Free summaries
American Literature — page 31
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 31 of 101.
Mr. Dooley's Philosophy
Finley Peter Dunne
An Irish-American saloonkeeper dispenses sharp, dialect-rich commentary on imperialism, high finance, and social absurdities to his long-suffering regular, transforming turn-of-the-century headlines into enduring comic wisdom.
The Curved Blades
Carolyn Wells
When a wealthy, dictatorial heiress is found poisoned and struck in her locked bedroom, a tangle of bizarre clues leaves the police helpless.
The Great War Syndicate
Frank R. Stockton
A private business entity takes over a nation's military operations, deploying terrifyingly precise scientific superweapons to enforce a sudden, absolute global peace.
The Man of Adamant: (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A fanatical hermit retreats into a dark forest cave to escape humanity's sins, only to find his own self-righteous isolation turning his heart to literal stone.
The Story of a Mine
Bret Harte
Greed, legal fraud, and political corruption collide when a accidentally discovered California quicksilver mine becomes the ultimate prize in a high-stakes struggle spanning backwoods wilderness and the scheming halls of Washington.
The Woman in the Alcove
Anna Katharine Green
A glittering diamond vanishes amidst a high-society ball, leaving a beautiful woman dead in a secluded nook and her secret admirer framed for her murder.
Wehman Bros.' Vaudeville Jokes No. 1
Anonymous
A collection of vaudeville-era jokes, offering a glimpse into the humor of the early 20th century.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 21 to 25
Mark Twain
A drifting raft carries a boy and an escaped slave into the dark heart of the American riverlands, where human greed and violence routinely wear the mask of respectable morality.
Crucial Instances
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton's *Crucial Instances* delves into the complexities of human relationships and the pivotal moments that shape our lives.
Double Trouble
Herbert Quick
A respectable banker loses five years of his life to an altered state, waking up as a smooth-talking town boss engaged to a woman he has never met.
Homespun Tales
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
A collection of heartwarming tales set in a quaint New England village, exploring love, family, and community.
Poems of American Patriotism
Unknown
A nation’s history echoes not merely in its recorded battles, but in the enduring lyrics born from its most desperate hours and quietest sacrifices.
Rollo at Play
Jacob Abbott
A young boy's adventures teach valuable lessons about responsibility and nature.
Rudder Grange
Frank R. Stockton
An improvised houseboat on a abandoned canal barge becomes the comic launching pad for a young couple’s domestic misadventures.
Shavings: A Novel
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
In a coastal Massachusetts village, a gentle eccentric who carves wooden windmills finds his quiet life upended when he shelters a young widow, her child, and a secret that threatens the entire town's peace.
Short Stories and Essays (from Literature and Life)
William Dean Howells
To step into these pages is to wander through a vanishing turn-of-the-century America with a quiet observer who catches the exact weight of frozen brine on an East River pier and the soft hypocrisy of modern life.
Sky Island: Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill after their visit to the sea fairies
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A magical umbrella whisks a boy away on a fantastical adventure to Sky Island, where he meets a sailor, a girl, and a host of colorful characters.
The Fall of British Tyranny
John Leacock
British intrigue encounters American resolve across a continent at war in a fiery political drama. Written during the dawn of the American Revolution, this satirical play transforms military clashes and cabinet schemes into a rallying cry for independence.
The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain
An American traveler sets out on a grand steamship tour across the Mediterranean, determined to look past romantic myths and describe the Old World exactly as he finds it.
The Puddleford Papers
Henry Hiram Riley
In an isolated frontier town, eccentric settlers, aspiring elites, and makeshift legal authorities turn everyday rustic survival into a series of theatrical misunderstandings.
The Triumph of Virginia Dale
John Francis
A wealthy young woman sets out to improve the lives of others, creating chaos in her small town until her stubborn, wealthy father learns to compromise.
Uncle William: The Man Who Was Shif'less
Jennette Lee
A laid-back Nova Scotia fisherman teaches a struggling young artist that life is measured not by money made, but by time, peace, and human connection.
Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World
James Cowan
A single moon-quake unmoors a satellite, launching two travelers into the depth of the cosmos to discover a world where spiritual purity and utopian order have triumphed over human greed.
Dream Life: A Fable of the Seasons
Donald Grant Mitchell
An intimate journey through a man’s inner world traces how boyhood reveries fade into worldly ambitions, only to yield to quiet grace.
