Free summaries
British Literature — page 27
6,377 public-domain british literature books, summarised. Page 27 of 133.
The Awkward Age
Henry James
An older gentleman re-enters London society only to find that the girl he wishes to save has already been exposed to its compromised world.
The Doves' Nest, and Other Stories
Katherine Mansfield
A quiet ache runs through these pages, where small daily rituals mask deep emotional distances and sudden, quiet reckonings.
Chaucerian and Other Pieces: Being a Supplement to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
Unknown
The work presented here is not a single narrative text, but a massive scholar’s collection gathering poetry, political prose, and theological commentary attributed—erroneously or contextually—to the legacy of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
Driven away from her family by an arranged marriage and trapped by a scheming libertine, a dutiful young woman fights to preserve her independence and virtue against relentless deception.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady
Samuel Richardson
Driven to ruin by an overbearing family and a predatory libertine, a virtuous woman asserts her moral autonomy through the single power left to her: absolute, unyielding integrity.
Psmith in the City
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Two young men turn the dusty routine of a London bank into a backdrop for quiet rebellion, cricket, and dry wit.
Curious, if True: Strange Tales
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
A collection of eerie, atmospheric tales explores the darker corners of human nature through ghost stories, historical tragedy, and gothic dread.
Princess Mary's Gift Book: All profits on sale given to the Queen's "Work for Women" Fund which is acting in Conjunction with The National Relief Fund
Unknown
A varied collection of Edwardian prose and poetry brings together Britain’s most prominent authors to raise funds for wartime women’s relief.
Driven to bay, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Florence Marryat
A betrayed marriage, an escaped rogue, and a quiet sailor collide on a New Zealand-bound ship where hidden pasts refuse to stay buried.
Jack Hinton: The Guardsman
Charles Lever
An English officer encounters a land of wild generosity and sharp rivalries in this nineteenth-century tale of Irish life and military adventure.
Lord Kilgobbin
Charles Lever
A declining Irish lord, his spirited family, and their politically scheming guests navigate rebellion, ambition, and shifting loyalties in an age of national turmoil.
Pip : A Romance of Youth
Ian Hay
A young boy raised on strict nursery rules grows into a athletic, modest young man who navigates schoolyard rivalries, sports fields, and unexpected turns of fortune to win the girl he loves.
Robin
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A young woman's secret romance with a soldier bound for the Western Front is shattered by news of his death, leaving her unwed, pregnant, and hidden away in a remote Scottish castle during the First World War.
The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I
Charles Lever
A sprawling Irish family embarks on a disastrous grand tour across Europe, broadcasting their foolish ambitions, romantic entanglements, financial ruin, and culture clashes through a flurry of opinionated letters home.
Twice round the clock
George Augustus Sala
A nocturnal stroll through mid-century London reveals a sprawling, clamorous metropolis where high fashion and desperate poverty jostle side by side across every hour of the day.
It Might Have Been: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot
Emily Sarah Holt
A family uprooted from the north of England arrives in Jacobean London just as Queen Elizabeth dies, only to find their personal fortunes tangled with a deadly underground treason.
The Return of the Soldier
Rebecca West
A soldier returns from the front lines of the Great War with his memory fractured, casting aside his affluent, modern life for a past he considers his only reality. He is a man who has retreated into the sanctity of a first love, choosing the purity of a distant memory over the harsh, present-day demands of his…
World's End: A Story in Three Books
Richard Jefferies
Centuries of greed, fraud, and secret identities collide when a sprawling industrial fortune built on stolen land tears apart two vulnerable lovers.
The Real Thing and Other Tales
Henry James
A delicate, ironic exploration of class, ambition, and the elusive nature of art, where refined appearances continually collide with harsher human truths.
From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England
Katharine Lee Bates
Wandering through centuries of storied landscape, a traveler traces the quiet roads and rugged coasts that shaped England’s enduring imagination.
The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood: A New and Complete Edition
Thomas Hood
A weary Londoner longs for a quiet meadow, only to find the countryside replaced by endless brick, barking drovers, and screaming street vendors. This classic volume collects Thomas Hood’s celebrated verse, exposing human folly through breathless puns, urban satire, and dark comedy.
The Marriage of William Ashe
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
A brilliant young politician marries an impulsive, untamed girl, only to watch her wild eccentricities ruin his career and destroy their lives.
The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 1
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Through high-vaulted verse, cosmic drama, and tragic vows, a solitary soul confronts the profound weight of human suffering and divine redemption.
Affirmations
Havelock Ellis
A bold, discerning critique of culture and belief that evaluates literature not as a realm of sterile, abstract art, but as a vibrant mirror of human morality and vital instinct.
