Free summaries
American Literature — page 57
3,373 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 57 of 71.
Six little Bunkers at Mammy June's
Laura Lee Hope
A energetic winter journey carries six energetic siblings from a chilly Boston household to a sunny Southern plantation filled with holiday festivities, local folklore, and woodland misadventures.
The Annals of Ann
Kate Trimble Sharber
A spirited young girl records the comical romances, domestic mishaps, and social absurdities of her small town in a diary she hopes will make her famous.
The courting of Lady Jane
Josephine Daskam Bacon
When an aging colonel mistakes quiet admiration for romantic devotion, a quiet suburban summer spirals into a delicate comedy of misdirected hearts.
The Cromptons
Mary Jane Holmes
A young woman arrives in a New England town to teach school, unaware that her hidden family tree connects her directly to its proudest family.
The Dim Lantern
Temple Bailey
A wounded veteran and a young woman bound by duty search for purpose in a changing postwar world.
The Governess
Julie M. Lippmann
A stubborn, wild-tempered girl wages a silent war against the new governess hired to tame her, only to discover that her strict guardian hides a selfless devotion and a secretive past tied to her own family.
The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
In colonial Virginia, a convict tutor endures public disgrace to shield the fiery young heiress he loves from her own dangerous political rebellions.
The Story of Patsy
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
A battered, street-wise boy finds a moment of beauty and belonging in a crowded San Francisco classroom.
A Hero of the Pen
E. Werner
A fierce, romantic tale of hidden identities and clashing loyalties, this narrative follows a strong-willed American heiress into the heart of wartime Germany to uncover a family secret. The story explores how love and duty collide when the old world’s rigid traditions encounter the relentless, modern spirit of an…
A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country
T. D. (Thomas Dykes) Beasley
A solitude of whispering pines and sun-baked stone holds the ghosts of gold diggers and writers.
Dark Hollow
Anna Katharine Green
A heavy gate left ajar on an empty lane, a dying servant bleeding over a secret, and a shadowy ravine where an old crime refuses to rest in peace.
Exultations
Ezra Pound
The poet stands at a crossroads of ancient and modern, wielding language like a sharpened blade to carve out a new space for the eternal spirit within a crumbling world.
General Nelson's Scout
Byron A. (Byron Archibald) Dunn
A young Kentuckian becomes an unlikely hero, torn between his unwavering loyalty to the Union and the profound, agonizing bond he shares with his Confederate-sympathizing father during the Civil War.
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848
Various
This collection offers a portal into the mid-19th-century American literary imagination, blending sentimental fiction, romantic poetry, and the earnest, self-promoting voice of a burgeoning magazine culture.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 01, November, 1857: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
An ambitious mid-nineteenth-century literary journal brings together local sketches, satirical dining-table philosophy, political critique, and romantic verse to capture the intellectual crosscurrents of a nation on the brink of profound change.
The Comings of Cousin Ann
Emma Speed Sampson
A spirited young woman living on the margins of her community transforms the lives of her wealthy, reluctant relatives and a stranded, aging cousin through her irrepressible energy and business savvy.
The Common Man
Mack Reynolds
A small team of scientists sets out to find the ultimate average guy, only to learn how quickly absolute power turns common sense into absolute tyranny.
The Girls at Mount Morris
Amanda M. Douglas
Separated in infancy by a train wreck, two very different girls navigate duty and privilege before discovering they are twin sisters.
The House of Fulfilment
George Madden Martin
This is a quiet, observant study of two generations of Southerners navigating the friction between inherited social duty and the impulsive, often messy demands of the human heart. It chronicles the coming-of-age of Alexina, a young woman whose life shifts from the rigid, sterile expectations of her wealthy Blair…
The Young Salesman
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A young immigrant arrives in New York with nothing but his integrity and a desire to work, eventually overcoming the schemes of a selfish cousin and a dishonest employer.
A Gentleman's Gentleman: 1909
Francis Hopkinson Smith
A portrait of social ambition and the transactional nature of friendship, this narrative follows a group of expatriate Americans in England as they witness the rise of a hanger-on within the orbit of a wealthy industrialist.
An Open-Eyed Conspiracy
William Dean Howells
Saratoga Springs, with its grand hotels and bubbling springs, serves as the stage for a subtle, unintended matchmaking scheme that tests the social meddling of a weary vacationing couple.
Bill Nye's Red Book: New Edition
Bill Nye
This collection of essays and sketches serves as a humorous, idiosyncratic chronicle of nineteenth-century American life, navigating the absurdities of social status, politics, and the common struggle for dignity. It offers a window into a bygone era of regional wit, where the author’s keen eye for the peculiar…
Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and Picture
Palmer Cox
A collection of frontier sketches and verse, this volume captures the chaotic, irreverent spirit of a bygone era through tall tales and observational wit. It is a portrait of life on the edge of the map.
Hearts and Masks
Harold MacGrath
The spirit of the unexpected dictates this tale of a masquerade ball, where an impulsive young man finds himself caught in a web of mistaken identity, high-stakes theft, and an unlikely romance.
