Free summaries
American Literature — page 64
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 64 of 101.
American Scenery, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Nathaniel Parker Willis
A sweeping tour of early American rivers, wilderness bluffs, and growing towns reveals a landscape shaped by raw nature, violent frontier histories, and rapid modern expansion.
Asleep in Armageddon
Ray Bradbury
A lone survivor of a rocket crash discovers that the serene, sunny planetoid beneath his feet harbors ancient, hungry minds that can only claim him when he closes his eyes.
Beyond the Gates
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
Crossing the threshold of death during a bout of brain fever, a pragmatic middle-aged woman wakes to discover that the afterlife is a tangible, evolving world of familiar loves and profound spiritual growth.
Fresh Every Hour: Detailing the Adventures, Comic and Pathetic of One Jimmy Martin, Purveyor of Publicity, a Young Gentleman Possessing Sublime Nerve, Whimsical Imagination, Colossal Impudence, and, Withal, the Heart of a Child
John Peter Toohey
A young publicist uses his boundless imagination and brazen schemes to manipulate the press, only to find that his most enduring performance is the one he directs toward the woman he loves.
Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
High school girls on the American home front transform a small Midwestern town through organized patriotism, only to find that counteracting treason takes more than selling bonds.
Mr. Arnold: A romance of the Revolution
Francis Lynde
An impulsive young Virginia officer sneaks behind enemy lines on a desperate wartime gamble, only to find that catching a traitor is far easier than surviving the moral cost of the trap.
Ralph Raymond's Heir
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Driven by sudden wealth, a desperate merchant hires a calculating drug clerk to eliminate a rival and discard his young heir, only for their dark alliance to unravel through extortion, miraculous survival, and exposed secrets.
Rhoda of the Underground
Florence Finch Kelly
Across a divided nation on the brink of civil war, a young Northern woman must choose between her devotion to a handsome Southern slaveholder and her moral duty to the Underground Railroad.
Shadows of Shasta
Joaquin Miller
In the shadow of Mount Shasta, helpless people are hunted down under the cover of law, their only crime being that their presence frustrates greedy settlers and corrupt government agents.
The Backwoods Boy
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Born in a humble wilderness cabin, a self-taught frontier youth works his way from manual labor and small-town law offices to the White House, guiding a fractured nation through civil war with unyielding integrity.
The decadent
Ralph Adams Cram
An idealist surrenders to the beauty of a dying world, choosing art and stillness over a hopeless war for reform.
The Doctor, his Wife, and the Clock
Anna Katharine Green
A midnight gun fires in a quiet New York block, leaving a neighbor dead and a blind physician confessing to a crime no one believes he could physically commit.
The Gilded Age, Part 7
Mark Twain
Speculative madness and political grift collide in a society where fortunes are chased on paper, laws are bought in secret, and moral ruin awaits anyone naive enough to believe the promises of the age.
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.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 4, April 1842
Various
A single monthly issue of a nineteenth-century American periodical captures a culture in transition, balancing dark gothic romance, local satire, high-seas adventure, and sharp literary criticism.
Hills of the Shatemuc
Susan Warner
Two farm-reared brothers pursue radically different paths to adulthood, bound by the quiet moral weight of their rural New York home.
Neighborhood Stories
Zona Gale
Small-town gossip softens into radical community grace when an observant, big-hearted middle-aged woman decides her neighbors are capable of loving one another better than they know.
Prairie-Dog Town
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
Two young prairie children slip away from a dull picnic, wander over the rolling Dakota plains, and shrink down to step inside the hidden, surprisingly sophisticated underground world of a prairie-dog village.
Ragged Lady
William Dean Howells
A New England country girl enters the glittering, confusing world of transatlantic high society, retaining a stubborn integrity through every change of fortune.
Stories about Indians
Anonymous
A brief, illuminating look into Native American life, this collection presents vivid vignettes of tactical ingenuity, steadfast honor, quiet grief, and sharp wit.
The curse of gold
Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
A secret marriage, a stolen certificate, and a ruthless matriarch conspire to tear two lovers apart across nineteenth-century New York.
The Ear in the Wall
Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
A high-stakes campaign against a corrupt political machine explodes when a young secretary disappears with a dangerous secret.
The Last Penny
Edwin Lefevre
Fresh out of college, a pampered young man believes he has bankrupted his quiet father, setting off a desperate drive to earn back his debt in the burgeoning American automobile industry.
The Mystery of the Secret Band
Edith Lavell
Eighteen-year-old Mary Louise Gay postpones her school vacation to take a paying assignment for her father's agency, posing as an ordinary guest in a Philadelphia women's hotel to unmask a serial thief.
The Narrow House
Evelyn Scott
A house full of quiet, desperate resentments becomes a pressure cooker for three generations trapped under one decaying roof.
Victor Ollnee's Discipline
Hamlin Garland
A collegiate athlete discovers his mother is a professional medium, thrusting him into a conflict between his skeptical, modern worldview and the inexplicable, haunting phenomena that define her life and eventually claim it.
