Free summaries
American Literature — page 74
4,848 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 74 of 101.
A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others
Francis Hopkinson Smith
A collection of sketches and short stories, this volume captures the transient, human lives of travelers and laborers in the late 19th century. Through intimate observations and encounters, it explores themes of dignity, social pretension, and the quiet heroism of the forgotten.
Around the End
Ralph Henry Barbour
This story captures the breathless, high-stakes atmosphere of boarding-school athletics, where the camaraderie of the dorm room is just as crucial as the physical grind of the gridiron. It is a classic tale of team spirit, personal integrity, and the pressures of school loyalty.
Evenings at Donaldson Manor
Maria J. (Maria Jane) McIntosh
A circle of friends gathers by the fireside to share stories that illuminate the complexities of the human heart. These narratives weave together lessons of moral duty and the enduring power of selfless love.
Inez: A Tale of the Alamo
Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans
A journey of faith, romantic longing, and historical upheaval unfolds against the backdrop of the Texas Revolution. It explores the struggle for personal redemption amidst the brutal reality of the siege of the Alamo.
John Jones's Dollar
Harry Stephen Keeler
A single dollar deposited at compound interest in 1921 quietly expands across ten centuries, eventually threatening to bankrupt the entire solar system.
Maruja
Bret Harte
A young wanderer crosses paths with a wealthy, spirited heiress in the changing landscape of California, where the old Spanish ways are rapidly being eclipsed by the cold, mechanical logic of industry.
Polly in New York
Lillian Elizabeth Roy
Polly Brewster and her friend Eleanor Maynard trade their quiet ranch life for the bustling, sophisticated world of New York City, discovering independence through education, friendship, and unexpected acts of heroism.
Portland, Oregon, A.D. 1999, and other sketches
J. W. (Jeff W.) Hayes
A mysterious woman visits a writer to describe a future Portland, Oregon, transformed by technological progress, social harmony, and the realization of a utopian civic vision.
Questionable Shapes
William Dean Howells
In a world of flickering shadows and half-truths, a group of intellectuals grapples with the thin, permeable veil between the physical realm and the unexplained. These are not ghost stories of terror, but of the psyche’s strange, persistent reach toward what lies beyond.
Sam's Chance, and How He Improved It
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A former street urchin navigates the pitfalls of city life and the difficult work of personal reform, finding that steady habits and unexpected mentorship offer the only reliable path to a better future.
Skinner's Dress Suit
Henry Irving Dodge
A small lie born of marital pride spirals into a life-changing lesson in personal projection when a timid cashier invests in a tuxedo.
Stand Pat
David A. Curtis
These connected tales of a riverside town capture the raw, high-stakes atmosphere of the American frontier, where a man’s character is measured by his conduct at the poker table.
Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy
L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
A weary lawyer finds his match in a corrupt summer resort, where the petty tyrants running the town are as ripe for disruption as his own boredom.
The Eatonville anthology
Zora Neale Hurston
Eatonville is a small, vibrant Florida town where the lives of its inhabitants are woven together through gossip, small-town rivalries, and the enduring power of folklore. Within its borders, every neighbor has a reputation to uphold—or a secret to keep.
The Littlest Rebel
Edward Peple
A seven-year-old girl becomes the unlikely bridge between two warring sides, proving that humanity can endure even when the world is torn apart by fire and steel.
The Settling of the Sage
Hal G. (Hal George) Evarts
A lone rider enters a disputed territory where the old, lawless ways of the cattle range collide with the encroaching reality of homesteaders and fences. This is a story of shifting frontiers, where the survival of a storied ranch depends on one man’s ability to outwit the outlaws who hold the valley in a grip of fear.
Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States of North America
Joseph Rocchietti
This work serves as a passionate, idiosyncratic polemic examining why the young United States struggled to foster a distinct and enduring national literature during the mid-19th century. Through a series of fervent essays, the author diagnoses the social, political, and economic ailments that stifled the emergence…
Four Meetings
Henry James
A quiet, unassuming schoolmistress from New England discovers that her lifelong dream of visiting Europe comes at a devastating cost. This story examines the collision between romantic longing and the harsh, transactional reality of the world.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 6, December 1849
Various
This collection serves as a cultural artifact from the mid-nineteenth century, capturing the era’s preoccupation with moral fortitude, romantic melancholy, and the rapid, often unsettling shifts of the modernizing world.
His Second Wife
Ernest Poole
The story of a woman stepping into her predecessor’s life, only to find that the ghost of the past is a shadow she must either outgrow or become.
Marjorie's Three Gifts
Louisa May Alcott
A young girl’s birthday creates a quiet magic in her humble home, while an act of impulsive kindness years earlier blossoms into a lifelong bond of gratitude and grace.
Miss Gibbie Gault
Kate Langley Bosher
HOOK In a sleepy Virginia town, a sharp-tongued, eccentric woman uses her wealth and wit to navigate the suffocating traditions of the local gossip circle and protect a young woman’s independence.
Mr. Crewe's Career
Winston Churchill
Ambition, inheritance, and the quiet machinery of influence collide in a small state governed by the shadow of a powerful railroad.