Port Argent: A Novel
Arthur Colton
Port Argent is a sprawling, soot-stained industrial city built upon the banks of the Muscadine River, where the machinery of commerce, local politics, and human ambition grind together in a cycle that feels both inevitable and indifferent. This is a story of a place where power is brokered in back rooms and where…
Red Pepper's Patients: With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
The man who holds his hat against the wind is searching for a doctor whose reputation for healing is matched only by his reputation for being difficult. It is a story of medical grace found in the most unlikely places.
Right Guard Grant
Ralph Henry Barbour
The path to the varsity lineup is rarely a straight line, but for one determined boy at Alton Academy, it proves to be a season-long education in grit, integrity, and the true cost of victory.
Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Robert Montgomery Bird
A man discovers the uncanny power to inhabit the bodies of the recently deceased, only to find that every new life brings its own set of inescapable miseries.
The Black Eagle Mystery
Geraldine Bonner
The Black Eagle Mystery is a classic puzzle of urban suspense, where the shifting loyalties of a New York office staff mirror the dark, labyrinthine secrets of a financial titan.
The Consul
Richard Harding Davis
The long, loyal career of an aging diplomat comes to a quiet end—or a dramatic beginning—in a fever-ridden port. This story of principle, political patronage, and the weight of one’s own conscience remains a poignant reflection on public service.
The Desert Fiddler
William H. (William Henry) Hamby
A young laborer seeks his fortune in the Imperial Valley’s unforgiving cotton fields, armed with little more than a fiddle, a stubborn work ethic, and a fierce, righteous defiance against the men who would exploit the soil.
The Girls of Hillcrest Farm
Amy Bell Marlowe
When their father falls ill and their family fortune vanishes, two resourceful sisters trade city life for an abandoned mountain farm, only to find that reclaiming their future requires solving a persistent, generations-old mystery.
The Mail Carrier
Harry Castlemon
A cautionary tale of envy and consequence, this story follows a misguided boy who steals a neighbor’s hard-earned money and embarks on a flight from justice that teaches him the hollow cost of his ambition.
The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
The political bitterness of the American South during Reconstruction serves as the backdrop for this intense, character-driven drama of personal honor and societal collapse. It traces the final gasps of the Ku Klux Klan and the subsequent legal entanglements that define the era’s turbulent transition.
Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment: 1898
Edward Bellamy
A man’s vivid imagination and a grim coincidence turn his own home into a prison of silent suspicion. When a murder occurs on his property, his behavior transforms an ordinary domestic life into a claustrophobic psychological trial.
By The Sea: 1887
Heman White Chaplin
A rugged, salt-sprayed coast guards the secrets of two stubborn men fighting for the soul and custody of a vibrant child. This portrait of a fading New England way of life captures the quiet, crushing weight of loss.
Elder Conklin
Frank Harris
The prairie frontier is a crucible where shifting loyalties and rigid moralities collide. A young schoolmaster, an inscrutable patriarch, and his restless daughter navigate a landscape defined by both vast, indifferent nature and the encroaching reach of federal law.
Knock three-one-two
Fredric Brown
A city gripped by terror finds its fates entwined when a desperate gambler and a lethal predator navigate the same dark streets. Fear is the only constant in a neighborhood where every knock on a door carries the weight of life or death.
Mam' Linda
Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben
A young lawyer risks his political future and his life to defend the innocent, navigating a treacherous landscape of mob violence and deep-seated prejudice in the post-Reconstruction South.
Nothing But the Truth
Frederic Stewart Isham
A wager to speak only the truth for three weeks transforms a reckless young man’s life, turning social mishaps into an unexpected path toward maturity and love.
Patty's Perversities
Arlo Bates
This nuanced portrait of New England provincial life captures the tangled intersection of social ambition, economic anxiety, and the volatile emotional landscapes of courtship. It serves as a study in how rigid social expectations collide with individual pride.
Sleeping Fires: a Novel
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
HOOK A stifled young wife attempts to liberate her intellectual hunger in the rigid social landscape of 1860s San Francisco, leading to a profound, destructive, and ultimately transformative collision with a charismatic outsider.
The Brigade Commander
John William De Forest
A brilliant but disgraced brigade commander leads his men to a final, crushing victory, only to face a reckoning for a devastating personal betrayal on the eve of battle.
The Hallowell Partnership
Katharine Holland Brown
A brother and sister discover that the most difficult of lives—one defined by illness and isolation—can be transformed into a shared adventure, provided they are willing to work for it.
The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War
Stephen Crane
The fog of battle obscures more than just the field; it hides the small, splintered souls of the men tasked with holding the line. These stories strip away the glory of war to reveal the raw, shaking nerves of those caught in its machinery.
The Mansion
Henry Van Dyke
The mansion of one’s soul is not built of stone, nor is it measured by the ledger of one’s earthly success. A life defined by careful calculation finds its true, humble inventory only when all worldly credit is stripped away.
The Wood Fire in No. 3
Francis Hopkinson Smith
The fireplace is the beating heart of a New York studio building, drawing a circle of friends together to share the stories that define their lives. This collection of linked tales captures the warmth and camaraderie of a vanishing bohemian world.