Free summaries
American Literature — page 32
3,151 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 32 of 66.
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 Little People of the Snow
William Cullen Bryant
A child strays beyond her winter boundaries, coaxed by an icy creature into a world of subterranean frosted magic.
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 Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A fifteen-year-old youth glimpses a captivating female face reflected in a forest spring, spending months lost in romantic longing until a surprise winter encounter reveals the true, earthly identity of his mysterious vision.
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.
The Lady of the Aroostook
William Dean Howells
A young woman from rural Massachusetts sails for Europe aboard a cargo vessel, unaware that she is the only female passenger among a crew and small circle of men.
Cloudy Jewel
Grace Livingston Hill
For a woman whose life has been spent as a tireless, unpaid caretaker, an unexpected proposal offers the chance to run her own household. When her orphaned niece and nephew ask her to play "mother" at college, her world expands into an enduring journey of family, faith, and practical grace.
Mother Carey's Chickens
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
When a widowed mother and her four spirited children lose their fortune, they transform a run-down village dwelling into a radiant home through pure resourcefulness, good humor, and unshakable family love.
Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury
James Whitcomb Riley
Simple rural townsfolk and wandering Bohemians sing, dream, and endure life's sudden tragedies across the small-town fields and parlor hearths of nineteenth-century Indiana.
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia
Mary Johnston
In the wilderness of Restoration-era Virginia, an exiled indentured convict and a highborn planter's daughter are drawn into a web of rebellion, captivity, and impossible love.
Rutledge
Miriam Coles Harris
A lonely orphan girl is taken from school into the mysterious world of her guardian's estate, where hidden secrets and high-society jealousy complicate her search for real love.
Septimius Felton, or, the Elixir of Life
Nathaniel Hawthorne
A young New Englander's pursuit of physical immortality turns into a haunting study of solitude, historical trauma, and self-deception.
The Dead Letter: An American Romance
Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
An unread letter sitting in the dead-letter office exposes the shadow of a horrific crime, pulling a young clerk and an intuitive investigator into a web of greed, jealousy, and betrayal.
The Frontiersmen
Charles Egbert Craddock
A vast, contested wilderness tests the mettle of British settlers, French opportunists, and Cherokee nations, as personal rivalries and political intrigue shape the early American frontier.
The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush
Francis Lynde
In a corrupt Western state ruled by machine politics and corporate influence, a young reformer returns home only to find that his primary political adversary is his own father.
The Puritan Twins
Lucy Fitch Perkins
A boy’s frantic ride atop a runaway horse saves him from Indian captors in colonial Massachusetts.
Weatherby's Inning: A Story of College Life and Baseball
Ralph Henry Barbour
Accused of cowardice when a drownings threatens, a fragile college freshman must brave social ostracism to redeem his reputation on the diamond.
Won in the ninth
Christy Mathewson
A rookie pitcher leaves his sun-soaked home to carve out a place on a frosty Northern campus, discovering that mastering a deadly curveball is only half as difficult as navigating college honor, fast friends, and stolen trust.
Different Girls
Unknown
This collection of stories captures the shifting spirit of the American girl at the turn of the 20th century, exploring her dreams, her quiet burdens, and the social barriers that shaped her life.
Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race Problem. A Novel
Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert) Griggs
Two brilliant men navigate the crushing weight of systemic racism by building a secret, shadow government for their people, only to find their friendship and ideology shattered by the very violence they seek to escape.
Island Tales / On the Makaloa Mat
Jack London
A rich Hawaiian sun warms the surface of these pages, but beneath it lies the friction of two worlds colliding—the lingering elegance of old Polynesian aristocracy meeting the hard edge of Western commerce and time itself.
Josh Billings, Hiz Sayings
Josh Billings
A deliberate master of homespun cynicism and intentional misspelling, this collection of aphorisms, essays, and observations offers a candid, irreverent look at nineteenth-century American life. It is a work of dry wit and pointed satire, designed to expose the vanities of the age through the lens of a weary,…
Kitty-cat tales
Alice van Leer Carrick
A lonely child discovers comfort in the company of her black kitten, who reveals the hidden history of the feline world through nightly stories shared at her bedside.
Kitty of the Roses
Ralph Henry Barbour
The fragrance of a quiet Southern town and the mystery of a garden wall draw two strangers into a delicate, unfolding courtship.
Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses from an Old Manse")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
This is a haunting, philosophical exploration of the self, told through the perspective of a man who perceives his own reflection as a separate, mysterious, and inseparable companion.
The Life of the Party
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
HOOK A sophisticated lawyer finds his dignity shredded after a fancy-dress party goes awry, leaving him stranded in New York City wearing nothing but a pair of pink rompers.
The Second Deluge
Garrett Putman Serviss
When a wandering nebula threatens to submerge the world beneath an endless ocean, a visionary scientist constructs a modern ark to save the best of humanity from extinction.