Free summaries
Adventure — page 86
4,170 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 86 of 87.
Oscar in Africa
Harry Castlemon
A young American naturalist travels to the African wilderness to collect museum specimens, facing both the dangers of the veldt and the schemes of unscrupulous opportunists.
Our Fellows
Harry Castlemon
Twin brothers and their group of friends navigate the perils of the wilderness while outwitting a band of dangerous outlaws in this high-stakes frontier adventure.
Spanish bayonet
Stephen Vincent Benét
A naive young colonial heir journeys into the lush, deceptive depths of British Florida, where romantic illusions shatter against the brutally real machinery of human exploitation and impending revolution.
Stand By! Naval Sketches and Stories
H. Taprell (Henry Taprell) Dorling
The North Sea in the Great War is a theater of cold iron, endless vigilance, and the peculiar, dry humor of men living in cramped quarters. These sketches capture the daily rhythm of a Navy defined not by grand clashes, but by the relentless, grinding necessity of service.
The Bear Family at Home, and How the Circus Came to Visit Them
Curtis Dwight Wilbur
A curious young bear finds his way back from the circus to his mountain home, where he and his family create a sanctuary for his former performance companions. This gentle narrative explores the themes of domesticity, storytelling, and the lessons learned when the wild meets the tamed.
The Boy Scouts Down in Dixie
Carter, Herbert, active 1909-1917
The Silver Fox Patrol ventures deep into the labyrinthine Louisiana wetlands, braving dangerous terrain and elusive outlaws to help their leader search for his long-lost sister.
The Diamond Ship
Max Pemberton
A gentleman scientist pursues a criminal mastermind across the globe to recover stolen jewels and save an innocent woman from a life of maritime piracy.
The Dreadnought Boys on a Submarine
John Henry Goldfrap
Two young sailors prove the worth of a revolutionary submarine while outmaneuvering corporate spies and saboteurs in this brisk, turn-of-the-century maritime adventure.
The golden story book
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A child outbraves a troop of reivers, a drummer boy saves his entire regiment with a sudden roll of his drum, and a lonely girl carries her sister down a dark mountain.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 14: Switzerland
Giacomo Casanova
A traveler traverses 18th-century Switzerland, navigating the complexities of romance, theology, and high-society artifice with an unflinching eye for the absurdities of the human condition.
The Pearl of the Andes: A Tale of Love and Adventure
Gustave Aimard
In the rugged, unforgiving reaches of the Andes, a father’s desperate search for his kidnapped daughter ignites a war between settlers and indigenous warriors. This intense narrative follows a series of perilous rescues and tactical battles fueled by love, revenge, and shifting political loyalties.
The Smuggler Chief: A Novel
Gustave Aimard
Amidst the vast, untamed frontiers of South America, a daring smuggler finds his loyalties fractured by a dangerous romance and a rising tide of indigenous rebellion.
The Wedge of Gold
C. C. (Charles Carroll) Goodwin
The search for fortune often leads to the discovery of something more valuable than gold. This story follows the lives of determined men and the women who transform them.
The White Blackbird
Robert Aitken
This tale of identity and deception follows a young woman thrust into a high-stakes masquerade, where the line between pawn and player shifts with every turn of fortune. It is a classic adventure of the Edwardian era, blending international intrigue with the claustrophobic tension of a long-con game.
With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula
F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton
A young man’s dream of military glory transforms into a harrowing reality when a web of treachery casts him into the thick of Wellington’s brutal Peninsular campaign.
A Mediterranean mystery
Fred E. Wynne
Unwittingly pulled from his quiet country parish, a respectable clergyman finds himself embroiled in an international smuggling scheme that tests his morality, his loyalty to family, and his quiet English life.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm
Laura Lee Hope
An earnest small boy and his bright sister venture from their seaside home across the countryside to their grandfather's farm, discovering that simple summer travels often turn into marvelous local adventures.
Dave Dawson on the Russian Front
Robert Sidney Bowen
Behind the Eastern Front lies a shadow war of double agents, stolen identities, and high-stakes aerial reconnaissance.
Dick the Bank Boy
Frank V. Webster
A hard-working boy tackles odd jobs to support his widowed mother, only to find himself accused of theft when securities vanish from the bank where he works.