High society
George S. (George Shepard) Chappell
A swift, satirical spin through the rituals, eccentricities, and gilded absurdities of high society at the turn of the 1920s.
Jane Allen, Center
Edith Bancroft
A high-spirited Western ranch girl heads East for her junior year, where campus politics, mysterious foreign origins, and high-stakes basketball collide.
Ramsey Milholland
Booth Tarkington
A tongue-tied Midwest boy grows into a young man on the eve of the Great War, discovering that the quietest hearts often carry the strongest resolve.
Standard Paper-Bag Cookery
Emma Paddock Telford
A practical 1912 manual for the home cook, Standard Paper-Bag Cookery promises to streamline kitchen labor and trap rich flavors inside sealed, buttered paper.
The Heritage of the Sioux
B. M. Bower
She carries a hidden blade and a silent devotion across a changing New Mexico landscape, caught between moving-picture schemes and ancient tribal borders.
The Social Gangster
Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
An expert investigator and his trusty companion navigate the high-stakes world of early twentieth-century New York crime, solving intricate mysteries using cutting-edge science.
The World of Chance
William Dean Howells
A young writer arrives in New York with a manuscript and a grand ambition, only to find that success, failure, and love are governed by a bewildering roll of the dice.
Virginia
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
A quiet southern girl is raised to give everything to her home, only to find that total self-surrender leaves her with nothing to offer the changing world.
Backlog Studies
Charles Dudley Warner
A warm hearth, a crackling wood fire, and good company form the ultimate vantage point for reflecting on a changing, fast-paced world.
He Fell in Love with His Wife
Edward Payson Roe
An unpolished farmer and a ruined woman form a practical union of convenience on a lonely hill farm, only to find an enduring, unexpected devotion growing between them.
The Bad Boy at Home, and His Experiences in Trying to Become an Editor: 1885
Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
A mischievous youth documents his hilarious, chaotic misadventures navigating low-level newspaper work and political schemes in late nineteenth-century New York.
The Last Rose of Summer
Rupert Hughes
A woman overlooked in her youth blooms into quiet self-assurance while the beauty of her peers fades, discovering that a delayed life can carry a sweetness and timing entirely its own.
The Log-Cabin Lady
Unknown
A child of the American wilderness learns that surviving frontier isolation is far simpler than navigating the unwritten rules of elite global society.
The Yates Pride: A Romance
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
A proud spinster in a gossiping village hides her poverty behind an outlandish ruse, only for an old love to return and upend her solitary life.
Twilight Stories
Unknown
Amid historic battles, quiet domestic acts, and childhood rhymes, everyday courage reveals the enduring warmth of human connection.
At the Crossroads
Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock
A recovering writer stumbles into a secluded mountain hamlet, where a woman trapped in an unloving marriage must choose between keeping a sacred vow and reaching for her own freedom.
Betty's Bright Idea
Harriet Beecher Stowe
A quiet act of generosity during the holiday season ripples outward, redeeming a lost father and restoring hope to a struggling family. Harriet Beecher Stowe weaves a gentle tale of faith, compassion, and unexpected blessings.
Calumet 'K'
Samuel Merwin
An unsung engineer fights bad weather, scheming unions, and corporate sabotage to construct a massive Chicago grain elevator before an unforgiving midnight deadline.
Dust
E. (Emanuel) Haldeman-Julius
A stark, unyielding study of Midwestern farm life, Dust traces the bleak intersection of human ambition, emotional barrenness, and the unsparing march of time on the Kansas prairie.
Hidden Hand
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
When an orphan girl disguises herself as a newsboy in nineteenth-century New York, her bold spirit catches the eye of a fiery Virginian, sweeping her into a wild world of hidden inheritances, blood feuds, and forest bandits.
Life on the Mississippi, Part 1
Mark Twain
A young dreamer abandons his wild ambitions of exploring the Amazon to pursue the true pinnacle of 19th-century American prestige: mastering the erratic, dangerous Mississippi as a steamboat pilot.
Making His Way
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A disinherited orphan is forced to make his own living in the city, unaware that a forged will stands between him and his rightful fortune.
Poor and Proud
Oliver Optic
A spunky young girl in antebellum Boston builds a small candy business to support her bedridden mother and learn the true meaning of pride.
Rosemary
Josephine Lawrence
When their mother leaves for a distant sanatorium to recover from an illness, three sisters navigate childhood, school, and household squabbles under the care of their older brother, learning that maturity requires balancing self-will with duty.