Free summaries
American Literature — page 83
4,505 public-domain american literature books, summarised. Page 83 of 94.
The Man Thou Gavest
Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock
Deep in the heart of the mountains, a man seeks recovery and finds a wild, untamed love that challenges his soul, while in the city, the woman who waits for him navigates her own path to grace.
The Melting of Molly
Maria Thompson Daviess
A young widow resolves to reshape her life and figure, only to discover that the heart’s deepest desires are often found in the very garden she thought she had outgrown.
Treat 'em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer
Ring Lardner
A baseball pitcher’s endless bravado collides with the chaotic, unglamorous realities of first-world-war army camps.
Antennae
Hulbert Footner
A restless young man navigates the predatory social and professional landscape of early 20th-century New York, caught between his own fragile idealism and the cold, calculated ambitions of a rising opportunist.
Golden Fleece: The American Adventures of a Fortune Hunting Earl
David Graham Phillips
An impecunious British aristocrat crosses the Atlantic to restore his crumbling estate by marrying into American wealth, only to find that the gilded world of the Gilded Age is far more complex than his prejudices allowed.
The southern literary messenger, Vol. I., No. 8, April, 1835
Various
This eighteenth-century-style miscellany captures the intellectual fervor of the American 1830s, weaving together philosophical essays, frontier sketches, and moralizing poetry into a singular, earnest portrait of a burgeoning national identity.
The testing of Janice Day
Helen Beecher Long
A young woman navigates the shifting social currents and modern mechanical wonders of a quiet country town, finding that her own integrity is the most important engine of all.
A master hand
Richard Dallas
A man is accused of a murder he did not commit, while the true killer orchestrates his defense from the inside. This is a tale of how legal procedure and personal loyalty can collide to obscure the truth.
Another year with Denise and Ned Toodles
Gabrielle E. (Gabrielle Emilie) Jackson
An imaginative eleven-year-old girl, her spirited pony, and an unforgettable menagerie of loyal pets navigate childhood adventures, mischief, and gentle moral growth through the changing seasons of a quiet country town.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 6, June 1847
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century periodical serves as a vibrant time capsule, offering a diverse array of serialized fiction, romantic poetry, and cultural commentary that defined the literary landscape of 1847.
Harper's Young People, July 4, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
A festive weekly issue captures the pulse of nineteenth-century American youth through suspenseful fiction, global traditions, and lively correspondence.
Jane Field: A Novel
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
The impulse to secure a future for a beloved child can lead a desperate soul into a labyrinth of deception, transforming a life of quiet rectitude into a haunting, public penance.
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.
Pretty Madcap Dorothy
Laura Jean Libbey
A spirited, willful working girl navigates the perils of Victorian-era New York, finding that the path to true love is rarely as straightforward as the novels she reads.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A vivid snapshot of a nation caught between the pastoral beauty of old-world traditions and the red-hot crucible of an unfolding civil war.
The dark mother
Waldo David Frank
A young man drifts between rural stillness and the turbulent machinery of New York, seeking an elusive spiritual home among restless friends and complex desires.
The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream
L. P. (Louis Pope) Gratacap
When a sudden shift in the Gulf Stream turns the British Isles into a freezing, uninhabitable wasteland, an entire nation faces the unprecedented trial of abandoning its ancient home.
The Log of the "Jolly Polly"
Richard Harding Davis
Temptation often arrives at the most inconvenient moments, but rarely does it present itself as a five-million-dollar offer to be adopted by a total stranger. This lighthearted tale follows a struggling author who discovers that the greatest riches are found not in inheritance, but in the independence of one's own…
The Millionaire Baby
Anna Katharine Green
A frantic search for a missing young girl leads a private detective into a web of high-stakes deception, hidden identities, and long-buried family secrets.
The Vehement Flame
Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
A young man’s impulsive marriage to an older woman unravels under the weight of jealousy and a hidden past, leaving him to navigate the wreckage of his own honor and the persistence of new love.
The Way of the Wind
Zoé Anderson Norris
When prairie winds break a young couple's spirit, the husband clings to a delusional promise of future wealth while the wife retreats to the soft comforts of her Kentucky past.
An Old Chester Secret
Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
The secret of a child’s birth forces a collision between the woman who raised him and the parents who abandoned him. It is a quiet study of integrity, maternal instinct, and the long shadow of pride.
Branded
Francis Lynde
A young man wrongly imprisoned for embezzlement must outrun a relentless past and the shadow of his own criminal record to find redemption in the rugged West.
Despotism and Democracy: A Study in Washington Society and Politics
Molly Elliot Seawell
Beneath the glittering surface of Washington politics, ambition, compromise, and long-delayed romance shape the lives of lawmakers and society figures.
Dick Merriwell's Backers
Burt L. Standish
Beneath the polished facade of college sports and grand estates, a relentless vendetta tests a young freshman's mettle, pitching skills, and sheer survival instincts.