Frank Merriwell's Reward
Burt L. Standish
An exemplary Ivy League athlete and his circle navigate rivalries, romantic entanglements, and sinister plots at turn-of-the-century Yale.
Halsey & Co
H. K. (Harvey King) Shackleford
A street-smart newsboy stops a bank heist on Broad Street and uses his reward money to conquer Wall Street alongside his fellow messenger boys.
Little Erik of Sweden
Madeline Brandeis
A golden-voiced peasant boy schemes to save his beloved estate and stop a high-born marriage through ghostly trickery, unexpected allies, and a journey across Sweden.
Matilda Montgomerie
Major (John) Richardson
A web of tragic passion and wartime duty entangles two brothers along the Canadian border, where love for a vengeful woman proves more destructive than the clash of empires.
Mazeppa
Frederick Whishaw
A young Cossack nobleman navigates the treacherous power struggles of seventeenth-century Russia, discovering that winning a woman's heart and surviving political intrigue require equal parts steel, luck, and cunning.
The Adventures of Herr Baby
Mrs. Molesworth
A four-year-old boy attempts to fix a broken household treasure and ends up wandering through a foreign city in search of a replacement.
The Iron Boys in the Steel Mills
James R. Mears
Rushing into the roaring heat of industrial Steelburgh, two ambitious teenage boys navigate backbreaking manual labor, workplace sabotage, and life-threatening accidents to prove their worth to the factory owners.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 24: London to Berlin
Giacomo Casanova
A penniless Venetian adventurer cuts a swath across eighteenth-century Europe, matching wits with monarchs and bartering his charm against ever-dwindling funds.
The Musket Boys of Old Boston
George A. Warren
Caught in the gathering storm of March 1775, two Massachusetts youths uncover a network of Loyalist intrigue, plunging into the opening salvoes of the American Revolution to safeguard the fledgling patriot cause.
The Outdoor Girls in Florida
Laura Lee Hope
A group of spirited northern schoolgirls trades snowy streets for the untamed waterways of the South, turning a winter retreat into a rescue mission when one girl’s brother vanishes into the swampy interior.
The Penang Pirate: and, The Lost Pinnace
John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson
A merchant vessel outmaneuvers a treacherous plot in treacherous oriental waters, while shipwrecked sailors battle thirst, jungle predators, and madness across the untamed wilderness of nineteenth-century Madagascar.
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 Rocks of Valpré
Ethel M. (Ethel May) Dell
A youthful romance on the French coast shadows a woman's later marriage when secret, long-buried obligations resurface to test honor, trust, and forgiveness.
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.
Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native
Anonymous
A small silver coin passes through the hands of a island society, revealing the quiet power of human kindness across every social class.
Afloat on the Flood
Lawrence J. Leslie
A flood isolates a town, breaking the river bridge and sending four brave boys and three young women down a wildly surging river on makeshift rafts and stray boats.
Alf the Freebooter, Little Danneved and Swayne Trost, and Other Ballads
George Borrow
Sanguinary Scandinavian feuds and chivalric courtly rivalries meet pastoral Spanish romance in verse that captures the raw, unforgiving machinery of fate.
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.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour
Laura Lee Hope
A pair of adventurous young siblings take to the open road in a customized motor van, turning an idyllic family vacation into an earnest, wide-ranging search for a neighbor's missing runaway boy.
Capt. W. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago
William F. Drannan
An old frontiersman recalls guiding civilian wagons and army supplies across a treacherous 1850s West, where survival required hyper-vigilance, expert tracking, and swift, lethal defense.
Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
A midshipman navigates tough athletic rivalries, disciplinary scrapes, and explosive personal clashes during his second-class year at Annapolis.
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.
Left Behind
James Otis
When a lost, well-to-do boy is stranded on the streets of nineteenth-century New York, two street-smart newsboys take him in, sharing their cramped sleeping quarters and teaching him the art of survival.
Mary Liddiard
William Henry Giles Kingston
A young missionary's daughter faces danger, loss, and adventure in the Pacific Islands, where her faith and courage are tested amidst tribal conflicts and natural disasters.