Incredible Adventures
Algernon Blackwood
Underneath the quiet surface of ordinary life lie ancient, immense forces waiting to break through human consciousness.
![Cover of The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9]](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/the-works-of-william-shakespeare-cambridge-edition-vol-5-of-9-william.webp)
The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9]
William Shakespeare
An empire crumbles from within as factional blood feuds, bitter personal rivalries, and ruthless ambition tear apart the royal court of England.
A Diversity of Creatures
Rudyard Kipling
Across futuristic autocracies, rural English valleys, quiet schoolrooms, and the bitter hatreds of war, human nature reveals its strange and contradictory machinery.
Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 14 (of 15), King Arthur (2)
Malory, Thomas, Sir
This sweeping chronicle charts the final, fractured years of the Round Table, where chivalric splendor collides with human frailty and the inevitable weight of destiny.
The Old English Physiologus
Cynewulf
A trio of ancient, verse-woven creatures brings the medieval imagination to life, blending natural wonder with spiritual allegories.
The Secret City
Hugh Walpole
The revolution that shatters a nation begins with a private tremor, turning an ordinary household into a trap where love and malice become indistinguishable from the chaos in the streets.
The Victorian Age in Literature
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
A vibrant critique traces the intellectual currents of nineteenth-century England, following the rise and fall of a compromise built on rationalism, trade, and social restraint.
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
Aphra Behn
This is a sweeping, turbulent chronicle of desire, betrayal, and political intrigue, where the private ruin of lovers mirrors the instability of the state.
Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time
Wilkie Collins
The clash between cold, calculated medical ambition and the warmth of human connection drives a young woman into a dangerous struggle for her life and her love. This Victorian narrative explores the boundaries of scientific ethics while weaving a web of domestic intrigue.
Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition
Anna Sewell
HOOK A horse’s life is a journey from the rolling, green safety of a meadow to the punishing stone streets of London, told from behind the bit and bridle.
Endymion
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
A young man navigates the cutthroat currents of 19th-century British politics, buoyed by the unwavering ambition of his sister and the mysterious patronage of those who pull the strings of power.
Howards End
E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster
Two families from opposite worlds collide when a casual acquaintance leads to a secret legacy, forcing a reckoning between the rigid pursuit of wealth and the messy, vital business of human connection.
In memoriam
Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron
This monumental poem documents a long, fractured journey through grief, tracking the transformation of profound personal loss into a tentative, hard-won faith in the order of the universe.
Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803
Dorothy Wordsworth
This intimate journal captures a three-week journey through the Scottish Highlands in 1803, recording a landscape of rugged beauty, modest hospitality, and historical resonance through a keen, observant eye.
Red Hair
Elinor Glyn
Evangeline Travers, a penniless beauty with red hair and green eyes, decides to embrace her reputation as an "adventuress" after losing her inheritance. She sets out to navigate the rigid, judgmental world of the British aristocracy.
The Betrothed
Walter Scott
A noble lady finds her life caught between the brutal politics of the Welsh Marches and the heavy, shifting obligations of the Third Crusade. This historical romance examines the collision of duty, honor, and private desire during a period of medieval transition.
The Portent and Other Stories
George MacDonald
The boundaries between the waking world and the realm of dreams are porous, often revealing truths that the rational mind struggles to contain. These narratives explore the haunting power of the past, the persistence of love, and the mysteries of the human spirit.
The Clicking of Cuthbert
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
An unrepentant, joyous celebration of the golfer’s misery, this collection follows the eccentric members of a clubhouse as they navigate love, professional rivalries, and the maddening, elusive pursuit of the perfect swing.
The Shadow of a Crime: A Cumbrian Romance
Caine, Hall, Sir
HOOK In the rugged fells of Cumbria, a man’s quest for justice triggers a harrowing sequence of betrayal, sacrifice, and the looming shadow of an ancient, brutal law.
The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 4 (of 8): The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement
W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
A collection of plays and essays capturing the dawn of an Irish literary renaissance, where ancient myth and modern national identity collide on the stage.
Antic Hay
Aldous Huxley
A group of aimless London intellectuals drift through a post-war landscape of disillusionment, seeking meaning in hedonism, anatomy, and the "antic hay" of their own absurd social performances.
Ballads
Robert Louis Stevenson
The sea and the mountain hold secrets that weigh heavier than any treasure, waiting to pull the living into the silence of the dead. These narratives explore the friction between ancient codes and the relentless march of fate.
Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century
Georgiana Fullerton
A woman caught in the tightening grip of Elizabethan religious persecution fights to hold onto her faith, her family, and the man she loves despite the looming threat of the scaffold.
Henry Dunbar: A Novel
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A dispossessed daughter and a fugitive father collide in a high-stakes game of identity and murder, where the weight of a fortune rests on the shadow of a man’s past.