Dotty Dimple At Home
Sophie May
A volatile, high-spirited child struggles to master her own fierce temper while navigating the trials of a family displaced by fire. This intimate portrait captures the raw, internal battle between impulsive defiance and the desire to be good.
Elsie at Home
Martha Finley
The narrative centers on the domestic sphere of an affluent, tight-knit clan, where the comforts of a secure home are framed by the steady, guiding hand of a patriarch. It offers a glimpse into a world where personal happiness is inextricably linked to familial devotion and religious faith.
Her Christmas at the Hermitage: A Tale About Rachel and Andrew Jackson
Helen Topping Miller
A dying woman longs for simple domestic peace while her husband, Andrew Jackson, is pulled toward the presidency, casting a shadow over their holiday reunion at the Tennessee estate.
In and Out
Edgar Franklin
A eccentric bachelor tries to force an opportunity onto a street youth, only to find himself trapped in a farce of secret identities, missing heirs, and wild accusations.
John Henry Smith: A humorous romance of outdoor life
Frederick Upham Adams
The idle days of a gentleman golfer are upended by the arrival of a spirited heiress and a series of wild, high-stakes adventures. Expect a lighthearted romp through the early twentieth-century country club set.
Jonah of the Jove-Run
Ray Bradbury
An aging, discarded psychic whose mind tracks stars and meteors finds himself the reluctant pilot of a doomed space voyage toward Jupiter.
Maggie Lee!
Mary Jane Holmes
Vanity and worldly ambition exact a bitter toll from those who trade genuine affection for wealth and social pretense across these nineteenth-century moral tales.
Mark Mason's Victory
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A hardworking New York telegraph boy earns his fortune and rescues his family from poverty through quick wit, steady integrity, and chance encounters with generous mentors.
Roughing It, Part 6
Mark Twain
From the frantic rush of Nevada mining camps to the unchanging climate of San Francisco, a landscape teems with desperate fortune-seekers, precarious silver wealth, and sudden ruin.
The Beneficent Burglar
Charles Neville Buck
When a frantic groom misses his elopement train and an anti-marriage politician is forced to play best man, a notorious burglar becomes an unlikely matchmaker in the American wilderness.
The Big Mogul
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
A proud local potentate faces financial ruin and familial defiance in a small coastal town, forced to reckon with the limits of his absolute power.
The Register
William Dean Howells
Two boarding-house neighbors separated by a wall and an overheated register find their private grievances accidentally broadcast, sparking an intricate dance of pride, art, and reconciliation.
The southern literary messenger, Vol. I., No. 10, June, 1835
Various
Pages of mid-nineteenth-century thought open to reveal soaring lunar voyages, mountain roads, and revolutionary history, capturing the vibrant intellectual landscape of an era.
Thirty
Howard Vincent O'Brien
A dynamic idealist upends an heiress's world, challenging her gilded life and teaching her that truth is the only legacy worth fighting for.
A Yankee Girl at Antietam
Alice Turner Curtis
When a ten-year-old girl from the North aids a starving runaway soldier in Maryland, she is swept directly into the unfolding turmoil of the American Civil War.
Ajax, for example
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
When a Boston professor of overly bookish learning arrives in a rugged Western mining camp to study loco-weed on sheep, local prospectors put his credentials to a hilariously grueling test.
An Unwilling Maid: Being the History of Certain Episodes during the American Revolution in the Early Life of Mistress Betty Yorke, born Wolcott
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
HOOK A headstrong young woman finds her loyalties tested when she saves an enemy officer from drowning, sparking a romance that defies the bitter divisions of the American Revolution.
Betty's Virginia Christmas
Molly Elliot Seawell
Amid the frost and fading grandeur of post-war Virginia, a spirited granddaughter of a Confederate veteran and a young federal officer discover that love must navigate deep loyalties and pride.
Black April
Julia Peterkin
A newborn child’s birth-night, marked by the sharp edge of a plow-share slipped beneath a cabin bed to cut the pain, opens a world where river tides, root-teas, and old African lore govern every breath on Sandy Island and the Blue Brook plantation.
Diana
Susan Warner
In a quiet New England valley, a young woman bound by unyielding domestic routines seeks purpose beyond the horizon of daily chores, ultimately confronting the complex choices of faith, marriage, and spiritual awakening.
Dick and Larry: Freshmen
Francis Lynde
A young man from the working class navigates the social divides of an American college, finding that true merit—and a few sturdy friends—matter more than wealth or prestige.
Harper's Round Table, June 23, 1896
Various
From colonial hearths to African jungles, seafaring fog to magical realms, this Victorian youth periodical offers a sprawling tapestry of historical fiction, practical crafts, and athletic triumphs.
Mary Anderson
J. Maurice Farrar
The path to artistic mastery is rarely a straight line, as evidenced by the meteoric rise and rigorous self-discipline of a young woman who dared to challenge the established stages of two continents.