Free summaries
American Literature — page 69
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 69 of 101.
A Man of Honor
George Cary Eggleston
A young gentleman seeking his fortune in nineteenth-century Virginia finds himself tangled in regional customs, family obligations, fraudulent debts, and a love affair that demands absolute integrity. <Image alt="Illustration of horsemen galloping side by side in a field" caption="Riders competing during a…
"A Modern Hercules," the Tale of a Sculptress
Melvin G. Winstock
A daring sculptress, a crusading minister, and a public scandal collide in a melodrama of art, illicit passion, and eventual spiritual redemption.
After the Storm
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
A brief midsummer storm gives way to a clear night, foreshadowing a marriage launched with deep affection, wrecked by stubborn pride, and painfully rebuilt over years of lonely self-examination.
An American
Belle Willey Gue
Faith and moral conviction meet the chaos of the Spanish-American War in this sweeping novel of identity, duty, and spiritual resilience set in late nineteenth-century Cuba.
As We Go
Charles Dudley Warner
A witty observer dissects the quirks, contradictions, and accelerating pace of late nineteenth-century American life, exposing the subtle absurdities beneath modern progress.
Early autumn
Louis Bromfield
A family whose proud legacy has curdled into a cage must face the quiet, suffocating truth of its own decay.
From Jest to Earnest
Edward Payson Roe
What begins as a practical joke played by a beautiful, cynical city belle upon an earnest young minister turns into a deep spiritual transformation and an enduring love.
Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others
John Kendrick Bangs
A man in a sweltering New York bedroom begins to shiver uncontrollably, only to discover that the sudden chill in the air marks the arrival of an uninvited specter.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 1, January 1842
Various
High-toned romance, wilderness misadventures, and sharp-eyed editorial feuds collide in a single monthly volume of antebellum magazine culture.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 2, February 1842
Various
A vibrant snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century American literary culture, this magazine issue captures a moment when romantic serial fiction, fiery critical essays, and formal poetry shared equal space.
Hepsey Burke
Frank N. (Frank Nash) Westcott
HOOK In a small, tradition-bound village, a spirited sixty-year-old widow becomes the unofficial guardian of the local clergy, maneuvering behind the scenes to mend broken spirits and challenge the town’s rigid social hierarchies.
Linda Condon
Joseph Hergesheimer
A aloof girl raised in transient luxury protects her cool, untouched self, only to discover her spirit transformed into immortal art.
Nick Carter Stories No. 155, August 28, 1915: The Gordon Elopement
Nicholas (House name) Carter
A frantic woman, a missing fortune, and a trail of blood lead a famous detective into a trap where no one is who they seem.
Phyllis
Maria Thompson Daviess
The story of an isolated girl finding a home, this narrative explores the transformative power of genuine friendship within a close-knit Tennessee community. It captures the transition from lonely girlhood to a life of shared purpose.
Poems
Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich
In every landscape, from far-off Peru to the high peaks of Lake Superior, a quiet moral world waits to be uncovered.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 2
Various
A world of high-minded deceptions, sudden hauntings, and deadly secrets unfolds across a landscape where the ordinary turns precarious without warning.
The Automatic Toy Works: Manufacturers of the Best Novelties in Mechanical and Other Toys
New York Automatic Toy Works
A rare artifact of Gilded Age commerce, this 1882 trade catalogue offers a vivid glimpse into the mechanics of Victorian entertainment and the deep cultural biases embedded in nineteenth-century American consumer life.
The Boy Spies with the Regulators: The Story of How the Boys Assisted the Carolina Patriots to Drive the British from That State
James Otis
An obscure slice of American Revolutionary history comes alive through the eyes of two sixteen-year-old cousins who risk execution to resist colonial tyranny long before the war official begins.
The Dead-Line
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A range war threatens to drown the Lo Lo Valley in blood, but the real danger isn't the sheep—it's the shadow moving behind the dust.
The fair Mississippian
Charles Egbert Craddock
A young scholar, stripped of his inheritance by family tragedy, takes a position as a tutor on a secluded Mississippi plantation, where atmospheric ghosts, rising floodwaters, and complex legal secrets reshape his entire future.
The Mentor: Painters of Western Life, Vol 3, Num. 9, Serial No. 85, June 15, 1915
Arthur Hoeber
A vivid, vanished American frontier comes alive through the brushes of men who lived its danger, captured its wild kinetic energy, and immortalized a landscape before wire fences and towns transformed it forever.
The Music Master
Charles Klein
HOOK A devoted father searches for his lost daughter in New York, navigating poverty and social divides before finding the peace he has long sought.
The Running Fight
William Hamilton Osborne
A ruthless financier framed an innocent man to save his corrupt empire, but love, law, and relentless truth ignite a fight to the finish.
Twenty tales by twenty women: From real life in Chicago
Anonymous
A young woman in Chicago discovers that love, ambition, and social judgment carry steep prices in a rapidly changing city.
