Free summaries
Adventure — page 74
5,964 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 74 of 125.
The Pirates of the Prairies: Adventures in the American Desert
Gustave Aimard
Crossings and recrossings of the North American desert frame a brutal game of survival, where rival factions clash and vengeance outpaces justice.
The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass
Allen Chapman
In a snowbound mountain town, four resourceful high school friends rely on their technical ingenuity and amateur radio expertise to solve local mysteries, survive severe winter wilderness perils, and foil corporate financial schemes.
The Trapper's Daughter: A Story of the Rocky Mountains
Gustave Aimard
A father's boundless greed, an outlaw's desperate flight, and a young man's dangerous love collide along the violent, unforgiving trails of the American West.
The Wolf Hunters: A Story of the Buffalo Plains
Robert Morris Peck
A trio of discharged union cavalrymen venture onto the 1860s Kansas prairie to hunt buffalo and trap wolves, facing harsh winter blizzards, predatory border outlaws, and hostile Kiowa bands.
Twenty years at sea: Leaves from my old log-books
Frederic Stanhope Hill
A young sailor steps onto the deck of a merchant ship, learns his trade through hard labor and sharp altercations, and eventually commands naval ironclads during the American Civil War.
A Scout of To-day
Isabel Hornibrook
A boy's wild, undirected energy can destroy him, but given a purpose and a troop, it builds a man.
An Annapolis First Classman
Edward L. (Edward Latimer) Beach
A upperclassman's final year at the Naval Academy tests his honor, his athletic resolve, and his loyalty to a brother officer when a mysterious crime threatens to shatter his future.
Benjamin of Ohio: A Story of the Settlement of Marietta
James Otis
An orphan boy earns his way across the Alleghenies to help build a town out of the wilderness, discovering that grit and honest work can forge a home on the American frontier.
Feats on the Fiord
Harriet Martineau
A community on the edge of a Norwegian fiord faces real danger from lurking pirates and unseen harm from the deep-seated superstitions that govern their everyday lives.
Oakdale Boys in Camp
Morgan Scott
Six high school friends camp at a secluded Maine lake, where a fistfight, a capsized boat, and a nocturnal ghost hunt forge an unexpected bond.
Pee-wee Harris, F.O.B. Bridgeboro
Percy Keese Fitzhugh
A Boy Scout's adventures in a relay race, a flivver, and the great outdoors.
The abysmal invaders
Edmond Hamilton
Beneath a modern Illinois swamp lies a long-buried subterranean world, where intelligent scaled reptiles ride bloodthirsty dinosaurs and plot the sudden, fiery re-conquest of the earth's surface.
The adventures of Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico
Francis L. (Francis Lister) Hawks
A young Spanish adventurer sets sail for the New World, overthrows an empire through sheer cunning and ruthless resolve, and ends his days forgotten by the crown he enriched.
The Desert Trail
Dane Coolidge
Across a sun-baked border, two distinct worlds face each other: an American frontier town buzzing with fortune-hunters and a Mexican landscape torn apart by violent political upheaval and coveted gold.
The frontiersmen
Gustave Aimard
An adventurous traveler in the eighteenth-century wilderness meets a pioneer family whose quiet home on the border of Iroquois territory is about to become a battleground.
The Girl Scout Pioneers
Lilian Garis
A small-town troop of Girl Scouts discovers that following their code leads to real-world mystery, missing badges, and forgotten girls in need of rescue.
The Loss of the Australia: A narrative of the loss of the brig Australia by fire on her voyage from Leith to Sydney
Adam Yule
A night fire in the mid-Atlantic reduces a vessel to ashes, casting survivors into open boats with minimal water, where only discipline and faith stand between them and a desperate death upon the sea.
The Putnam Hall Cadets
Edward Stratemeyer
A boarding school filled with adventure, mystery, and the challenges of growing up.
The Radio Boys Rescue the Lost Alaska Expedition
Gerald Breckenridge
Three teenage chums join a Northern expedition, relying on their custom radio gear to navigate deadly wilderness ambushes, rogue outlaws, and sudden Arctic blizzards.
The Wrecking Master
Ralph Delahaye Paine
An honest, high-stakes sea adventure where teenage rivals and seasoned captains collide over a suspicious shipwreck along the Florida Reef.
Tom Slade with the Boys Over There
Percy Keese Fitzhugh
A pair of young Americans escapes a German prison camp and relies on scoutcraft, luck, and sheer nerve to survive behind enemy lines during World War I.
Uncle Wiggily's Airship
Howard Roger Garis
A gentler era of childhood imagination takes flight when a kindly old rabbit crafts an airship out of a laundry basket, a few colorful toy balloons, and a household electric fan.
Walker of the Secret Service
Melville Davisson Post
On the edge of the law, a young man enters a shadowy world of train holdups, cunning evasions, and double-crosses, only to find that the true mastery of crime lies in the art of unraveling it.
Within the Capes
Howard Pyle
A quiet rural courtship shatters into a dangerous privateering voyage, a desolate shipwreck, and a backwoods murder trial.