Watch and ward
Henry James
An awkward bachelor adopts an orphaned twelve-year-old girl with the quiet intention of raising her to become his wife, triggering a complex chain of emotional dependency and misaligned desire.
One Third Off
Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
Faced with a creeping midsection and failing stamina, a middle-aged writer trades denial for discipline, embarking on a self-devised diet to shed one third of his weight without losing his sense of humor.
Peggy on the Road
Virginia Hughes
A young actress lands her first major role, only to find that the real drama happens off-stage. She must navigate the cutthroat politics of a professional theater company to save a veteran actor’s career.
Teddy and Carrots: Two Merchants of Newpaper Row
James Otis
A newly arrived orphan and a generous street urchin join forces to conquer the cutthroat world of newsboys and bootblacks in Victorian New York.
The Carcellini Emerald, With Other Tales
Harrison, Burton, Mrs.
In a landscape of social artifice and fading grandeur, these stories capture the quiet struggles of those who find their dignity amidst the crushing expectations of Gilded Age society.
The Mysteries and Miseries of San Francisco: Showing up all the various characters and notabilities, (both in high and low life) that have figured in San Franciso since its settlement
A Californian
A turbulent portrait of a city forged in fire and gold, this tale navigates the shifting boundaries between high society and the criminal underworld of early California.
The Old Blood
Frederick Palmer
To step into this story is to walk through a doorway from quiet, sunlit New England orchards straight into the sudden, devastating thunder of the Western Front.
A Girl of the Plains Country
Alice MacGowan
A young girl arrives on the Texas frontier, where the rugged demands of ranch life and the guidance of an unconventional, devoted manager shape her into a woman of grit and independence.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 4, October 1849
Various
This collection captures the mid-19th-century American literary zeitgeist, weaving together sentimental fiction, moralizing essays, and nature writing into a single, vibrant tapestry of 1849. It offers a window into the preoccupations of a burgeoning middle class, where domesticity, religious devotion, and the…
Hunting Indians in a Taxi-Cab
Kate Sanborn
A whimsical, observant look at the vanishing era of the wooden tobacco sign, capturing the peculiar charm of a bygone American streetscape.
Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple
Sophie May
Life is a series of small, bright, and often chaotic discoveries for a young girl with dimples. This story captures the perspective of a spirited child navigating the gentle, moralizing, and occasionally bewildering world of her older sisters and the adults who shape their lives.
Max Fargus
Owen Johnson
The story follows the calculated collision of a cold-blooded miser and a grasping, ambitious woman, both ensnared in a web of legal maneuvering and social pretense. It is a sharp, cynical portrait of New York in the 1870s, where greed serves as the primary currency of human interaction.
Memories of Lincoln
Walt Whitman
The falling star, the blooming lilac, and the thrush’s song—these become a ritual of mourning for a fallen leader, weaving the personal grief of a nation into the eternal rhythms of the earth.
Rosaleen among the artists
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Caught between the stifling expectations of class and the volatile demands of artistic vanity, one young woman navigates a long, quiet struggle to claim her own life and the love she has never forgotten.
The Harvest of Years
Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
The Harvest of Years is a quiet, reflective chronicle of a life defined by domestic devotion, spiritual awakening, and the bonds of a chosen family. It offers an intimate look at the intersections of faith and daily labor in nineteenth-century New England.
The Maker of Opportunities
George Gibbs
A witty, wealthy idler discovers that orchestrating the lives of others is a far more dangerous—and exhilarating—game than the empty social rituals he has spent a lifetime mocking.
The Mentor: American Mural Painters, vol. 2, Num 15, Serial No. 67, September 15, 1914
Arthur Hoeber
American mural painting emerged in the late nineteenth century as a grand, ambitious pursuit, transforming public architecture into a canvas for national identity and historical storytelling. This survey captures a pivotal era when artists began elevating public spaces through decorative art.
The river
Ednah Aiken
The desert is not a static landscape, but an antagonist that demands everything from those who try to tame it. Through the lens of a monumental engineering project on the Colorado River, the narrative explores the human toll of ambition, the fragility of civilization in an arid wilderness, and the quiet, persistent…
Whilomville Stories
Stephen Crane
A collection of connected tales captures the raw, chaotic, and often cruel energy of boyhood in a small American town at the turn of the century.
A Hazard of New Fortunes
William Dean Howells
The chaos of late-nineteenth-century New York transforms a quiet, literary family into unwilling participants in a frantic, shifting urban drama. This expansive novel captures the precise moment when artistic aspiration collides with the raw, uncompromising appetite of industrial capitalism.
A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready
Bret Harte
The quiet tragedy of a man who finds his fortune only when his mind and body have already left him provides a haunting, elegiac look at the human cost of the gold rush.
By Shore and Sedge
Bret Harte
A young man finds himself caught between the ruthless ambitions of his associates and the quiet, strange dignity of a father and daughter living in an abandoned ship.