Outland
Mary Austin
A woman and her academic partner wander into a hidden, primitive society, only to find that their intrusion threatens the very harmony they hoped to study.
Passages from a Relinquished Work (From "Mosses from an Old Manse")
Nathaniel Hawthorne
An orphaned youth flees the suffocating expectations of a stern guardian to become a wandering storyteller, only to discover that fame is a hollow, accidental, and often humiliating pursuit.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 01, April 2, 1870
Various
The jester arrives with a flourish of satire, declaring his intention to expose the follies of the day while carving out a permanent place in the landscape of American humor.
Roughing It, Part 3
Mark Twain
The American West is a vast, unforgiving stage where fortune is a phantom and reality is often stranger than the myths built to contain it. This account chronicles the misadventures of a tenderfoot lured by the promise of silver, capturing the transition from wide-eyed optimism to the sobering, often absurd, grind…
Stories by American Authors, Volume 3
Various
A shadow of unseen sound; a portrait painted so honestly it breaks the model's heart; a leap into darkness over a stolen promise; a home shattered by a midnight axe—human motives fracture under the lightest strain.
Studies of Lowell (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)
William Dean Howells
This portrait captures a literary titan through the eyes of a younger protégé, documenting the complex, tender, and often humorous reality of a friendship that spanned three decades.
Stuyvesant: A Franconia Story
Jacob Abbott
In the quietude of a nineteenth-century countryside, two cousins navigate the small, formative challenges of childhood, learning that true growth comes not from adult instruction, but from the simple, steady rhythm of daily life.
The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Aug. 1869
Various
Architecture is not merely the craft of building; it is the physical expression of a civilization’s values, demanding both the eye of an artist and the rigorous, rational mind of an engineer.
The Crime of the French Café and Other Stories
Nicholas (House name) Carter
The mystery of a waiter fleeing a quiet restaurant sets a master detective on a trail through the dark streets and shadowed gardens of old New York. Nothing is as it appears when death, diamonds, and double-crosses converge.
The Daughter of the Chieftain
Edward Sylvester Ellis
Children playing a simple game of stones in a Pennsylvania log cabin find their lives upended by the sudden, violent shadows of the American Revolution.
The High School Pitcher
H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
A group of resourceful sophomores battles an unjust principal and a rival classmate to dominate the baseball diamond. Loyalty and hard work define their path to local glory.
The Mintage: Being Ten Stories & One More
Elbert Hubbard
HOOK History is a mirror reflecting our own vanities, successes, and failures, captured here through brief, vivid portraits of the famous and the forgotten.
The Only True Mother Goose Melodies
Anonymous
Whimsical, rhythmic, and steeped in early American print history, this collection gathers timeless nursery rhymes alongside historical commentary to capture the lively spirit of childhood verse.
The Second Generation
David Graham Phillips
A self-made titan disinherits his children to save their souls, forcing a generation raised for idle luxury into the furnace of real work.
The Trail of Black Hawk
Paul G. (Paul Greene) Tomlinson
Two brothers navigate the brutal reality of the 1832 frontier, finding an unlikely guide as they pursue the Sauk leader Black Hawk through the harrowing, final days of the Black Hawk War.
The Van Dwellers: A Strenuous Quest for a Home
Albert Bigelow Paine
Seeking a place to call home in a turn-of-the-century metropolis, a family discovers that the search for the perfect apartment is a relentless, exhausting, and often absurd marathon.
A Virginia cavalier
Molly Elliot Seawell
A young surveyor rides into the vast, untested wilderness of colonial Virginia, learning that true leadership requires mastering himself before he can ever hope to command others.
Captain Lucy in the Home Sector
Aline Havard
Following the Armistice, an American girl assigned to occupied Germany discovers that peace brings a dangerous new web of intrigue.
Crittenden: A Kentucky Story of Love and War
Fox, John, Jr.
Bound by family legacy and internal bitterness, a Kentucky gentleman seeks redemption on the battlefields of the Spanish-American War, where he must heal his divided heart and help unite a fractured nation.
Dick Merriwell's Day
Burt L. Standish
On and off the baseball field, young athletes battle underhanded rivals, hidden crimes, and personal rivalries to prove that fair play always wins.
Elsie's Kith and Kin
Martha Finley
A young stepmother struggles to maintain peace in her home when her volatile stepdaughter’s sudden act of violence threatens to shatter the family.
He Knew Lincoln, and Other Billy Brown Stories
Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell
An old Illinois storekeeper sits by his stove and remembers the tall, quiet lawyer who used to buy quinine at his counter before he became President and saved a divided nation.
In Blue Creek Cañon
Anna Chapin Ray
A spirited, affectionate portrait of a mining camp family, this story captures the grit and grace of frontier life through the eyes of a close-knit group of children finding adventure in the mountains of Montana.
Life on the Mississippi, Part 4
Mark Twain
Mark Twain's vivid account of life on the Mississippi River in the 19th century, blending personal anecdotes, historical insights, and colorful descriptions of river culture.
Old Fort Garland
James T. (James Taylor) Forrest
A remote frontier outpost built of baked mud becomes the lens through which two decades of Western expansion, Indian conflicts, and soldiering unfold.