An Account of the Escape of Six Federal Soldiers from Prison at Danville, Va
W. H. (William Henry) Newlin
This is a harrowing, firsthand account of a desperate flight from a Confederate prison. It captures the raw mechanics of survival, the constant shadow of capture, and the profound moral cost of choosing life over a fallen comrade.
At Large
E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
A quiet Australian gold-seeker returns home to reclaim his life and his love, only to find a mysterious rival standing in his path.
Beaufort Chums
Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin
Two Midwestern boys, a brave pointer named Bob, and the wide Mississippi River share a year of adventure, growing up through floods, fights, and quiet losses.
Camp Mates in Michigan
St. George Rathborne
A wilderness paddle through the Michigan peninsula becomes a test of woodcraft and nerve when three boys cross paths with a pair of desperate poachers.
Dan Carter-- Cub Scout
Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt
A muddy river, a locked shed full of stolen game birds, and a missing Scout badge test the honor of Den 2. Mildred A. Wirt’s classic tale delivers an earnest, atmospheric mystery where young boys face down adult suspicion with quiet resolve.
Draw Swords! In the Horse Artillery
George Manville Fenn
Set in mid-nineteenth-century British India, this classic military adventure tracks a spirited young officer whose courage, horse mastery, and steady integrity transform a rogue gunner and win the trust of a royal court.
Flying the Coast Skyways
Ambrose Newcomb
A pair of daring young secret agents takes to the southern skies to dismantle a massive, high-tech smuggling syndicate hiding in the coastal swamps.
John Deane of Nottingham: Historic Adventures by Land and Sea
William Henry Giles Kingston
A young man from Nottinghamshire leaves his home to work the roads and trade routes of England, only to find himself swept through high-seas warfare, Jacobite conspiracies, and a sprawling journey toward late-earned peace.
Matt: A Story of A Caravan
Robert Williams Buchanan
A itinerant artist, a shipwrecked heiress, and a villainous usurper cross paths along the windswept coast of Anglesey.
Motor Matt's Hard Luck
Stanley R. Matthews
Plunging straight into the skies over Lake Michigan, three young companions battle an unscrupulous gang of airship thieves to claim their own aerial future and see justice done.
My Shipmate Louise: The Romance of a Wreck, Volume 3 (of 3)
William Clark Russell
Stranded on a hijacked vessel with a mad captain’s map, two marooned passengers must navigate mutiny and uncharted Pacific reefs to survive.
Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt
Bertram Mitford
A solitary rider retreats into the South African bush after a bitter rejection, setting off a chain of events involving violent frontier skirmishes, lost diamond maps, and deadly treachery.
Stepsons of Light
Eugene Manlove Rhodes
They were the men who won the West—not through flawless virtue, but through sheer persistence, humor, and a refusal to be crushed by circumstance.
The Frontiersman: A Tale of the Yukon
H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
A missionary’s lonely devotion to a rugged Yukon wilderness is tested by the arrival of lawless prospectors and a woman seeking her lost brother.
The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn
Gordon Stables
Across shifting seas and mysterious Pacific shores, two orphaned siblings journey from a humble canal boat to a forgotten island filled with hidden treasures and deadly perils.
The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods
Albert Bigelow Paine
A restless young heiress and an aimless man of wealth discover that true devotion requires purpose, courage, and a deep reckoning with the past. Set against the serene, shifting wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains, the story tracks a quiet transformation from idle privilege toward independent strength.
The Roly-Poly book
Laura Rountree Smith
A household of round, prone-to-rolling creatures and their accident-prone egg-like companion turn daily routines, missing parents, and bedtime fairy tales into a series of cheerful, chaotic domestic adventures.
With Porter in the Essex: A Story of His Famous Cruise in the Southern Waters During the War of 1812
James Otis
Boys who run away to sea usually expect glory; Ezra McKnight and Philip find hard labor, brutal discipline, and a front-row seat to the bloody collapse of an American frigate.
Bomba the jungle boy at the giant cataract
Roy Rockwood
An orphan raised by nature, a jungle-dwelling youth battles predators and headhunters in a relentless pursuit to uncover the mystery of his true identity.
Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865
Sarah Raymond Herndon
A young woman recounts her family’s arduous 1865 migration across the American West, capturing the daily rhythms, profound losses, and quiet courage of life on the trail.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849
Various
This March 1849 installment of a nineteenth-century literary periodical offers a diverse mosaic of period sentiment, providing an authentic glimpse into the varied tastes and intellectual preoccupations of the mid-Victorian reading public.
Grandma Perkins and the Space Pirates
James V. McConnell
A grandmotherly stowaway disrupts the rigid order of the solar system, outwitting television stars and hardened space pirates alike. This breezy mid-century tale proves that a sharp mind and a steady hand with a hairpin can navigate the furthest reaches of the galaxy.
Look to the Stars
Willard E. Hawkins
This story of survival and cosmic mystery follows a disparate group of fugitives who find themselves aboard a mysterious, self-sealing sphere. Cast into the void of space, they must grapple with the nature of their vessel and the strange, primal world they are destined to inhabit.
Neddie and Beckie Stubtail (Two Nice Bears): Bedtime Stories
Howard Roger Garis
These gentle bedtime tales follow two curious, anthropomorphic bear cubs as they navigate the small trials and surprising dangers of the forest while learning the importance of home and kindness.