-born rival who inherits his stolen legacy.
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 Players
Everett B. Cole
A bored elite turns a primitive world into a board game, until two local recruits in a galactic peace corps decide to dismantle the board.
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.
Batting to Win: A Story of College Baseball
Lester Chadwick
A gifted pitcher’s collegiate career hangs in the balance when a mysterious accusation threatens his spot on the diamond just as the championship draws near.
Captain Dieppe
Anthony Hope
Stripped of money and running from dangerous pursuers, an audacious soldier finds shelter in a strange castle, only to be drawn into a absurdly tangled web of marital spite, blackmail, and swapped identities.
Don Hale with the Flying Squadron
W. Crispin (William Crispin) Sheppard
High above the trenches of France, a newly minted American aviator faces the deadliest combat of the First World War in a fight for survival, comradeship, and honor.
Elsie's Young Folks in Peace and War
Martha Finley
This chronicle follows a sprawling, affectionate family through the quiet rhythms of domestic life and the sudden, unsettling echoes of national conflict. It traces the maturation of the younger generation as they navigate courtship, faith, and the responsibilities of adulthood.
Faithfully Yours
Lou Tabakow
A hunted fugitive flees across space and time, but his desperate flight can never outrun the invisible hound closing in on his mind.
In a Syrian Saddle
A. (Ada) Goodrich-Freer
Travelers cross the Jordan to navigate ancient ruins and rugged desert paths, finding history written in stone and sand. Guided by curiosity rather than comfort, they trace the quiet, enduring spaces of an older world.
In the Wars of the Roses: A Story for the Young
Evelyn Everett-Green
To brave a bitter civil war for an exiled prince, a young man must risk his life among woodland outlaws and ruthless dynastic enemies.
Lodges in the Wilderness
W. C. (William Charles) Scully
The harsh, haunting beauty of the Bushmanland desert serves as both a physical destination and a philosophical crucible for a man seeking to escape the encroaching, mechanical rot of modern civilization.
Martha of California: A Story of the California Trail
James Otis
A young girl leaves her familiar Missouri home behind, trading safety and soft beds for a harrowing two-thousand-mile trek toward an uncertain future.
The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp
Laura Lee Hope
A flurry of misplaced Thanksgiving plans, lost timber, and snowbound woods brings two pairs of twins face-to-face with the wild forces of winter.
The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West
Laura Lee Hope
A stray train derailment, a long-lost father, and the open expanse of the American frontier bring four spirited siblings face-to-face with wild cattle and deep-woods lumber camps.
The Dare Boys in Virginia
Stephen Angus Douglas Cox
Two teenage brothers plunge into the backcountry of Revolutionary Virginia to outwit Benedict Arnold’s redcoats, rescue captured patriots, and defend vulnerable frontier settlements.
The Dare Boys of 1776
Stephen Angus Douglas Cox
A thrilling tale of teenage brotherhood, patriot duty, and covert espionage along the eastern front of the American Revolution.
The Honor of the Big Snows
James Oliver Curwood
In the frozen Canadian wilderness, a grieving father and a devoted young man raise an orphaned girl, bound by a code of honor that threatens to tear them apart.
The Long Shadow
B. M. Bower
When the sweeping open range yields to barbed-wire fences and changing times, a top-hand cowboy must choose between fleeing the encroaching civilization and making a home with the woman he loves.
The Pioneer Boys of the Mississippi
St. George Rathborne
Swollen rivers and forest shadows frame an eighteenth-century journey westward, where two young brothers rely on sharp instincts and hidden allies to keep their family safe.
The Pioneer Boys on the Great Lakes
St. George Rathborne
A frontier boy steps between a crouching assassin and a powerful sachem, choosing mercy over advantage in the deep woods of the Northwest. That quick impulse alters the course of a perilous rescue mission across the wilderness.
The Sunbonnet Babies in Italy
Eulalie Osgood Grover
Two young sisters step off an ocean steamer into the warmth of early twentieth-century Italy, where volcano smoke, street-side macaroni, and cliffside carriage rides transform an educational family trip into an open-air adventure.
A Dash for a Throne
Arthur W. Marchmont
Desperate to escape a hollow existence, an cashiered officer accepts a dead man’s identity, only to fall into a dangerous web of Bavarian treason, royal impersonation, and unexpected love.