Will Rossiter's Original Talkalogues by American Jokers
Unknown
Quick-witted stage comedy, vernacular banter, and turn-of-the-century vaudeville gags collide in this lively anthology of early American performance material and commercial pitchcraft.
A Maid in Arcady
Ralph Henry Barbour
A chance summer encounter in a secluded sunlit lotus pool blooms into a mischievous game of hidden identities and unexpected devotion.
Cynthia Wakeham's Money
Anna Katharine Green
A deathbed bequest in a desolate village sets a young lawyer on the trail of a missing fortune, leading him straight into a shadowed mansion where two reclusive sisters guard a terrifying family secret.
David Lockwin—The People's Idol
John McGovern
A soaring political career in Gilded Age Chicago crumbles under the weight of backroom machine corruption and the quiet, devastating grief of a lost child.
Faulkner's Folly
Carolyn Wells
An artist lies dead in his studio, stabbed with an etcher's needle, while four people with motives and hidden secrets stand just beyond the darkened room.
Madame Delphine
George Washington Cable
A mother’s desperate sacrifice exposes the harsh boundaries of race, law, and love in nineteenth-century New Orleans.
Milly: At Love's Extremes
Maurice Thompson
Her heart belonged to a mountain hermit with a hidden past, but a winter shooting trip down in the lowlands threatens to tear both their worlds apart.
Mrs. Radigan: Her Biography, with that of Miss Pearl Veal, and the Memoirs of J. Madison Mudison
Nelson Lloyd
A former college gridiron star navigates High Society, where the competition for social status, wealthy heiresses, and European titles is as fierce as any game on the field.
Norma Kent of the WACS
Roy J. (Roy Judson) Snell
An eager young recruit marches straight into the hidden home-front battles of World War II, discovering that protecting her country requires sharp eyes, steady nerves, and unflinching trust in her fellow women in arms.
Our Base Ball Club and How It Won the Championship
Noah Brooks
In a small Illinois town, a band of young men rebuilds their defeated team from the dirt up, chasing regional glory against crooked odds and formidable rivals.
Red Pepper Burns
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
HOOK A red-headed, sharp-tongued physician struggles to reconcile his fiery temperament with his tender devotion to his patients and the woman he eventually hopes to marry.
Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters
Henry Wallace Phillips
This collection of humorous, colloquial tales captures the rough-and-tumble spirit of the American frontier, where the line between man and beast is often blurred by absurdity. It offers a candid look at the eccentricities of cowpunchers, miners, and the wild creatures they encounter in the Dakota territory and beyond.
Silent Struggles
Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
A dark cloud of superstition settles over a fledgling American colony, testing love, family ties, and the bounds of human endurance.
Strawberry Acres
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
When an unexpected inheritance offers a group of struggling siblings a way out of their stifling city life, they discover that reclaiming a neglected estate requires far more than just manual labor.
Task to Luna
Alfred Coppel
Two soldiers step into the shadow and glare of the moon, each bent on claiming its lonely heights for his own nation. When an unexpected third force reveals how small their war really is, their mutual hatred collapses into helpless laughter.
The artificial man
Clare Winger Harris
A college athlete loses a leg and yields to the belief that his soul degrades alongside his flesh, driving him into a gruesome quest to replace his entire body with mechanical parts.
The False Gods
George Horace Lorimer
A hard-boiled reporter chases the scoop of a lifetime, only to find himself trapped in a web of Egyptian relics, dark secrets, and a woman who may be more than human.
The fearsome touch of death
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A lonely room and a single corpse turn an ordinary night watch into a horrifying psychological trap, where unreasoning dread proves far more lethal than any supernatural monster.
The Fortune Hunter
Louis Joseph Vance
The fortune-hunting scheme seems foolproof on paper, but a young man soon discovers that playing a role in a small town requires a sincerity he never intended to possess.
The Gold of Chickaree
Susan Warner
Her sudden marriage brings no pause to her sharp-witted independence, nor does it shield her husband from the quiet, persistent demands of his own moral conscience.
The victory
Molly Elliot Seawell
A Southern plantation house becomes a crucible of divided allegiances and silent yearnings as civil war tears a family apart.
The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, July 1836)
Various
Quiet observations of youth, philosophy, and romance converge in a mid-nineteenth-century undergraduate journal that balances earnest moral inquiry with sharp, self-aware collegiate humor.
Their Silver Wedding Journey
William Dean Howells
A middle-aged New York editor and his wife revisit Europe after twenty-five years, turning a deferred Sabbatical into a humorous, gently caustic observation of American abroad, emerging romance, and late-nineteenth-century transatlantic culture.
Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper
T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur
A quiet domestic life is rarely as peaceful as it looks, filled as it is with burning dinners, vanishing lamp oil, and the endless work of managing a home.